Bringing harvest home in Georgetown

At the annual Harvest Festival at Georgetown Methodist Church, last Sunday, Elaine and I were warmly welcomed and made to feel very much at home. We were invited by the Rev Chris White and soon learnt how to say "Amen" in signing by touching left thumb with right forefinger for "A" and then both fists together to complete the word. We were intrigued to meet Pat Bougeard who is very involved in extending the church's welcome to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We also learnt some Swahili: "Hello" or "Jambo", with a picture of our own Jambo the gorilla flashed up on the wall; and "Asante, sana", or "Thank you very much" which was then brought into the prayers.
Projecting the words of the hymns on to the wall got all our heads up, with no riffling through hymn books, and all the children agog at what was going to appear next.
Ed Le Quesne, of the Jersey-Kenya 2007 group, brought us up to date on the latest work done in co-operation with local people on the medical centre which serves some 25,000 people around Ombeyi near Kisumu on Lake Victoria, Western Kenya, a project supported by the Georgetown Methodist Church.
We very much enjoyed meeting all the congregation afterwards and particularly noted (and tasted) the delicious fresh fruit on offer instead of biscuits and presented in bite-size chunks to tempt adults and children alike.