During our squad’s parent vision trip (PVT) in Rwanda, those of us who did have parents visit us all grouped together to did ministry near the border of Uganda. This is where we would teach English during the day and preach in the church at night. On one of our last days there, our ministry host we were working with, wanted to surprise us by having African dresses and shirts hand-made for each of our team members.
While our team was sitting outside the small dress shop in the downtown strip, our group of white Americans was starting to draw a crowd. As you can see in the picture above the crowd started pulling out their phones and taking pictures of the white people. We asked one of our translators if it was rude in their culture to stare at people. He told us it was not really rude. So as a joke we pulled out our phone and started taking pictures of them and joining in a staring at the white people.
After we finished at the dress shop we headed to church where we were scheduled to sing, play guitar, and preach. As I was walking, with my guitar at my side, one of the men from the crowd started walking along side of us. He started asking me if I would play my guitar for him. I told him if he would come to church with us tonight he would hear us play guitar and sing. He refused at first but one of the members from my team, Bekah, was persistence. After Bekah had asked him and his friend several times to join us, they finally decided to.
During the church service he seemed to really enjoy it. He was dancing and singing along with the rest of us. The next day we held service at the same place, at the same time. And sure enough our friend was there again joining in service and listening as we preached the word. At the end of service they opened up the floor for anyone to share a testimony. Sure enough our friend went to the front and told the whole church he was invited by his friends and loved being a part of the service, he told everyone there that day they he wanted join their church. His journey of getting plugged into the church all began with a guitar and a persistent young Christian.
