dancing…and living…in community

Those who know me well know that I recently (a couple of months before going to Mozambique) discovered a great love for partner dancing, along with a warm, welcoming and tightly-knit community of swing dancers here in Nashville.  I have been blessed to be getting to know and love this group even as I’ve fumbled and stumbled around the dance floor with my beginning lindy-hop skills.  As He tends to do, I saw the Lord use my new hobby to grow, challenge, and change me in many many unexpected ways.  On an individual level, I was challenged to see and know God in new ways through the nature of leading and following in a good dance.  Perhaps that’s not entirely unexpected.  But on a larger scale, I also began to see a community that functions in ways that I had rarely observed before.  I saw an assortment of people, brought together by the common ground of the dance floor, who genuinely loved and supported one another both in and outside of that one activity.  I saw men and women who were learning how to value and serve one another.  Most of all, though, I saw a group of people who had loads of fun together, and who with open arms invited anyone and everyone to join in. 

At a time when I needed community—and fun—more than ever before, I quickly became deeply grateful for all the ways this community enriched my life.  Let me say that I am intimately connected with my church family here, daily supported, challenged, and encouraged by my spiritual brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.  In fact, I could not have made it through a crucible of a year without them.  But God simply began to broaden my perspective of what community is and how a community functions—and He did this outside of the church, which planted in me a hunger to see some of those dynamics develop within the Body of Christ.  Then, as I went to Mozambique, where I “lived in community” for 3 months, without time or space to myself, surrounded and supported and challenged by other Holy Given students and the broader, group-oriented culture, I found myself continuing to seek out and ask questions about this thing called community…and, it turned out, its connection to dance.

A close friend, talking about music, dance, and culture, said to me that in “its best and truest form a dance is a way to really explore, appreciate, and respond to a piece of music with someone else.  Being able to share and…experience the music with another person is an amazing process…And just like music, dancing can transcend language.”  There is something intangibly beautiful in our ability as human beings to create and appreciate music and then dance in response to it, and I think this is true not only in partner dancing but also in worship.  On my first Sunday in Pemba, as we were having church under the circus tent, the worship leader took a moment to explain to us visiting Westerners that in Africa, people dance in church.  And dance we did.  As the music changed to a more African beat and style, the sea of people began to pulse and move as one organism.  Eager dancers gathered in the front—as many as could possibly squeeze into the available space—to dance and lead together.  Some songs had certain repetitive patterns while others were led impromptu, the steps changing every few phrases.   Think Electric Slide but more fluid and spontaneous, with endless variety and opportunity for improvisation.

I immediately fell in love with the community aspect to the dancing there.  Everyone was joyful, jumping and moving as one—old and young, men and women, white and black.  Whereas Western-style worship to me reflects Western culture as it generally facilitates individual experiences with God and invites the individual to enter into the Presence of the Lord within the larger group, the dancing worship that so captured my heart in Africa brought the whole community together as we moved in unison, watching and learning from each other, laughing together, sweating together, praising God with our bodies.  It took something that is a natural expression of humanity and brought it into the Holy of Holies, where it became an intangibly beautiful, communal expression of the joy and redemption of the Lord.

“Sing to the Lord a new song

            his praise in the assembly of the saints.

Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;

            Let the people of Zion be glad in their King

Let them praise his name with dancing

            And make music to him with tambourine and harp.

For the Lord takes delight in his people;

            He crowns the humble with salvation.”

~Psalm 149:1-4

Church Without Walls

25 People, 13 Days, 11 Villages: One Purpose

It is impossible to convey in one email all that I saw the Lord do and all I learned about His character and Kingdom during two weeks in the bush. Really, I’m finding it impossible to put into words at all. But I will try to tell some of my favorite stories here. Please don’t hesitate to ask me questions or ask for more stories—I can’t promise I’ll have answers (as I’m finding I generally have many more questions than answers) or even make sense, but I will try my best.

First let me tell you about the night we ate road kill for dinner. Yes, that’s right. Procured from the side of the road while in transit to one of the last villages we visited, totally flattened but with fur, head, and paws intact. Ratazon, we were told, of the Porko family. I’m still not entirely sure what animal it was, but I can tell you that it decidedly did not taste like chicken. This, in my opinion, totally beats the goat.

