So after our couple rest days at the beach, Rachel and I
followed Jesus to the city of Morogoro which is about 3 hours west of the
coastal capital of Dar es Salaam. We have two teams in Morogoro but we have
thus far been staying with my buddy Wes Webb’s team. Wes was on my original team but is now a team leader. They’re a super-legit team of 2 mighty
men and 3 women of God. We have
had a lot of fun spending time with them and doing life with them.
This past Sunday, I got to go to my first African church service. We have all been prepped for African
church services but it’s not until you really experience it that it get’s
real. And honestly, I don’t even
know if the one that we went to was as CRAZY as they get. It was good though.
We got to church at 7:30am. First was the English service. We started off with worship. I LOVE the way that these people worship honestly. I love it. I feel like they get a part of the Lord’s heart that we miss
pretty frequently in the United States.
These people know how to find JOY in worship. They know how to really REJOICE. It’s not even a conscious choice for them to start
dancing. They just get so worked
up with excitement about what they’re singing that they can’t help but let
their body get it’s groove on! And
their songs are soooo simple too!
They don’t even worry about getting super meaningful with their
lyrics. They can sing the same
line for 8-10 minutes over and over again. I think that one of their songs literally translates to “It’s
only you my Lord, only you.” And
that’s it! That’s all it says and
they FREAK OUT for it.
Sometimes the worship was just acapella but sometimes they
would get this electric keyboard that one of the guys has and play one of the
standard beats that comes on it. When they do this, they play the beat
EXTREMELY loud. Like you can
almost no longer hear the voices…almost.
And MAN they like to get their dance on.
When I was watching them worship, all I could think about at
one point was how badly I wished my dad could be seeing them dancing because he
would have LOVED it. I am
absolutely planning on stealing some of their worship moves for use in a dance
party that I’m hoping to make happen here in the next few days.
No but really though, there is something that these people
understand about a heart of worship that is SO like heaven. When they worship, it seems to me like
it’s the way that worshipping in heaven will be. SO. MUCH. JOY.
It definitely doesn’t make me dislike the way that we
worship though. I feel like there
is definitely some stuff that we can learn from them about worshipping with a
heart of JOY. But at the same
time, I think that there is a lot that they could learn about intimacy with the
Lord. They are absolutely full of
the joy of the Lord but I’m excited to be able to worship with them and see
what the Lord starts speaking to me and them about the marriage of joy and
intimacy.
It’s going to be awesome. Jesus has been giving me some really sweet worship times
with just the two of us these past few days too. I absolutely love corporate worship but there is something
so special to me about the time that I get to spend with just me, Jesus, and my
guitar. Lately I have really been
wanting Him to take me to a new place in worship or share something new with me
but He keeps just re-affirming all of the things that He has already spoken to
me. Earlier this afternoon we were
hanging out and He just told me that He KNOWS that I want something new but
that He wants to make sure that the things He has spoken to me before become
the foundation for what He wants to speak now. He doesn’t want me to just leave them behind and move
forward; He wants to build ON those things. So He and I are going to keep strengthening the foundation
for a while I guess! I’m actually
excited for Him to bring some new depth and meaning to the things that He has
already told me.
So I kind of went off on a tangent there but after worship, the sermon happened…and then Sunday school happened…and then worship happened again…and then the swahili sermon happened…
Too make a long story short, church lasted all-in-all from 7:30am to 1:00pm. Holy cow. The almost 2 hour sermon in Swahili was rough. haha but it was so good and I hope to have many many more African church experiences before I leave this continent in a few months.
After church, Rachel was really feeling like the Lord wanted her to go and tell this woman that He loves her. The woman wasn’t a Christian but had come to church because she had a really messed up ear and her eye was going blind from the same infection. She had tried lots of doctors but nothing had helped. She had kind of come to the church as her last resort.
It was sweet to get to watch Rachel loving on this girl. We ended up getting an African man from the church to walk with us back to the girl’s house where we got to meet her sister and her little son and pray for them all. We got to lay hands on the girl’s ear and eye and ask the Lord to just pour out His love on her. Didn’t necessarily SEE anything happen but there’s no way that you can have an encounter like that with the Lord’s love coming through His children and not have SOMETHING happen inside of you.
We also got to lay hands on her little 3-4 year old boy and pray for him! It was really special to be able to just hold this little African guy and speak over him that he was going to be a man of God and he was going to be a man after the Lord’s own heart. I know that this is something that my parents did for me when I was little and I love the idea of being able to do this for a little boy who otherwise might not ever get that spoken over him.
So I really have faith that something cool happened in this girl’s heart that day and I believe God will be faithful to honor the things that we prayed over her son and her family. Wes’s team is going to go back and visit her and her family at least once or twice before they leave to love on them and pray for them again.
In some completely unrelated news, I got some SICK African sandals! (when I say “sick” I almost always mean
“awesome” in case you hadn’t caught that yet…apparently that was throwing some
people off.) I took a picture of
them even so that you can see them and agree with me that they are awesome.
I feel like I did a fairly good job of holding onto my style
while I was in the first four countries of the race but now that we have hit
Africa and the HEAT, I’m about ready to just throw up my hands and start
hitting up the “what happened to that guy?” style. Get excited for some ridiculous outfits that will make you
think “what happened to that guy?”
Don’t worry though, it’s just for 6.5 more months…then I get to come
back to reality. I think I might
go buy a really well-tailored suit the day I get back to the states and then
wear it for a week straight just to remember what it feels like to look my
best.
Ok I am going to run because it is absolutely POURING rain
outside right now and I want to go play in it. You should download a worship song by Cory Asbury called “where
I belong”. It’s rocking my world.
P.S. Happy birthday to my little sister and one of my best friends in the whole world Rebecca Kate Roderick!! Love you so much.
