Brokenness Aside

           Thank God for his promise to be faithful! So much has happened the past couple of days and I have no idea how to summarize it all. I feel so free! I am free to dance, free to sing, free to be me:) The verse that has been on my heart lately is Philippians 1:6:

"...being confident of this, He who began a good work in you will carry it out until the day of completion."

           Every time I begin to doubt myself, I am reminded of the Lord’s promise to never give up on the work he has started in my soul.

The ministry here in Rwanda is FAR from what I thought it would be. After all I have heard about Africa (as well as what I experienced in Uganda), I was expecting a soulful, worshipful, living and breathing bridegroom of a church. The worship is most definitely spirit filled and beautiful, but sometimes it feels forced. Parents seem to train their kids from birth how they should act when filled with the spirit, and the church’s people seem to just imitate the ridiculous screaming and shouting that they see portrayed on the televangelist programs all over the limited TV and radio media here. I know this sounds judgmental, but it was honestly my original thoughts as I stepped into the church. I have been praying for the Lord to soften my dumb cultural pride and forgive me for thinking one way of worship is ever any better than another, and he has already begun answering my prayers by giving me SUCH a HEART for these precious sons and daughters of God.

            Aside from the worship that I am beginning to appreciate...while hoping it is actually glorifying rather than a performance...the gospel that has been being preached here is so twisted and far from the truth that it makes me sick to my stomach. It took a couple of church services for not only each of us to try to understand what was being said by the translator, but also for our entire team to be united in the fact that what was being preached is not the true gospel. I’m not sure why I immediately felt uncomfortable in the church, but right from the start of the first sermon, I knew something was off. My heart was breaking for the lies that I was hearing being declared and every part of my heart and soul wanted to run screaming from the church, and fall on my knees in prayer. But no one else seemed to be reacting, tossing me me into a twisting anxiety of confusion asking God, what the heck do you even have me here for? I learned later that the rest of my team just did not really understand yet what was going on, but at the time they seemed to be expressing that our ministry was more focused on our team’s family, who they are with for the entire year, in contrast to the month long period you get in each country’s ministry.

A visiting pastor from Kigali has been delivering the sermons, and he seemed to preach the prosperity gospel. This is basically the idea that God is a vending machine, giving out good gifts when you give him the right thing (whether that be good behavior, fervent prayer, etc.) He was leaving out the truth of God’s grace and the price Christ paid to set us free from trying to earn God’s attention! The pastor claimed that if you were poor, it meant you were not praying, fasting, sacrificing enough. He claimed that ever since he gave his life to Christ, he was healed from sickness and would continue to be healthy until he sinned again (yes, he actually believed he lived without sin). I mean it was comparable to the Old Testament craziness of people coming up to offer sacrifices of cows or watches and paying for blessings. Within a couple of fired up conversations back at home with my team, we discussed what we believed was missing from the teaching, and we knew that we had to speak up.

Once confirmed by the team that we could not let this go on without taking action, I felt the Lord leading me to speak. I have known from the first day we met the original church’s Pastor Caleb that we would be preaching, but as previously mentioned, I was NOT a fan of the idea. Despite my lack of ability, God kept nudging me to stand up for the truth. The more my team encouraged me to be the first one to preach, the more I fought the idea. I so badly desire to be bold in my faith, but my self-doubt and lack of confidence in speaking in front of a crowd squelch out the fight in me. I have taken public speaking classes, lead bible studies, given talks in leading WyldLife, but never have I ever felt like I did any of this successfully. I always freak myself out and worry so much about it that even if I prepare for days ahead, the delivery has consistently been horrific. Naturally, this has lead me to avoid public speaking at all costs and to identify myself as a listener and encourager in a few intimate relationships rather than to lead a whole body of people. Okay God? Thanks.

Haha but that's not how my Father works! God never asks people to stay where they are comfortable and he certainly cannot teach you anything if you build up walls of security around anything that may feel risky.

So I prayed. read. prayed. stressed. and prayed some more.

While I had been in the church services and avoiding making a scene by running away, I chose to read and pray instead. OH and the Lord SO USED THAT TIME to teach me what he wanted me to say! I kept coming across verses that totally shed light on the truth of the gospel in contrast to the lies that I had been hearing. Once I finally decided to listen to the Holy Spirit’s leading, I spent about an hour or so with Johnathan preparing to preach about grace in Christ Jesus. Considering God has been teaching me all about his grace the past couple of months, along with Joe who has been trying to call me Grace ever since he met me, I deemed it appropriate. And what better way to explain grace and cast out any room for Satan to deceive my message than by preaching the basic story of who Jesus was, why he came, and the victory he won?! Somehow Johnathan and I were able to come up with about a 40 minute sermon and after a few hours of anticipation (we JUST found out yesterday that we had the time difference wrong here, hahah just for a glimpse of how secluded we are), it was time for me to go up and speak.

After all the prayer and powerful encouragement from my team, somehow the Holy Spirit was able to overtake me to walk me up in from of the church. As I prayed that none of my words would be my own, He gave me confidence that I am the Lord’s servant and tool, who he will use for his glory, brokenness aside. After all the times that I have failed to understand God’s grace, and fallen to some of the same basic ideas that these people were believing, the Lord had been preparing me so that he could use me to declare the truth to cast out the lies! And honestly, I have no idea how the translator was portraying my message, so the Spirit could have easily interceded and taught the people exactly what he wanted them to hear, which could have been totally different from what I thought I was preaching. AH! How crazy is that? He doesn't need us, but he lets us partake in the expanse of his glorious kingdom work. There's no way we can mess it up, we have His spirit guiding us every step of the way! It is for freedom, that Christ has set us free! What a beautiful picture of God’s incredible grace. Wow. I am so excited and so in love with my Savior. So sorry for rambling but I DID IT:) Despite all the ways I tried to fight it, the Lord used me as his mouth in a church in the middle of Africa. I mean...what?

As my sweet Rwandan brothers & sisters would proclaim:

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!