This week has been full of activity, fun and adventures – outreach in Moyogalpa, parties 3 nights in a row, and climbing a volcano!
Saturday night jump started our awesome week at the public basketball court in Moyogalpa. The church worship team began the evening with worship for a while, and the flag dancers worshipped the Lord through their dancing. As usual, music draws people, so as we continued, people began filtering into the basketball court more and more. After worship, one of the youth rapped a Christian song, and another girl sang a song. James participated in a one of three dramas that the youth performed and then I preached for a short time, and Chad followed up. Several people came to know the Lord, but even more important than any number of people, is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was proclaimed for nearly 3 hours straight, in the middle of town, and seeds were planted in people’s souls.
I look back and see how God works and I am amazed. I can say that the the I feared more than anything on this trip was having to preach, and was dreading having to do it, but figuring that I would be able to put it off till Africa! HA! But, really, I was filled with such incredible peace about the whole thing, once I made the decision to be obedient to God’s call about this past Saturday night. I prepared a little bit of a message, but having never done this before I wasn’t sure exactly how. I knew I needed to talk about the great love of our Father, but didn’t know exactly how that would look. And it didn’t look anything like I thought it might!
There was a bit of spiritual heaviness and distraction going on that night, from dogs wandering through the court, to people talking on the stage, a huge bus full of people breaking down on the street behind the stage, CDs not working, mics not working, starting late and going longer than we thought. We hired Will, our translator, from 6-8pm, since that’s when the event was to take place. We didn’t start until 6:20 and I didn’t get up to preach until just about 8pm! I didn’t know what to say when I got up there, my notes were somewhere behind me and I forgot all that was in them. Will was having a hard time translating, even though he speaks excellent English. But somehow I still wasn’t nervous, just had an incredible peace about me. I only spoke for a couple minutes, talked about the love of God and freedom in Christ. It was pretty elementary, but I am cool with that. I called Chad up after a little bit and then he preached for a while, and I stepped back to pray.
Contrary to everything I know about myself in the past, I didn’t respond in insecurity and a feeling of failure, but rather with overwhelming peace that I was obedient and that regardless of all the things that go ‘wrong’ in our perspectives, God is still fully able to work in people’s hearts. At team debrief that evening, we all recognized the spirit of distraction that was in that place that night, but I was not discouraged. In fact, quite the opposite! Even though I was disappointed I wasn’t able to express myself the way I would have liked, or spoken longer, or more clearly, I now joyfully anticipate the next opportunity. This was the first time I have ever done anything like this, and nobody is perfect the first time! But I will have time to learn and I know that God will give me the strength and peace each time I get to step up in obedience. God is pleased with OBEDIENCE. That is what he has called us to be and do, in the strength of His Spirit and for His glory!
