The first Sunday in Tondo our team had the chance to worship with the Filipino men and women. We had finished our first full week here in Tondo, and I had been anxious to see what a church service looked like in comparison to all the churches we had been to in Central America.
The sun was setting and we had all the chairs in place. The seats filled up and several others filled the street to see what was happening. We had to have the service outside because with 15 Americas in town, there was no longer room to meet inside the little church building. We shared testimonies and one of my squad mates spoke on the power of the Holy Spirit. We sang and worshiped together and at the end of the night, we invited anyone who wanted prayer to come up front. We told them we would all be available to pray over them. The plan was for about 7 or 8 of us to stand over on one side and sing in the back ground, and the other 7 or 8 would be on the other side to pray with people. Well, within about 1 minute the entire church body was coming down to receive prayer, so we ended up all praying over people while Jessa serenaded us in the background with her lovely voice! The Holy Spirit was so present the entire evening from the cool breeze that blew over the street to the words spoken through squad mates and teammates, through the songs lifted up in praise in our language and theirs to one God and especially through the prayers of His sons and daughters. Just when I thought the night was about to close and Pastor Ramil said we should sing one more song. I got excited because I was already so full of joy, and what better way to end an awesome evening than to sing to the Lord. But then, just as I looked up to see what song we would sing, Pastor Ramil stuck the microphone in my face and said..”you sing.”
Stunned, I said “oh no, no, you want Jessa to sing,” and I tried to hand the microphone back to her.
“No”, he repeated with enthusiasm, “you sing!”
Fear crossed my face. I smiled shyly and tried to laugh, but I realized he wasn’t kidding. He really wanted me to sing into that microphone.
You would think I would have learned by now that part of walking with the Lord and learning to depend on Him means doing things that aren’t comfortable, things that I may not really want to do. But it’s times like this that I am aware of how much I still care about what others think. I don't want to make a fool of myself, and I start to question who I am actually trying to please. Then God speaks, and He reminds me that I am not here to please man. I am here to please Him, obey Him, and love Him above all else. I am not called to live based on what everyone around me may think or say in response to my actions, but I am called to be set apart, to be holy because He is holy.
It was a moment that took me back to 1 Samuel when the Israelites are demanding a king. They have rejected the Lord as their king because they care more about looking like the other nations. The reality was, God had called them to so much more. He didn't want them to want to look like the others or care about what other thought of them, because He had chosen them and set them apart. Sometimes I too desire to look more like the world than person God has called me to be. I want what others have and I am not satisfied with what God has placed right in front of me. Sometimes He gives us the opportunity to rejoice and praise him loudly with the rest of His family, but we turn our head because we worry more about what the audience may think than the smile on our Father’s face.
So, long story short, I took the microphone, and I sang. Not loudly. I held it at a distance and tried to share it with my teammate Beth, but I sang. The funny thing is those people were so busy worshiping God they could have cared less what I sounded like, much less hear me because their voices were loud enough to drown out any other noise.
There were so many lessons learned, so many things revealed, and so much remembered..like the fact that as a church we should care less about the name of whose preaching or singing and more about worshiping the one who created us all. We should be thankful for the opportunity to worship as loud and as freely as we desire. We should always be willing and ready to do whatever He calls us to, and our aim should always be to please Him. Not man. But in all of this, there is grace. Grace, grace, and still grace.
I'm praying for all of you, and I pray that the next time the Lord hands you a microphone, you sing! 
