Preaching in Eastleigh

Darlene and I visited in Eastleigh and went to church at the MITS Eastleigh Center.
They asked me to preach on Numbers 9.  Before I looked at it, I thought, "I am to preach from
Numbers!! To street guys whose attention span is really short!!" But when I looked at it, I knew
it was the right text.
It's one year after the Jews left Egypt.  And God wants them to CELEBRATE Passover. They are
out in the desert, some have whined about going back to Egypt.  They worry about food
and water and the future.  And He says, "CELEBRATE".   So they do.
But some are unclean.  They touched a dead body. They were off on a trip.
And the priests told them they couldn't do Passover since they were unclean.
So I talked to the youth about their own lives.  They are seen as unclean, and they really are
physically unclean.  And some have done wrong things.  And women in the time of their
month think they are unclean and usually do not take the Lord's Supper.  And some think they
are slaves of the streets just as Jews were slaves in Egypt.
So Moses went off to ask God what to do for the unclean ones.  And God said,
"Let them CELEBRATE."  God did not see the uncleanness.
God saw his people whom he loved.
I had 30 chapati with me that some of the girls at Kamulu cooked on Sunday morning.
And we cut them in half and gave each person half a chapati, and I invited all
of them to eat it in honor of Jesus Christ, who loves the unclean.  That
was the first part of the Lord's Supper.  It takes a while to eat half a chapati, so we
had lots of time to honor Jesus.
We had a good time together.  And near the end of worship, a group of
12 Swedish people showed up who were wandering around Eastleigh
visiting some Somalis.  They came in, wanting to learn about street kids and
street ministry.  So we had a chance to witness to our faith in the power
of Jesus to change lives.  All in all, a good day!