When you have visited
churches in the Greater Hartford area you kind of pick up where people is
coming from. What I mean by that is that people is wrestling with a lot of
issues that are going on in their life. For example, there are some Christians
that wrestle with pride & jealousy while other Christians don't let
anything be an issue. It's not that we all don't have problems that we face it’s
that some of us deal with problems in a different way. Me & my mom is used
to how people from different cultures do things (traditional) even how they
worship the Lord. So in 2007, me and my mom visited International Gospel
Fellowship Church and the Pastor was someone who I knew back when I was a
Senior in high school his name was then Jeremiah Karanja (now Pastor Jeremiah).
Here is the twist, Pastor Jeremiah never told us he even had a wife when he was
doing the Swahili Club at Bloomfield high school. Most of the students at the
high school wondered about him because he never mentioned anything about being
a Christian and not everyone is going to openly talk about their faith in God.
So Jeremiah was a pastor since 2000 (for 7 years then now 14 years). When
Pastor Jeremiah preached, me and my mom knew that Pastor Jeremiah had the
anointing to preach. So he had a good first impression and things appeared to
be going well. However, me and my mom noticed that there were Africans,
Jamaicans, Asians, and Americans like me and my mom at the church. I'm used to
diversity and grew up around people of all races all of my life. Here is the
thing though, I noticed that there were cliques (people who hang with a certain
crowd because they think they are cool) in the church while me and my mom was
attending IGF. Everyone was not receptive of everyone (only certain people) I
know that's pathetic. Naturally, I had an uneasy feeling being at that church.
My mom started noticing how the members were acting funny (jealousy thing) and
the Pastor's wife had a jealousy thing (unbelievable). You have to understand
whenever you are attending a church service everything is all on the Pastor.
The pastor has to make sure that he or she have a right heart and then if the
members see that (the ones that are acting funny) will change their heart.
Ultimately, only Jesus can change the hearts of people (especially the cold
hearted people) all we can do as Christian is just pray for people's hearts
that are cold to change.
Meanwhile,
I remember Pastor Jeremiah telling his testimony how he met his wife Esther
when he went back to his home in Kenya in 1996. What was so intriguing about
Pastor Jeremiah's testimony was that he simply told Esther that "the Lord
revealed to me that you are going to be my wife." I think you could call
that a jaw-dropping moment and Esther & Pastor Jeremiah got married in
1997. I mean there is no way that I can say to a woman that the Lord told me
that she will be my wife, it would have to be like a sure sign from God that
she is the one for me and I am the one for her kind of thing. Anyway, I noticed
how people were not too big on greeting only saying "hi" and
"glad to meet you" and I'm not used to going to church where they
don't greet you (hug you or shake your hand). That was another uneasy feeling I
had about being at IGF. There were maybe 3 people that I've met at IGF that
wasn't afraid to greet people. They were the following people: Melissa (a woman I known since we went
to Rawson elementary school when were kids), Connie (a blonde hair woman), and
Barbara (another blonde hair woman). I think what finally felt good was when
Pastor Jeremiah invited all of the members and visitors to his house in Windsor
for a cookout, it was for either the 4th of July or Labor Day (not quite sure)
back in 2007. When we interacted more at the cookout we had a lot of fun! I
remember Pastor Jeremiah made hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs on the grill,
and there was chips and dip, fresh fruit, salad, soda, cookies, brownies, cake,
etc. However, I felt that the reason why people couldn't really enjoy
themselves while they were in church was because they were wrestling with
problems like what James 4:1-3 which simply says, "From whence come wars
and fighting among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in
your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot
obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and
receive not, because ye ask amiss that ye may consume it upon your
lusts..." When you are truly happy with who you are as a Christian and is
doing what the Lord called you to do then you will not worry about what others
are doing because we all were created in God's image and is a part of the body
of Christ to encourage one another like it says in 1 Thessalonians
5:11(Especially encouraging each other from different races and backgrounds).
Me and my mom's mission was up at International Gospel Fellowship after 3-4
months of visiting.
