Another Interesting Car Moment.....

This past Sunday, like many Sundays, Pat preached in a local Congolese church. It was a large church with several thousand members. There were 2 services that went from 8am till 2pm. Since Pentecost Sunday is this coming Sunday he was asked to preach on the Holy Spirit. A total of over 200 people came forward for prayer with many being filled with the Holy Spirit. It was an incredible 6 hours of church! God is good! Afterwards Pat was invited to the pastor's house for lunch. While he was making a left hand turn a taxi bus that was behind him suddenly tried to pass (even though Pat had his blinker on).......While trying to avoid our truck the bus glanced off of the drivers side door and went into a ditch.

Then the fun started!! Praise God no one was hurt, but boy did it ever draw a crowd, especially when everyone saw that it was a white guy who had been hit. Pastor Nsembe got out and began working on crowd control. Pat had to lock all the doors of the truck (it wasn't necessary to lock the drivers side door as it now could not open) and tried to stay low. Quite a few of the church people and locals who knew Pastor Nsembe well came and were able to get things settled down. The taxi driver finally admitted that it was his fault (with some aggressive help from the growing crowd).... But it was still necessary to spend many hours at the police station doing interviews and filling out reports. Fortunately Pat knew most of the policemen in the little bureau as he drives past many of them almost every day on his way to the bible school. He has given several of them rides to places and provided them with bibles - It's all about relationship!!

At the end of it all, Pat and Pastor Nsembe began to talk to the taxi driver about Christ. He was a young man who was afraid of his boss, the actual owner of the taxi bus. He got down on his knees in the little police station and asked for prayer for salvation.

Pat was gone for a total of 13 hours! He went from preaching in a large church - to praying for those who came forward - to having an accident - to being threatened by an unruly crowd - to hours in a police station - to praying for the man who hit him. We are amazed by God's presence in our lives here. From the obvious ministry situations to the bizarre twists and turns that life here can take, we are constantly aware of His hand on our lives and of His desire that ALL would know HIM.