Obed Gyabaa pops in at St. Pauls

Elders at St. Paul's had requested my service for today. That's why I conducted the divine liturgy there. Angelika and Friederike are part of the choir and so we went there before eight already. It's not so bad, seeing our sun is up by 5h00 and the Diedericks cuckoo is already calling by that time. Even the Sunday Independent is delivered by then.
Professor Stephans Grove accompanied the hymns on the organ and so the music was a delight for the ears. The Advent hymns are such pleasure to sing. Perhaps because of their familiarity? Or is it because of good memories? Or is it just plain good music? Grove off course sees to it that we also sing Martin Luther's transcript of the Nicene Creed on the 2nd Sunday in the month. As it's still the 3rd Sunday in Advent there was no "Soli Deo gloria", but the Halleluja verse for Advent. Still some people say the liturgy is always the same. I think thats mainly due to overlooking these propers changing from Sunday to Sunday and also from Church season to Church season.
From the pulpit it's easy to pick up whose there and whose missing. Guests from Wittenberg like the Reinstorfs or from Temba like Reinhild and her entourage are worth mentioning. After church we caught up on developments on their side. However I was most pleased to see Obed Gyabaa from Ghana there. He studied at the LTS in 2008 after finding out about the Seminary via the Internet. Parallel to his engineering studies through UNISA he successfully completed the first introductory year at LTS studying Greek, Hebrew, New Testament Introduction and Augsburg Confession paying his own way. Well, in 2009 he concentrated entirely on his engineering studies, no longer living at the LTS, but rather with his brother in Johannesburg. This concentration paid off and he has passed his 2nd year too. He is willing to join the LTS again in 2010. Let's see if that works out. Anyway - he looks great, happy and healthy. So I really was overjoyed that he came after Church to greet.
Children, teenagers and members of the youth were all gone for their respective retreats in Hermannsburg, Wartburg and Luneburg. So we did have a number of empty seats at Church and didn't get around to sing all  those hymns selected for the celebration of the Lord's Supper because time just flew by too quickly.
Serving at St. Pauls was again a great pleasure and thankfully they ask my now and again to conduct the divine service. It is true: "Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells."