At the end of last month, we were asked to make a goal for our time in Romania. For Albania, I had set a goal of reading the Bible every day, because I had had the hardest time getting myself in that habit. Being surrounded by people who I saw reading and meditating on the Word every day was so helpful in remembering to do that.
So for August, my goal has been to pray every day. I’ve started a list of a few specific things that I want to be praying for every day, but I also just wanted to spend more time having conversations with God.
One thing that has helped, since I am a very visual person, is closing my eyes, imagining that God is sitting next to me, and having a mental talk with Him. Since we have so many periods of waiting or riding on buses on the Race, I have plenty of chances to do this.
But the most impactful moment came during the second of our prayer walks in Thessaloniki. We had an itinerary taking us from an ancient arch to the university, our prayers focusing on the thousands of students who live in this district. As in the first prayer walk, we didn’t make it all the way through in the time we had allotted, but this time I felt so at peace with the reason why.
In the Rotunda, a building that has been a pagan temple, church, mosque, and now is being renovated as a church again, someone started singing.
And we sang and sang and sang.
It was the most magical thing that has happened so far on this journey.
The acoustics in the dome were fantastic, the people gathered to worship were exultant, the lyrics of the hymns were uplifting. I realized that, for me, singing has always felt like the greatest way to pray.
This was further confirmed an hour later during our ministry time. A group of us gathered at the White Tower and sang, trading off as we got into conversations with the people around us or when we didn’t know a song. Towards the end of the evening, there was only a small group of us left and our guitar player was deep in conversation. So we did what we had done earlier, and simply blended our voices together in song.
I have never enjoyed praying out loud in front of groups of people, because I am not quick to think of what to say and don’t want to make it about me instead of God. But at the Tower, I felt fully connected to God. It was my voice, but it wasn’t about me.
When we got back to Draganesti, I was super excited about our morning schedule: one hour of all-squad worship followed by an hour of intercessory prayer. Yes!, I thought, I just learned this fabulous new way to pray and now I get to practice!
But God had other plans. After the first day, our contact asked for a small group of people with teaching experience to lead English classes instead of participating in the prayer time. I waited to volunteer, partially because teaching adults is not up my alley and because I really, desperately wanted to practice this new way of praying in a safe environment.
I can only assume that God is going to throw me into using singing prayers rather than letting me play it safe. It’s a little nerve-wracking (especially now that we have a small preview of what our ministry will be like in Malawi – lots of door-to-door evangelism). Actually, it kind of terrifies me. But that’s the reason the 55 members of R Squad are here; we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
We pray, in so many different ways, at so many different moments, because we are serving the same God. What a powerful gift!
