It’s what I’ve been waiting six months for. I was supposed to teach voice lessons in Bulgaria, my first month on the Race. Unfortunately, the girls I was supposed to work with were on Holiday. But God put something inside of me that month. I had what I would consider a strange desire to teach voice lessons. I’ve already been a performer, but I had never really wanted to teach. Month three, we were in India and again I was offered the opportunity to teach voice lessons during Worship School to a group of boys between the ages of 4 and 13. I had so many grand ideas for how these lessons were going to go. I was in for a rude awakening as the boys struggled to even sing the same pitch that I was. “I can’t do this,” I kept telling myself. At this point I was convinced that teaching was not a gift that I possessed. But when we met with Pastor Joseph for the first time in Mukono, Uganda, and he found out I was a singer, he immediately asked me if I would work with his choir. Reverse Sister Act? Okay, this could be cool.
I was so excited for our first choir practice. You see, I love talking about music, singing, and especially musical theatre. My teammates can attest to the fact that if they ask a music question, my face lights up, I get super excited, and I can talk for hours. And of course, I am forever grateful to them for humoring me as I ramble on and on. They even sat through all 2 ½ hours of West Side Story on my birthday. So, you get the point, I love music. However, I must confess that I have a problem. I am an extreme perfectionist when it comes to my music and for some reason I think that everyone else should be too.
The one thing about Africa that I cannot say enough is that the people here love to worship. They love to sing and dance and praise the Lord. So, worship in Africa consists of a keyboard cranked up as loud as it could possibly be, a keyboard beat that is not the same beat that people are clapping and singing on, and people singing at the top of their lungs on any key they feel like, or simply no key at all. Now, for someone who’s fluent in Sondheim and has perfect pitch, this can be the most agonizing part of church. In Kenya, one of my former teammates, Jill, would comment after almost every service, “Kelly, I felt so bad for you. I kept thinking, ‘Kelly’s probably dying.’”
So, anyway, it’s night one of choir practice and I am being bombarded with questions about technique. The choir was asking how they could get instant results and in my slightly self-righteous, a little bit arrogant mind, I am thinking, “I have had years of training, how can they think you can learn something instantly? That just shows so little respect for the craft of music.” Wow. I am so glad that no one could here my thoughts in that moment. The session ended with the now infamous question, “If I want to strengthen my voice, would it be good for me to go into the woods and yell until my voice is raspy?” Yes, fellow vocal music lovers, I really got asked that question. So, I geared up for what I envisioned would be a month of challenges and frustrations. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this idea that singing praises to God should be reserved for the professionals goes back long before Africa. I hate to admit it, but back home in America, I would listen to everyone around me in church and secretly judge their vocal ability. So the question is obvious; if I am so busy listening to and judging those around me, how am I able to worship the Lord? I guess the answer is that maybe I never really knew what true worship was. I never truly knew what it meant to make a joyful noise. Scripture doesn’t say to make a noise that is pleasing to human ears, but to worship in a way that is pleasing to the Father. I’m sure that God has a special filter in heaven that takes what is in a person’s heart and turns it to sweet, beautiful music.
So I set out on a quest this month to embrace the African way of worship, their music style included. We have had the opportunity to spend time with a lot of the teenagers and young adults of the church. One evening after children’s ministry, our friend Jennifer pulled us women into the church and taught us to dance, African style. Believe me, our American hips were completely awkward but there was so much joy in that room. That day is absolutely one of the highlights of our month so far. Momma Frieda, our pastor’s wife is a songwriter and wanted us to join with the church choir in singing her songs. She had us all come out to the porch and join her family and some of the church members in singing. Immediately, the perfectionist in me came out and I began to offer some suggestions on how we could better care for our voices or a key that would be more universal for the whole group. Momma Frieda quickly told me that I was a troublemaker and that there are no such things as “keys.” I have to admit that for a minute I was really mad and didn’t really want to sing anymore. The whole “this is disrespectful to music” thing began to creep back into my mind. But then everyone started dancing, and the rest of the team really got into it and were singing loudly and off-key, but were having the time of their lives. It is hard to remain in such a foul mood when you are surrounded by so much joy.
On the morning of my birthday, Momma Frieda wanted us to have the day off, but still felt we needed more practice before Sunday morning service. We all gathered on the porch. In that moment, it really wasn’t about how it sounded, it was about singing for joy to the Lord with my precious teammates, squad leaders, and Ugandan family. For what was probably the first time in my life, it wasn’t about what it sounded like to my ears. Sunday morning came and we all filed on stage with slight apprehension to sing with the choir. As soon as we started singing with the choir(in about 4 different keys), all concern about how we would appear to others went out the window and we all started dancing. Even when our songs ended and the choir started singing in Luganda, we stayed on stage and kept on dancing.
Okay, so there are a lot of things about African worship music that I still struggle with. But there is so much that they get right. They are the experts in what it means to make a joyful noise. They may not know what the key of C is, or how to take care of their musical instruments, or what it means to have good vocal health. But they do know what it means to have joy, and that joy is contagious. I may always expect my own singing to the Lord to be as flawless as possible, but then again, that’s my way of expressing joy. But I don’t think I can judge others’ voices the way I used to. Instead, all I hear is joy. Whether it be the man in the church choir who is clearly not a tenor, straining to hit super high notes but all the while doing so with a huge smile on his face; or the children singing in their adorable monotone, but learning what it means to praise the Lord; or laying in bed at night reading the Bible, as my two male teammates sit in the next room singing ‘90s rock songs at the top of their lungs, and with as much passion as they can muster. These things bring me joy, and I’m sure that God is bursting with joy too, because a joyful noise makes God smile. It’s not just music to his ears, but music to his heart.
