Sunday was my very first experience with African worship, and it was totally different from any worship I’ve seen before. When we first arrived, only a few people were there singing and worshiping at the front of the church, but people continued to file in over the next half hour. I don’t know what time the worship service actually started, but that doesn’t matter because in Africa, they don’t run off of schedules.
The worship itself was amazing. Except for a couple songs they did in English, it was in their local language, Kinyarwanda. I’ve learned a few words in the language, but at the time, all I knew was “Imana,” which means God. I never knew what any of their songs were saying except for that one word.
What I loved about the worship was the joy that every person had. Each song was led usually by one man, but fifteen other people were also standing at the front of the church singing and dancing with him. These people had so much passion for their worship. Every person in that room was praising God in a way I’ve never seen before. It also taught me that I don’t have to sing to be worshiping. Most of the time I just stood there with hands open in wonder of God’s presence while listening to the words that I didn’t understood.
When I say they were dancing, I don’t mean they were just swaying back and forth with hands in the air. They were dancing and sweating for hours. I didn’t know any of what they sang, but I could just tell that regardless of the words, these people loved the Lord and were worshiping him with all their hearts. They even pulled us up to dance with them during the last song of the evening. None of us knew what we were doing, but we had fun learning their dances.
At one point, they asked us to get up and sing a song. We sang “How He Loves” because we all know that one well. I enjoyed singing it because I love the song, but if I’m being honest, it felt a lot different than the rest of the worship. It wasn’t as loud and energetic as theirs, but I think they just loved that we sang. Funnily enough, a few members of one of the other teams on our squad came walking in while we were singing. Apparently they were walking by and heard singing in English, so they had come to see what it was and found us. It turns out they actually live just a couple minutes away from the church we were at, which means we will probably see them often while we are there.
Toward the end of the service, our Pastor got up to talk for a minute. He said that you have to learn how to worship like they worship in heaven. In heaven, the worship will be endless and joyous and full of dancing. He said that if you don’t learn how to worship now, then heaven is going to be very boring for you. He was joking, but I think there is some truth in it. Of course heaven isn’t going to be boring, but there is no reason that we can’t worship now like we will then. There is so much beauty in worshiping shamelessly with no inhibitions. These people didn’t care what people think as they danced and sang and neither should I.
My new team, Grace Alone, and I are spending the next two months here in Kigali, Rwanda. I’m honestly overwhelmed thinking about spending two months in a country. Two months seems like such a long time, especially because it’s equal to the amount of time I’ve spent on the race so far. We don’t have the same comforts as in Central America. We are taking bucket showers and using squatty potties, but we do have beds with mosquito nets. We are preaching at our host’s two churches and doing whatever manual labor he needs help with. It’s hard not having any of the comforts that I’m used to, like showers and toilets, but as much as I would like to be, I’m not here to be comfortable. Preaching is a scary challenge for most of us, but I know it will be a great, growing experience for all of us.
Please be praying for my team and me! We are all facing different challenges in our daily lives, and we all love and appreciate your prayer!
