I’ve always had a problem with non-choreographed dancing in public. I don’t come from a church background that condemns dancing, so that’s not the problem. It’s just always been something I’m very self-conscious about. I never went to a dance in middle school or high school until my senior year, when I went to the winter formal (to practice for the Prom) and the Prom. When I went to Italy with a group from my school after my junior year, we went to a dance club and I was the only one who sat off to the side, just watching. I don’t dance at wedding receptions unless the bride is my sister, and “dance parties” were one of my biggest fears going into World Race training camp. So yeah, dancing’s not really my thing.
But yesterday, I was standing in church in Rwanda, and something changed. There were about four singers up front, worshiping the Lord, and the keyboard player pushed a button that gave us a beat. What started as side-to-side shuffling slowly built into jumping up and down, and as I watched the worship team I thought, “They are just like kids, playing before their Father, and He is loving it.” And I found myself a willing participant! That’s right, folks, my feet actually came up off of the ground! And I didn’t care if I looked silly, and I didn’t feel like I was on display. I was just being childlike, and it was FUN.
I’m still working on the arms, but I think God is okay with that.
This month, we are working with a pastor in Rwanda named Pastor Fred. We are living with him and his family. Pastor Fred has nine children, six of whom live at home. There are four older girls ages 16, 18, 21, and 23, and two little brothers, ages 8 and 9. His wife, Mary, cooks awesome meals for us. Our team has two bedrooms to ourselves. Hannah, Jen, and I are sharing a bed in one room and Alexa, Ashley, and our squad leader Megan share a bed in the other. We have a Western toilet (aka not a squatty potty) in a building outside the house, and we have an enclosed space where we take bucket showers. We also have some little neighbor kids who peek through the fence and yell, “Muzungu, how are you?”
In the mornings, Pastor Fred drives us to his church in his pickup truck. We split into two groups – one to stay at the church and teach English to members of the church, and one to go out and evangelize.
For the first two days of our ministry here, I taught English. The first day I had three students – Ananias, 22, his brother Sam, 19, and Kevin, 20. Kevin is more advanced and the brothers are beginners. We also have a middle-aged guy named Isaac who comes to help translate. On the second day, we had five students. Alexa worked with the three who are more advanced – Kevin, Oscar, and Donat – and I worked with Ananias and Sam.
Despite coming from a teaching background and even having recently had a class in ESL, I feel like I really don’t know what I’m doing. So far, we’ve practiced greetings, family words, colors, emotions, days of the week, and months of the year, along with other random bits that come up. It will be easy for me to get caught up in thinking my purpose here is just to teach English, but my teammate Alexa reminded me through example yesterday that our main purpose is to share God’s love. We were discussing emotions, and Alexa brought up the word “loved,” and talked about how God loves us. It was a neat reminder to not lose the forest through the trees.
Today I went with the evangelism group for the first time, and I have to admit, at first I felt bummed about not being with Ananias and Sam. But God had such a neat surprise in store for me. We were talking with two women outside of a building (store? House?), and as we stood there more and more kids kept gathering around. As Jen and Hannah talked to the women, Megan kind of peeled off and motioned for the kids to follow her. I followed as well, and had a blast singing a bunch of songs with this group of thirty-some of the dirtiest kids I have seen in Africa.
The other part of our ministry this month is to preach at Pastor Fred’s church, five days a week, for an hour each day. We decided pretty directly that we would plan on having two people share a message each day so one of us wouldn’t have to fill an entire hour. I was the first to preach, to a congregation of 20ish people, and basically did Gospel 101. I filled maybe ten minutes tops. Then Hannah came up and spoke about grace, which took us to 25 minutes. So then we sang a lot, which was really fun. I think their favorite was “Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord!” Jen and Ashley preached today and made it to about 45 minutes. It’s hard to know what topics to preach on. I’m looking forward to having time before next Tuesday to really think and a plan some good (and longer) sermons.
Please continue praying for our team as we develop relationships with the people here and begin to form new friendships.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Debbie
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