Sunday we spent the entire day at Irente. We were picked up around 8:30am by Kiondo and he had the car all decorated for this special day. We all noticed immediately that the seats were covered in a royal blue fabric and even the dashboard was decorated. Worship at Irente was one of the best moments of the trip. It was such a wonderful, uplifting Worship service. Most of us had African dresses made earlier in the week and we wore them that day for church. We loved having them on for this special day and Pastor Joyce said that especially the women from Irente liked that we were dressed like them and were happy that we wanted to be dressed like them.
Now guess how long Worship was.
Seriously. Guess.
Not 1.
Not 2.
But 3 hours.
And if felt like 20 minutes.
It was amazing. It is going to be another one of those times that I really struggle to put it into words. You just had to be there. There was alot of singing 
They were adorable.
Alfred sat with us and translated for us what was going on.
It was interesting to see that when sitting in the church the men sat on one side and the women sat on another side. The choir was seated across from us .
The children from the blind school were seated next to us. They were the most well-behaved children for that entire 3 hours.
Pretty early on in the service we were asked to come stand up front so that we could be presented with gifts.
This is when we did have to sing again. You would think that by now we would have punished these people enough, but I guess they liked our songs!
So we all got up and stood in the front. After a song and some marching, singing, and praying in the light of God it was time for them to present us with gifts. We were thinking there would be a gift or two from the congregation.
We were wrong. Big time.
We were bombarded with beautiful gifts and we were SO overwhelmed by the love and time that went into each one. We received small little notebooks covered in fabric by the orphanage because they knew we were writing a lot of things down during our trip. We were so touched that they realized this and this was such a thoughtful gift. We received three wooden spoons that had been hand made completely from the carving of the actual spoon to the burning of the detail into the spoon. We each received a beautiful piece of fabric. The children from the blind school made us jewelry. We received tea, a beautiful piece of fabric which we hope to turn into a table cloth for LCR, handmade baskets, the children from the blind school made us a welcome mat that will be displayed at LCR. When we stood up there before these people, who have very little material items, and received each of these gifts, our arms were full. Our hearts were overflowing.
It still amazes us that they have hardly anything in the way of material things and here they were giving us such beautiful gifts. We saw this everywhere in Tanzania. They gave the best of themselves to us, the absolute, very best.
We are honored.
We also had gifts for them. We presented them with the wall hanging that that the LCR quilters had made. We gave them a plaque for the church with the same scripture on it that we had given to each subparish and ministry within the church. 
Pastor Sharon has on a neclace that she had received from a pastor in Puerto Rico. She took this off and gave it to Pastor Joyce.
We also presented Irente with a monetary gift of 600 US dollars. Pastor Joyce opened the envelope and said "There are no words to thank you for this."
If we were not crying before this, which I am pretty sure we all were, we definitely were now.
We all also chose to write a note of thanks to Irente and read it out loud during the service. Each of us went down the line reading off words of gratitude to these amazing people, all the while realizing that the words just don't do justice the gratitude we each had in our hearts. Sometimes words just are not enough. This was one of those times. 
After the presentation of the gifts, Pastor Sharon preached her sermon and it was awesome. She prayed first in Swahili, and during the sermon Pastor Joyce translated for the rest of the congregation.
Pastor Sharon was also able to do a baptism while we were there. She baptized a little baby named Charles. It was a very special moment, one that not many pastors have in their career. It was also very special to watch.
As she wrote in her newsletter article for August it is not the fact that we are Lutherans that unites us. It is not a common interpretation of the Bible that unites us. It is one Baptism; one Lord, that unites us. It is the words "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" that unites us.
I am so glad she wrote that because it is a much better description for this event then I would have come up with :)
Pastor Joyce and Pastor Sharon gave communion.
It was really special to kneel at the alter with our brothers and sisters in Christ from Irente. All week we had been hearing people say we were joined by the blood of Christ and here we were kneeling at the alter with them for communion.
After the service we all went outside to gather in the lawn outside of the church. We were not quit sure what we were doing and we quickly realized we were there for a type of auction. Yes, you read right. An auction. Many of these people live a cash-less existence. Meaning, they live completely off of the land. They do not have a monetary offering to bring to church on Sundays. Instead, they bring a good that they have and then that is auctioned off and the money given to Irente. It was so smart in so many ways, and most importantly it allows those who cannot give money a way to contribute to their church.
Once worship was over and we ate lunch, we were all sitting outside just visiting with the people and the children. I am not exactly sure how it started but pretty soon we began a little impromptu concert.
We were on the lawn with the kids and just started teaching them and singing songs with them.
We taught them "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."
We taught them and sang with them "Jesus Loves Me," as well as "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". The more hand motions required, the better.
We then sang with them the longest version of "Old McDonald Had A Farm" ever known to man. We seriously did every single animal we could think of. We had a swahili book with us and would look up how to say the names of different animals. There was Old McDonald had a chamba (farm) E-I-E-I-O. And on that chamba he had a simba (lion) E-I-E-E-O. Old McDonald had a chamba E-I-E-I-O. And on that chamba he had a tembo (elephant) E-I-E-I-O. (I bet you are now singing these words in your head, not just reading them :) ) We even did Old McDonald had a twiga (giraffe) E-I-E-I-O. Then we got to the part about what noise a giraffe makes and we all stopped and looked at each other.
What does a giraffe say?!
We had no idea so we made something up.
We learned on safari a few days later that giraffes don't make any noise. Good to know!
It was really sweet to see the kids catching on to the songs and the words. It was especially moving to sit with a group of children who were strangers just a little while ago and sing Jesus Loves me. We all agreed this was one of our favorite moments of the day and a highlight of the trip.
After our little concert, we went back into the church. The Sunday School children had beautiful songs to sing for us.
After this everyone at Irente split up into different groups, i.e. women, youth, blind school, children, men, etc. The 8 of us split up and spent time with a group answering questions and talking to them about LCR.
After this it was time to go back to Tumaini. We were exhausted. It was an emotionally and physically tiring day, but it was one of the highlights of the entire trip. It was so special to share in worhip with our brothers and sisters in Christ and it was very clear on this day, that because of Christ we are, in fact, one.
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