Day 30– July 29, 2005, Friday: Crazy Worship Day

This morning Joseph led us in what he called High Impact Worship. It was really fun and really different. It will probably sound crazy to all of you (as it does to me thinking back on it) but I will enlighten you. First we had a time of praying for the countries that we are all going to. Keep in mind that this is in a room full of about 100 people. We all walked around the room (some randomly and some in circles etc) thinking and praying about what God wants us to pray for having to do with the first country. After about 1 minute of walking/thinking we all stopped and shouted/talked our prayer to God. It sounds crazy I know, but it was really cool just hearing everyone at the same time praying for government, praying for people to receive us, praying for safety. Then we walked around again with the next country in mind and repeated the whole thing for all of the countries. The countries are Sudan, Israel, Zimbabwe, Uganda, China, Japan, Cambodia, and Thailand. It was really cool. I’d never prayed like that before.

Later, Joseph led us in worship and this was another unique time. He just told everyone to start making music of some kind, worship to God. It was a little uncomfortable, and at first there wasn’t a sound. Then someone started playing a bass guitar. Someone else started singing. Someone started playing some drums. Keep in mind they were mostly different songs and different rhythms. Then a group of Koreans started singing a song in their language. I started whistling. Some people started painting/drawing. Some were dancing. It was really cool. The cool part was not how it sounded or looked. The cool part was that each person was letting go of what others thought and just having some time with God in a new and different way. Let’s just say that they do some things a little different here, usually in a good way, but you have to have a bit of an open mind and be willing to try things.

Hung out at night, coffee with the Bells (Ausie) and Richards (NZ). It is nice to not have anything on the schedule for a night. It’s been quite busy. We cruised the campus a bit while the kids watched “chicken run” on the computer. We stopped in to watch an art class drawing some still life pictures. Then we saw the dance class doing some serious Samba.

We hear that they have now reserved all of our flights for outreach; it is becoming more of a reality by the minute. I am still humbled to think that we are going to Africa to help out. I feel very unworthy. But I suppose that is when God uses people best, when He can step in and show his worthiness.