through their bodies, others have their arms raised and are
enthusiastically swaying back and forth, while still others are on their
knees. They’re all praying out loud at the same time and singing.
They’re worshiping. We’re worshiping. Behavior like this has been
surprising and was at first disconcerting for an extremely conservative,
“frozen chosen” church-going girl like me. But one thing is clear: the
spirit of God is alive and present in our 20×20 square foot worship
hall.
They told us in the beginning of training camp that they were going
to attempt to prepare us for whatever we would experience on the field.
Of course this is impossible, but I think they have done a pretty great
job: from creating our own wilderness haven to sleep in the first night
with nothing but a tarp, to having half-eaten oatmeal spooned into our
bowls by fellow campers when we ran out. I have been told multiple times
that India is a spiritually dark and intense place; spirits and demons
are much more tangible and real to those people than they are to the
people in our culture. We like to distance God from the supernatural. It
feels safer that way. I think for this reason, I have always
misunderstood the power of the Holy Spirit and therefore been slightly
skeptical. And this is exactly where training camp came in and has
impacted me hugely: we talked about how the Holy Spirit dwells in each
of us because we have accepted Christ, and because of this He speaks to
us. Literally. We can hear His voice. Pray pray pray is the
message we often times get from pastors and counselors. Listen was the
message we got here. God is speaking to us; we just aren’t listening.
God is speaking to us while we are worshiping, and the swaying, the
dancing, the praying out loud, these are just ways to experience God’s
presence and his voice. A prompt for this post is what advice we would
give to future Real Life participants about training camp, and I would
say all you need to bring is a humble heart, an open mind, and your
dancing shoes.
