Two Churches and a boat ride

Early breakfast today and off to church at the cathedral for the English service which was a small service as most of the teachers and school pupils were away. I preached on the Parable of the wedding feast and used an illustration of two cloths, Mary's Pashmina and a dirty old pillow case suitable rubbed in the dirt to explain the principal of the exchange of the cross. Then after meeting a few people coming to the later African service we set out for  Gashonga with our beloved driver Patrick Celestine who used to drive me when we went out with the Rwanda aid clinics. We drove along a good road up towards Bugarama  and the Burundi border. The church was only four weeks old being a church plant from Cyato church , Epraims old parish. It met in a tiny building made of mud with a mud floor they started with 15 people and today the congregation had already grown to about 40-50 all packed into a tiny room. The singing was enthusiastic and the congregation joyfully danced to the sound of two drums, pounded by two young men with joyful energy and rhythm.

 The rented room they hold their service in

 The dancing

 The altar call

Mary and Patrick greeting a little boy

I preached on the same subject but in a much simpler way without notes and Ephraim and Patrick translated.
At the end of the message Ephraim made two altar calls one for non Christians to repent and turn to Christ and one for Christians to tell their neighbours about the gospel about 8 people responded to each appeal.
Then back to the Guest house for  soup the we went down to the Emauralde where we hired a boat to be taken on a trip along the lake shore and we disembarked on a small island called Gihaya with one very poor village where all the the children were in rags and very poor although they looked reasonably healthy there seemed to be a lot of cows, goats and a pig on the island. We saw an enormous amount of bird life as we went along many types of heron kingfishers river and fish eagle, storks and cormorants; also weaver birds and reed warblers.
Then walked back to the guest house and just got in as a tremendous shower started so another tasty dinner and wearily to bed.

 Our group on the boat

One of the fishing boats the men sing as they row 

the sounds drift across the lake to the guest house.