Liv’s story:

”Last year I spent half a year travelling and working as a volunteer in East Africa with a friend. One evening while dining withour host family’s oldest daughter and her Danish husband, they told us about the workshop and store Upendo on Zanzibar andwe should really consider stopping by. From the vague description of the location of the shop we did not put our hopes up highafter arriving to Stone Town on Zanzibar. The city is a labyrinth of narrow streets just wide enough for two bikes to pass eachother.
On yet another day of getting lost in the small city we happened to pass a building just like all the others. However, a smallsign hanging from the wall said ‘Upendo’, love in swahili. We were thrilled of the coincidence since we had not expected actuallyfinding the shop in the maze of souvenir shops, galleries, antique stores, etc.
Unfortunately we did not get to see the workshop, but we had a look around the shop and really liked the design and colorswhich was a unique mix of European design and African colors. We did not know much about the organization behind theproject, but knew that funding came from north of the equator.
I came home from Africa more than half a year ago, but this is a small world. Last Sunday I was sitting in church doing a puzzlewith two Danish children. They told me about their dog back on Zanzibar and how they are going back in a few months. Andfinally that their parents work with a project in Stone Town, called Upendo. It was so strange and wonderful to be reminded ofthe trip and all the amazing memories.”

The Passion narrative from Mark’s Gospel, with hymns mostly from the African-American tradition.

Our Sunday School students are collecting money for chicks to be sent to families in the developing world.  It’s a program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Hunger Appeal.  A “femmer” (five kroner coin) buys a chick.  We’re over 100!  Let’s keep it going!

We follow the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle (http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/prayer-cycle.html) and pray for specific nations each week. We would like to incorporate prayers and songs from these nations into our worship service on ‘their’ Sunday. If you are from or familiar with one of these nations, please consider sharing a song or prayer during the service. This is a rough schedule: