Day 2218. Last night I told the kids again how much I needed to sleep in this morning and pleaded with them to let me sleep but to no avail. Once again it was loud, and they came to me several times, no matter what I said and asked of them. I told them I'd go to a hotel next weekend to get one night's sleep. Eventually they went downstairs so that it got quiet upstairs and I got to sleep for a while - until my alarm went off at 11 am. I got up and went downstairs to do piano practice with them, then went to the kitchen to warm up the soup I had made. Soon we were sitting at the table to eat.
After having eaten, the kids put their church clothes on, and Randy left with Tammy and Emmy just before 12:30 pm to take them to their maths club that started at 1 pm. I stayed home with Sammy and was catching up with work while Sammy was watching videos. By 1:30 pm Randy was back, and I went to the kitchen to make their dinner-to-go for tonight. Just before 2 pm I left the house to go pick up Tammy and Emmy whose class ended at 2:30 pm.
I rode the subway and got there just before the class was over. I was able to still watch them in their class the last few minutes. Tammy was the only one writing, while the others were doing an exercise memorizing the picture they would see on the screen for two seconds, then they had to reproduce it on the board. Emmy went to the board once while I was watching. The teacher then told me that Tammy had wanted to do additional exercises but was not supposed to do them while they were doing the last exercise together.
We walked back to the subway and took it home. Back home, Randy and Sammy were pretty much ready to leave the house, and a few minutes later we all did. Normally church starts at 5 pm, but today they celebrated their 20-year-anniversary so they had snacks before the service for a time of fellowship. We took two subways and got there around 4 pm.
There were already a good number of people there. We reserved seats in the sanctuary, then mingled with the crowd. I was meeting a couple who was looking for an English tutor, and we soon found each other and talked. They said I was an answer to their prayer, while they were an answer to my prayer. We talked for a while, while the kids went to the buffet to get some food. Then I walked on and ran into some old friends I hadn't seen in over 20 years. What a joy and surprise! I had a good time talking with them. Then we went inside where I got to talk to another good friend of mine until the service started at 5 pm.
The kids were excited to worship God with streamers and fabric. Tammy spent a lot of time dancing, while Sammy was up front with the streamers for a long time. Emmy danced with me for a while. Sammy soon started asking about kids' church, and at 5:30 it was time to go there. It was my turn to take them, so Randy stayed in the sanctuary while I took them there.
It's worked really well recently for Sammy to stay in kids' ministry without us so I asked tonight's leader whether it was okay for me to leave Sammy with him. He said yes, as he had a helper. When we picked them up 90 minutes later, he gave me a glowing report how well it had worked with him. Let's hope we can always stay in the service in the future.
I left them there and returned to the sanctuary. I'm glad I got to be there for this special anniversary service as it was very interesting. This church started two years after I went to Mali and one year after I started the church in Mali, and in the early days I preached there a few times.
At 7 pm we left the sanctuary; normally it's the time the service ends but tonight the pastor hadn't even started preaching. We picked the kids up and left to go home. Their bedtime is 8 pm, and we have to get up early again tomorrow. By 7:45 pm we were back home, and just after 8 pm they were in bed. I then made myself something to eat, ate, then continued working on my report and pictures. Now it's nearly midnight, so later than when I try to go to bed, and I still have to load the dishwasher.
