Gosh, life has been so good here, we really are blessed to be starting
at this ministry location. We stay at a nice house, with safe walls
around the house and a safe locked gate at night, a beautiful porch,
chickens that provide us with eggs every morning, a cute as can be goat,
watch dog, we now have running water and a TOILET!! and a SHOWER!!, we
have a great church to be apart of and incredible hosts. Yesterday was
our rest day, we took a day trip with some of the kids from the youth
ministry to Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa and the second
largest fresh water lake in the world! I had studied it in my African
Studies classes at MSU and had always wanted to go.
We took a ScoobyDoo 80s van full of 12 people on the two hour bus ride.
We stopped at one port on the Kenyan side to first see the lake, then
went on to the area where we could go swimming. There were tons of
families there pulling in fishing line and boating around. The fish
they were catching were HUGE, almost as big as ME! We swam around, took
one of the boats out, swam out to some rocks and the other side of the
beach, helped people pull in ropes, played soccer on the shoreline and
climbed the surrounding mountains. I was laying on the beach with my
eyes closed at one point, pretending I was back in America, back on the
shores of Maranatha with kids playing all around me, but when I woke up I
was surrounded by about 20 little African children poking at my feet,
pulling leg hairs off me and twirling my hair around their fingers haha.
I played with them for a little bit and they decided to guide us up
the mountain, it was so great.
We also got a chance to talk to the youth from the Deliverance Church
ministry. There is one kid in particular, Simon, that really blessed
me. I was trying to really build into his life, but instead he was
building into mine. He wakes up every three hours to pray that the
Lord gives him more of a hunger for His word and 3 times a year climbs
up the mountain to fast for 7 days (no water or food) and meditate in
prayer, just thanking our God for what He had already provided for him?
Gosh, I had a bad dream last night and didn’t even wake up to pray about
it and I get crabby when I don’t get my entire 8 hours of sleep each
night! I think I have lots to learn…
I have been giving these people in Africa all that I can, but I keep
feeling like it is less and less than I am doing for them and more and
more that God is showing me, through them. One thing in particular is
how to worship. Many of you can relate to me when I say that the
churches I grew up in would worship by everyone standing, reading the
hymnal or projector screen, singing a few songs and then sitting down.
I am a singer and would pride myself on how beautiful of harmony I can
sing with or how lovely I sound when I would sing, it became a skewed,
passionless worship about myself.
Even at training camp, Jonathan David Helser’s band played for us, and
sometimes we would just sing one line over and over again, “Your love is
an endless ocean, a bottomless sea!”, letting it sink into our soul.
I remember screaming at the top of my longs “ABBA! FATHER! I BELONG TO
YOU!!”
If you don’t know his music, I highly recommend changing that. He is an
amazing worship leader, along side his wife and rest of the band.
The church services here are different than my home church services and
training camp. Everyone in the congregation is raising their hands in
the international sign for surrender, surrendering themselves to Christ.
Abba, Father, we belong to you. Singing praises and worship in two
languages. I find myself just singing my own words or not even singing
words at all, God knows what my heart is crying out to Him. We sing
praises, joyful sounds of praises. They don’t care if they are off tune
or even singing the right words, but I can’t really tell if they are or
not. They are jumping up and down with huge smiles on their face,
running around in circles, clapping their hands and even…GASP!!
SHAKING THEIR HIPS!! oh my my, that is so terrible, I can’t believe it.
🙂 (If my camera gets the virus off it…) I have a video of our
pastors shaking their hips around and running around in circles to share
with you all, it’s so awesome. God has created us and loves us with
everything that He is. He wants to hear worship songs with a joyful
heart, not a talent show or a mundane task for traditions sake. Our God
is an awesome God! He reigns from Heaven above with wisdom, power and
LOVE! Our God is an awesome God!
