i’m a celebrity get me out of here!

Hello! I think I am going to use this blog to share what I have been learning this month. I have a few things so buckle in :).

Point 1: All of the girls on my team and a bunch of people on my squad have been reading the book, Culture of Honor by Danny Silk. I thought about telling you all the stuff I have learned from it, but I would just be telling you what the whole book says. So I am highly suggesting this book to all believers. There is so much truth in it about who we are in Christ and the life we are called to live. Danny Silk is one of the pastors at Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bethel’s head pastor is Bill Johnson and we’ve been learning a lot from him as well. So if you have never heard of him/them look them up and listen to or read some of their stuff.

Numero Dos: Let me start with a little story. On Sundays we split up in twos and go teach at cell groups in the community. Sarah and I were paired together on the first Sunday so we hop on a motorbike and go off to our location with our translator. We get there and the community had never seen white people before. Immediately, masses of children surround us and just stare. Its kind of funny and cute when we get there. We proceed into the house where the cell group is and wait for it to begin. The door is left open so all 50 of the children stand in the doorway the entirety of the cell group, staring. Its still cute and funny. The leader then informs us that we are going to go to some of the houses in the community to pray for the people. So to make a long story short, a few houses turns into at least 10 and they are all members of the cell group. They had us come and pray for them in all of their houses. From house to house, 50 children followed, stood at the doorway and then followed.

Here is how Sarah and I felt at the end: like we had just been paraded around the community and shown off to everyone, like the people thought we had some kind of white people special Jesus powers, and like a celebrity. What we learned is, that the celebrity life isn’t fun. We were so frustrated, annoyed and just used up by the end of it. That story was kind of the starting point for a lot of similar stories for all of us here. People stare blatantly, yell “muzungu!” at us which means “white person” and follow us everywhere. After three weeks of this, I was really letting it get to me. You might be reading this thinking I am just a brat for being annoyed at people who are enraptured by me, and maybe I am.

Here’s my thing, I am no more special than anyone! It is really frustrating when I can’t convince people otherwise. Ok, now to the what I am learning part. I am realizing what a blessing I am being to these people just by being here and I just need to be ok with that. They are looking for love and what have I been preaching this whole time?! LOVE. Also, Samara pointed out the other day, that when Jesus was on earth, people followed Him around constantly, He never got anytime alone and children always flocked to Him. Hello! We have always said that we get to be Jesus to the nations and here is the best picture of that we’ve seen so far. It is hard though. Jesus was a great man; He did this a lot better than me. But I am trying, and I do have the same authority that Jesus carried with Him on earth, but we just have to make the people realize they have it too!

Part 3: Worship. Many people know this and I probably did too but I had never acted on the fact that worship is a lifestyle. It goes way beyond the singing portion of a church service. There is so much more to worship than singing! Everything that I do in my day can be a form of worship. The heart of worship is surrender. I have to give up everything and die to myself everyday, constantly. That is hard too! But so much of it is just simply choosing joy, choosing to have a good attitude. With that, even the simplest tasks can be done to the glory of God. I can wash my dishes for Jesus and He loves that. So it has been challenging lately to keep that mindset, but I think it is so important. He is enthroned in our praises, and who doesn’t love making God smile? 🙂