Worshiping Beyond the Walls

At my home church, Auburn United Methodist Church, we have a contemporary worship service called Resonate. In Resonate we have a saying "worship beyond the walls". Well here in Gulu we have decided to take that literally.

Tonight we had a community worship service in the village close to the house. When we were all discussing our spiritual gifts in a devotional one night I said that God had given me the gift of music. Turns out he was about to use that gift no matter what. We decided that we wanted to have a community worship and music night and guess who was to lead worship? You guessed it, me. Now I have grown up in church choirs, praise bands, and doing solo performances but I had never lead worship all by myself. So obviously there were some scary thoughts that accompanied that task.

What will these people think of me?
What if I forget the words?
What if no one else knows the words?
What if my voice cracks?
Will they even understand me?

All of these questions were running through my head but what do they all have in common? ME ME ME. I hadn't put it into God's hands and let Him have control. It was His worship service, His village, His Gulu, and His world. Who am I to be freaking out about leading worship for Ugandan people who do not even speak my language? Well that was a slap in the face. The whole reason I am here is to expand God's kingdom, not to show off my musical skills (or lack there of). When I sent my mom an email venting about what I was scared of and what I was struggling with she sent back a very humbling response. Basically she was telling me that it was in Gods hands and it was all about Him, not me.

Well I did my best to prepare for this event by writing out a set list and writing out some of the lyrics so that if I did get stage fright and forget the words then I would be prepared. We as a group decided that I would do one or two songs before the message and one or two after, so I completely wrote out the lyrics to 4 songs so that I would for sure be ready. Well when we got there we obviously needed to do more songs because there were no adults even though we had invited them but the kids were there sitting quietly ready to get started. So what do we do? We sing as many songs that I can do from memory and repeat choruses as many times as possible to make everything last longer! Somehow even though the kids had no idea what I was singing they enjoyed clapping along and dancing to the music.

Originally the plan was for me to sing and play the drum but as I was practicing I realized that that was not going to happen so Willie (our security guard and friend at the compound) played the drum as I sang my heart out. We had a few awkward moments there where we did not know what to do next but overall it went very well. We figured out that of you sing "Jesus Loves Me" about 10 times in a row then the kids will learn the words and the sign language! God was definitely there as we were worshiping and even though only a few adults showed up (halfway through the message) the children loved every second of it. We sang Baby Jesus, All Because of Jesus, Jesus Loves Me, How Great Thou Art, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, Amazing Grace, Oh Happy Day, Lead Me to the Cross, and Father Abraham. With the mixture of the southern and African accents I bet we sounded pretty interesting but we were giving praises to the Lord.

I really hope that the kids learned more then how to play hop scotch this week at VBS and tonight at the community worship. But that is no longer in my hands. We presented the gospel in English and in Acholi when there was a translator present, we played and loved on these kids and we have made some awesome relationships.

Everyone else has been able to connect with people on a one on one basis but I have been fighting a cold and ear troubles so in the afternoons I would have to lie down instead of going to play. One of my friends in coming to visit us next week and is bringing me some much needed cold medicine, so after I am all better I am super excited to get out there and make some real relationships!

My home church found out about what I was doing and said a special prayer for us as we were having the community worship and I could really feel the prayers! As much as I was nervous I really enjoyed the experience and I can not wait to do it again. A big thank you to Brother Charles and Mama for getting everyone involved in the prayers and for believing in me.

Here are a few prayer requests:
- the Cornerstone Class of 2012 as they travel to Uganda and as they drive to come and see us, some of the members are Camp Hand, Kate Duke, Codarious Findley, Caleb Heaton and Will Lott, there are probably other members but these are the ones I know are coming.
- Jamie and the baby as they go through these last few weeks of pregnancy
- the OHS FCA team who will be traveling home this week: Kyle, Cokey, Stephanie, and Alana
- all the interns who are beginning to feel a little homesick at this point, here are all of us by name if you would like to pray for us:
Mattie, Elizabeth, Anna, Rebecca, Sara, Jerica, McCamy, Jerica, Emma, and Laurel
- everyone who is having tummy trouble (which is basically everyone)

Thank you so much for taking the imw to read!

Love,
Mattie