Disclaimer: Much prayer and processing was needed before describing this day. Apologizes for the length!
Sunday was the most interesting and overwhelming experience of my life. Marisa and I were invited to an ordination ceremony—we agreed and were picked up at 9:30 a.m. Little did we know what was ahead. The ceremony was held in a tin-roofed church in the heart of a Kenyan slum. People gawked at us. People would scream (in Swahili, of course) “Oh my goodness! I have never seen a white person before!” So after the initial shock, I silently stared at the reality around me. Trash everywhere. Dozens of goats eating the trash. Children who looked straight from one of those “Feed the Children” commercials. But the excitement really didn’t crank up until we finally made it inside the church.
(Sidenote: Time is very different here than in the U.S. For example, the service was scheduled to start at 9:30, but we didn’t enter the church until noon)
We were quickly ushered to the front (completely unacceptable that we attempted to slip into the back row) and the service lasted until 4:00 p.m. This included 3 sermons, 2 demon-possessed women, and 1 pastor who loved his microphone (the echo feature particularly). At one point, he was so worked up that he threw the mic into the crowd, hitting an innocent bystander. The worship portion reminded me of the workout video Zumba—people were sweating, cheering, and dancing everywhere. The ordination ceremony itself consisted of the pastor pouring anointment oil from a large elephant tusk onto each new pastor’s head.
Now I am not here to overanalyze, criticize, or judge the way these people worship. It was VERY different than anything I have ever seen. I cannot explain the noises I heard during those four hours. Not really sure I want to. But these people worship in desperation. They are hungry, poverty-stricken, suffering in ways I cannot even fathom. I worship because I love my Savior, but to be frank, sometimes I worship because it is the “right thing to do.” No, I will never scream or cast out demons, and I do not agree with a lot that happened yesterday. But that’s not the point of this post. I am writing just to say that we all serve the same God. And even though this little white girl feels like an outsider all the time, one day she will worship alongside those who claim Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Lord, thank you that despite all of our differences, You are the everlasting bond.
“After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands.” Revelation 7:9
Beautiful Gray, as you walk through these months of feeling like an outsider, remember that you serve the God who came to Earth and lived the life of the outsider. In serving as an outsider in a culture of desperation, you are serving Him. Now, on a less than serious note, I can only imagine how uncomfortable you must have been but I am chuckling a bit because this does not sound far from my experiences at Charismatic youth camp, minus the goats and the elephant tusks, and everyone had enough food. But the demon-possession was present, along with lots of whooping and hollering... We'll trade notes when you come home. Love you!
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