All food aside, extended outreach pushed all of us to our limits and beyond. It was physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting, challenging and stretching my faith and dependence on God in countless ways. It was the closest thing I have ever witnessed to the book of Acts, lived out in the world today. I saw the Kingdom of God at hand as a lame man was healed and danced for joy before His new-found Savior; as a 4-year-old deaf girl heard her name spoken after two years of silence; as a young boy moved his paralyzed hand for the first time; as fevers broke, headaches left, and stomach pain retreated when we proclaimed the all-powerful Name of the Jesus. I saw the Kingdom at hand as mothers repented of witchcraft and cut fetishes off their children, as the light of life and salvation came into the eyes of the demonized when they were delivered from darkness and oppression; as men, women, and children were saved, healed, and set free.

One of the most eye-opening parts of this experience was seeing a completely integrated medical model at work, treating the physical and spiritual as intimately interconnected. As I’m sure you can imagine, this approach to medical care is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the West and it challenged many of my worldviews and assumptions. Dr. Angela, who is from the UK, led the medical team and welcomed me to join them part-way through the trip to help distribute worm medicine and pray over the children in each village. Dr. Angela’s heart is to take medical care out into the community, to people who have no access to doctors or hospitals. For the average Mozambican who is sick or injured, the witch doctor is the most widely accepted (and often only) place to turn. But when people see the greater power of Jesus at work as He heals their bodies and breathes life into their spirits, a world free from fear and oppression is opened up to them.

In each village, we worked in pairs or teams of 3 giving worm medicine (de-worming) the children and praying over each one. In doing this, we proclaimed life, healing and salvation in the Name of Jesus, laying hands on each child and praying as the Holy Spirit directed. Meanwhile, Dr. Angela would see adults needing medical care. Before treating anything, though, she and her team (with interpreters to help with communication) talked with each patient, finding out their history and spiritual state and praying with them, sometimes leading them to salvation and/or through prayers of repentance. A large majority of the time, Dr. Angela wouldn’t distribute any medication or treatment of any kind because the person would be supernaturally healed and/or delivered! Other times, when the line outside the medical tent was too long and it was getting dark, we would just start praying for people who weren’t going to get to see Dr. Angela and they would be healed, not needing to see her after all. It was beautiful to see the joy of the Lord fill people as they experienced His healing touch and loving Presence for the first time. In one village, Octavia (from the US) and I were praying, along with an interpreter, for a woman who complained of many ailments, including headache and chronic, intense stomach pain. Her headache left completely when we prayed, but the stomach pain did not. As we spoke with her, she eventually said that she had performed 3 abortions on herself in years past, after which the abdominal pain had started. As we led her through prayers of repentance, we watched as the Lord assured her of His love and forgiveness and filled her with new life. Her whole countenance changed, God’s immense joy bubbling up in her. Of course, her abdominal pain left. But the greater miracle there was in the deeper work God did in this woman’s heart and spirit.

Another aspect of this extended outreach that had a significant impact on me was watching how God knit our team together, molding us into one body—Western missionaries and Mozambicans together—that lived and worked in unity. Let me assure you, this was a hard-fought and difficult process that involved plenty of cultural differences and interpersonal conflict, miscommunications and misunderstandings. But as the Lord brought each of us through the breaking process of dying to ourselves, He brought us into unity and we began to experience true community, in order to let the world know that the Father sent His Son and has loved them even as He has loved Jesus (John 17:23).

There is much more I could say about those 2 weeks of outreach (I have come to the conclusion that 1 day on outreach in the bush is like a month in the real world). Mostly, though, I have come back eager to see the Kingdom of God as powerfully evident in the West as what I saw in Africa, to live out in new depths this faith in Jesus. After all, it is the same God, the same power at work in all of us who believe.

