It’s Official. I’m a Missionary. (Part 2: Finding Comfort in the Most Unexpected Places)

There was one evening a couple of weeks ago that truly topped all of the other instances of culture shock.  It was the evening I knew I was officially a missionary.

Like many nights during the week, we were headed to a church to worship and share our testimonies with the congregation.  We were told we were going to a house church and that, in this particular church, jewelry was considered sinful.  So we took out our earrings, took off our bracelets and hopped in the van.  When we arrived, we were led down a pitch black path, next to a drainage ditch, by the teensy light of a cell phone. 

Thankfully we arrived at the house without falling into the ditch and were led to our seats at the front of the congregation.  The room in which church was being held was probably about 8 feet by 8 feet and about 30 people were inside, so it was a little crowded, to say the least.  We worshipped with the church for about half an hour (mostly just clapping and pretending to understand the songs) before we got up to share our own songs and testimonies.  However, while we were singing, the power went out (which happens fairly often here).

Most churches have generators for when this happens, but because this was a smaller house, it did not.  So for a few seconds we were plunged into complete blackness.  At first I was really freaked out, but I realized what we were singing (we hadn’t missed a beat in the song “Mighty to Save”) and I felt so comforted.  After those first few seconds, about three people hurried to the front to provide us with lights from their phones and flashlights.  It was so wonderful to feel their concern for us and to see them encouraging us to continue. 

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my last blog, bugs are everywhere.  And because the room was completely open to the outside, bugs started swarming to the lights of the cell phones and flashlights.  And because the light was pointing at the lyrics and sheet music from which we were reading (which I was unfortunately holding), bugs began to crawl all over the paper and all over me.  Now, I don’t consider myself to have a phobia of insects, but I just about lost it.  I struggled so hard to keep on singing and smiling, and, only by the grace of God, I was able to make it all the way through the song.  Thankfully that was our last song for the evening and I had a few minutes to compose myself before sharing my testimony. 

At first, I wanted to just give up right then and there, to leave the church and shake all of the bugs off of my clothes.  But instead I just grabbed the hands (tightly) of the girls around me and took a deep breath (possibly swallowing a bug in the process).  I knew that I could choose to leave the room and everyone around me would understand, but I didn’t want momentary discomfort to stop me from sharing my story, God’s story, with everyone there. 

So I stood up in the light of the phones and flashlights and shared the story of how God has worked in my life.  The congregation was so encouraging (saying  “Gloria a Dios” and “Hallelujah” throughout my testimony) and so welcoming to us all.  

It’s crazy to think that that church, which we lovingly refer to as Twilight Zone Church (because we still struggle to believe that it was actually real and not just some sort of initiation into missions), all the way down a pitch black path surrounded by palm trees worships the same God as my church at home.  But that is just how big God is!  He can’t be contained to the mega churches at home in Louisiana or to the hundreds of churches in Nashville where I go to school.  He is way bigger than my testimony and even my language and culture. 

And that, to me, is just about the niftiest and most humbling thing ever.