Speaking in Tongues

Ratnapura Church Program

The meeting yesterday, with the pastor created a sense of anticipation about our time at his church. A delightful man that looked a bit like a Sinhalese version of Freddy Mercury. Full of laughter, a good sense of humor and lots of excitement about what God is doing in Ratnapura. He gave us a little background on his church (Anglican) and his congregation asking him to stay long past his denominational traditional 4-year tenure. When he came to the area 9 years ago the church had 16 families - it has now grown to 4 churches and 568 families. He spoke of his background as a speaker of Sinhalese, then he went to seminary and learned Tamil - he laughed "now God is using my tongue to preach in new tongues!"

The service/program was spoken in English then translated to Tamil and Sinhalese - it made for a lengthy and interesting expository. A suggested that the congregation split into adults and children - but the pastor laughed and said "Oh, but we are all children - we need to have a childlike heart as little ones of God."

The Anglican service was comparitavely short to what we have been to before at the "Free Churches" our time was restriced as a normal service is only one hour (compared to 3 or 4) Since it was being double translated I shared only the Three Trees story to give Aaron plenty of time.

After, several children said "what - no magic" that is what we came to see

I think Jesus had the same proble with people wanting to see what "tricks" he had.

No magic -

only miracles!