Flashback 2007

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.