A different church

This Sunday I went with some friends to a church at Buduburam - the Liberian refugee camp about 1.5 hours away from where I live. Michael Mosley is a Methodist Pastor who serves here in Ghana with The Mission Society. He and his wife, Clare, and their three kids have lived in Ghana about 9 years. Margaret, Eva and I joined them for service at the United Methodist church at the camp. Michael preached. Although it really isn't referred to as a refugee camp anymore that is how it originally started. Liberians who fled the war in Liberia came to this area and settled. There are many buildings, churches and permanent structures on the camp. It was a unique experience as the service was very different from any I have been to so far. The actual service lasted just over two hours with only about the last 30 minutes being the sermon. There is much emphasis on announcements, introductions and singing throughout the service. Michael preached a great sermon on I Peter 1 focusing on suffering and being holy through it. The church is in the midst of a fund raising project for new musical equipment so at the end of the regular service they had more music. Basically the choir sang some special songs and people could "sponsor" the song by giving donations while it was sung. The music they sang was fantastic. Most of it was in English but they did do one song in a Liberian tribal language, Bassa. Eva was able to translate a bit but even without knowing all the words it was still great. It was after 1pm when we all finally left. Unfortunately the Mosleys had another engagement in the afternoon and we had to leave. The singing wasn't over and we were all bummed to miss some of it but there wasn't much to be done. It was wonderful to go to a different church and worship with brothers and sisters from Liberia. Their passion for the Lord was evident and I was blessed for being there.