HG5: Day 31

It poured the night before, torrents of rain pounding the dirt into red clay that quickly formed streams all over the base. A physical precursor of what was about to happen spiritually, we see reminders of the rain in the wet clay as we sit under the battered green and white circus tent, ready for our morning sessions. After the day’s Portuguese lesson and a few quick announcements–reminders about medical protocol and safety guidelines, information about outreach teams and Saturday’s massive wedding feast, a quick overview of the day’s events–we begin almost on time with worship. The day’s team includes Holy Given students on guitar, drum, and vocals, one of the Holy Given staff on the keyboard, and a visitor on the violin, along with those who are monitoring the sound, holding microphones for musicians, and keeping music from blowing away. Before long, there’s a dancer on the stage and several others on the far side of the tent, worshiping with silent grace. Painters praise the Creator in line, shape and color while the rest of us lift our voices together. Some weep with new revelation of God’s compassion while others laugh with the joy of our salvation. Whether on our knees, faces to the ground, or on our feet, arms stretched upward, everyone knows there is freedom. Freedom to be wherever we are and to do whatever the Holy Spirit leads. As worship continues, we pray for each other, seeing healing and deliverance. We read Scriptures and speak words of prophecy and encouragement privately and over the microphone. The Presence of the Lord is almost tangible, covering us like that ever-present layer of red dust we have grown accustomed to here. Lesley-Anne teaches the first session of the day, challenging us to read Luke and Acts through the eyes of the poor and marginalized, interpreting Scripture “from the underside”. We discuss the passage that was given as homework the previous day and last week’s movie, passing the microphone around to gain insight and revelation from each other. Lesley-Anne draws from both research and her own experience as a missionary to several different nations to nudge, stretch, and challenge us and to give us principles for living lives of incarnational love. As the goal is always to learn and to live in the present experience of the Living God rather than simply to fill our heads with knowledge, teaching always leads to times of ministry, during which the Holy Spirit makes real and applicable and current those ideas and principles that will build the foundation of our lives and actions as missionaries. This morning, Lesley-Anne has something powerfully significant in mind to do. It will be pivotal for many of us.

Shampa grew up in the slums of Calcutta, Jonathan in the United States. Together with their two children, they have planted churches all over Northern India. Yesterday, the Lord spoke to Shampa about motherhood and the mother heart of God, about being a mother to many and raising up spiritual sons and daughters all over the world. This morning, Jonathan and Shampa will adopt us all. One by one, they lay hands on each of us, giving father’s and mother’s blessings and welcoming us into their spiritual family. The Holy Spirit begins to work as they both physically and symbolically demonstrate love and acceptance to many who have been rejected by our own families, who don’t understand our faith or our callings. Eventually, Shampa picks up the microphone. Voice choked with tears, she looks us in the eye and asks for forgiveness. She repents on behalf of our own mothers for the ways she has failed us, for the ways she has failed to accurately represent God to us. Also overcome with the power and emotion of the moment, Jonathan takes the microphone, asking for forgiveness on behalf of our fathers. Like the Old Testament prophets who repented on behalf of their nation, Jonathan and Shampa stand in the gap to us. For some students, this is the first time they have ever faced the pain and hurt they have carried from abuse and rejection by their fathers and mothers. This is the first time they have ever forgiven, the first time they have ever opened the wounds to the Lord’s cleansing, healing touch. For others, forgiveness has already been given, their healing and deliverance already in progress. For these, Shampa’s and Jonathan’s repentence has a restorative nature, bringing completion and restoration to places that were broken. All over the tent, we hold each other and pray for each other, casting out demons, breaking generational curses, offering support and safety as we walk together through incredibly difficult places.

Compelled to action and understanding the power of identificational repentence, students begin speaking to Shampa and Jonathan as their mother and father. Some who were given up for adoption as babies forgive Shampa, on behalf of their own mothers, for abandoning them, repenting and asking her forgiveness for their own hatred and bitterness. One college-age guy, whose mother died two days ago, forgives Shampa for not being involved in his life and tells her goodbye. Women who were molested by their fathers forgive Jonathan for abusing them, releasing him on behalf of their own fathers. Face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath, one by one, Jonathan and Shampa weep and repent for rejection and neglect and abuse as men and women of many ages and from many nations speak out forgiveness. Face to face, breath to breath. Time has slipped by and lunch is being served, but no one leaves. The power and presence of God is too strong, the value of these moments too great.

When she can’t wait any longer, when the power of the Holy Spirit in her becomes stronger than the wrenching pain, Andrea kneels in front of Jonathan and takes the microphone. She is weeping and immediately the rest of us move to surround her, laying our hands on her back as she breaks down half-way through her first sentence. We pray in tongues, covering her back, imparting the strength to push through. She looks up again into Jonathan’s eyes, repenting, asking for forgiveness, forgiving. Tears spilling, he places his hand on her head and blesses her as her father. Lesley-Anne begins putting flowers in Andrea’s hair, forming a crown. “You are crowned with honor and glory,” she says. “You are crowned with honor and glory,” Jonathan repeats, “Holy and blameless and pure. You are crowned with honor and glory.” Lesley-Anne adorns her head as someone else brings a golden shawl to wrap around her shoulders. We speak words of life to Andrea, reminding her who she is. Surrounded by this great cloud of witness, she stands–a daughter of the King, crowned with his glory, and a pure and spotless bride, clothed in his riches.

As Andrea rises to her feet, we are struck by the weight of the moment. Through Jonathan and Shampa, the Father to the Fatherless released to us the spirit of adoption. Turning the heart of a father to his sons and daughters and the heart of a mother to her children, the Spirit of God gave us the wholeness of first-born children, co-heirs with Christ. The old passed away and the new came. Out of this wholeness and by the same Spirit we will go and bring healing to the nations, adopting the motherless and fatherless as our own sons and daughters. Out of this wholeness, we will go with the ministry of reconciliation as we live the cross and Christ crucified.

Out to the Bush Bush

Our departure time was 10am on Friday. So, of course, we pulled out of the base, piled into the back of a flatbed truck with bags, tents, sound equipment, a generator, and flood lights, around 12:30pm. After an hour’s worth of stops in Pemba (the reasons for most of which remain unknown), we were off to the African Bush. Our team’s drive was shorter than most, estimated to be just around 2 hours. Eight Holy Given students, all Westerners, joined 5 Mozambican student pastors and 2 of the older youth from the village next to the Pemba base, together with Edgar, our team leader (who is Mozambican and teaches in the Bible school), his new wife Carla (4 weeks married), and the driver. Just before leaving Pemba, we picked up a Mozambican woman and her baby, who we dropped off in one of the villages along the way. Paved roads ran out quickly, leaving the majority of the jarring trip on dirt roads that were in progressively worse shape, riddled with massive bumps and potholes. Eventually, the dirt roads ran out as well, so we spent the last half hour driving over a dirt walking path, at which point we really missed those dirt roads! The varied scenery was striking with a raw, untamed sort of beauty that reminds you of the wild, free nature of our Creator God. Throughout the journey, almost anyone we passed, especially children, pointed and yelled “Acunya! Acunya! (White person! White person!)” and laughed, jumping up and down, if we waved at them. Our passing was quite the event, especially the further out we travelled.

 

About an hour past the last place with electricity, we reached a small forgotten village of mud huts. The nearly dry river about 15 minutes’ walk from the village center provides the people’s only water source, as they don’t have a well. There’s absolutely no access to medical care for this village, and malnutrition, worms, scabies, and other treatable diseases are immediately apparent and widespread among the people there. They are at the end of the line–beyond their homes is forest and ocean. The spiritual atmosphere was heavy and dark, and everyone could sense the oppression right away. Edgar explained later that we were the first outreach team ever to go to that village, which is in a Moslem area, and that it was quite a miracle that the Moslem chief let us come in the first place. As in most of Mozambique, witchcraft is commonly mixed with Islam, and in addition to the chief, the Witch Doctor is a central figure in community life. Less than a year ago, a prominant man, who had served in the Army in Maputo, returned to the village along with his wife to plant a church. They had become believers while in Maputo and felt the Lord asking them to return to their home, where this man refused the community’s offer to become the new chief, choosing to pastor the people instead.

 

 

 

Outreach in the Bush means sleeping in tents, cooking over fires (of course, the locals cook over fires every day), and eating with your hands (as I forgot to bring a fork; also something the locals do every day). It means no bathing, lots of dirt, and lots of hand sanitizer. For me, it meant learning how to chop, season, and cook a goat–an entire goat. It also meant eating goat stomach, liver, and heart, which are considered to be the best parts. It meant sitting with the women on Saturday afternoon, sorting rice and learning Makuan songs, laughing as we tried to communicate with each other. It meant singing and dancing with the people in the shade during the day and under the stars (more stars than I’ve ever seen before) at night. Unfortunately, it also meant waking up at 4:30 each morning, when the rooster that was tied to our tent began crowing. Why that rooster, along with a chicken, was tied to our tent all weekend remains a mystery. It was fun, though, when they would squak and flap and jump around in the middle of the night. They would hit the side of the tent, all 3 of us inside would wake up, I would scream, and we would have to check and make sure they weren’t inside the tent. Then the crowing would begin, before the sun had even begun to rise.

 

 

Outreach in the Bush also means seeing God at work in beautiful ways. We showed the Jesus film in Makua both Friday and Saturday nights, preaching and praying for people afterward. Amazingly, the chief gave us permission to walk around the village praying for people on Saturday morning as well. Over those 3 days, we saw many people accept Jesus, choosing Him over their idols and fetishes. We saw people healed and set free. One of the sweetest moments for me was Sunday morning, when a woman whose baby we had prayed for the previous afternoon came back overflowing with excitement and joy to tell us that her baby, who had been visibly ill, was well when she woke up that morning. We prayed for lots and lots of sick babies (the infant mortality rate in Mozambique is very high, and 4 out of 5 children don’t make it past 6 years old). What a joy to see this woman’s new hope for the future. We joined the growing congregation for a service on Sunday morning, held in front of the pastor’s house. The chief came to observe, along with many others. It was a beautiful thing to see new believers, beginning to experience the joy of His salvation, worship Jesus alongside other believers from the village, student pastors and Western mission students. It was a beautiful thing to hear the pastor’s wife talk about how encouraged they were by our coming, how supported they felt when they are normally so cut off from the outside world. To me, this is the most lasting fruit of outreach, as it’s the pastor and other believers in the village who daily carry on bringing the light and salvation of the Lord to that little corner of creation.

Meal Time at Iris

Breakfast (a roll and hot tea) is served sometime around 6:00 or 7:00ish, whenever you hear the sound of the “bell” (which is the metal part of an old tire, hung by rope). Lunch is around 12:30 or 1:00ish and dinner is in the ballpark of 5:30. All times and schedules are highly flexible here–because This is Africa (TIA, a catch phrase here)–and all promised times should be followed by “ish” and remain subject to change, if the event happens at all.

When a meal is served, it is served to several hundred people at once, including about 200 Mozambiquan pastors who are here in Bible School, heaps of Iris children, Holy Given students, and any visitors (short-term teams and missionaries from around the world). The dining hall is a large cinder block building with a tin roof, like most of the other buildings on the base. The floor is mosaic white tile and wooden benches loosely form three rows front to back, facing the kitchen. There are no tables, and not nearly enough benches for everyone.

The Mozambiquan pastors are always served first, by several of the older Iris boys. The pastors sit together in groups on one side of the room or on the floor and the boys carry plates of food two by two until everyone is served. After the pastors have all received food, the children and the visitors are given their plates. There seems to be some semblence of a system for serving the kids, who will all sit together in rows on the benches until they receive their plates–sometimes. After the pastors are served, the kids might begin to gather, if they’re not too busy talking to the Westerners, teaching them Portuguese and Makua, giving high fives, and playing with hair.

Most Mozambiquans eat with their fingers. Some of the pastors have a spoon or fork that they bring with them at meal time. Holy Given students and visitors are advised to bring a spoon or fork with them to meals, which most choose to do. The kids all eat with their hands. Meals generally consist of rice with something on time: goat, fish, beans, spinach gulash, chicken innards…if you don’t know what it is, it’s probably best not to ask. The pile of rice on each plate is way to much to finish, so when you can’t eat any more, you give your plate (but remember to keep your fork!) to one of the kids or to one of the women in charge. Near the end of meal times, the village kids, who are fed lunch each day in a different area on the base (because they were terrorizing the Iris kids with rocks and knives), will start filling plastic bags with leftover rice, which they will take home.

Meal times are long, and rather chaotic. Over the course of an hour and a half to two hours, people wander in and out, eat, talk, play with the kids. There are always children everywhere, running around and making friends with the visitors. The dining hall is noisy, and there’s always rice scattered over the benches and the floor. THe children like to see if you can remember their names from day to day, and any Portuguese or Makua phrases they’ve taught you. They’re quick to give hugs, sit in laps, and climb on backs. The activity never ends.

Eventually, everyone has eaten and wandered out, back to their respective activities. But for a couple of hours, worlds have collided and cultures have intersected. Westerners have had to remind themselves that, although they might do things differently, hold to set schedules and create efficient systems, their ways are not necessarily better–just different. These differences are based in culture and are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong. Iris kids (who are never called orphans because they are no longer without a home and a family) have played and talked with people of all ages and races and nationalities who look, speak, and act differently than they. And they have hopefully been discouraged again from having a “beggar mentality” toward these rich Westerners. It is difficult to look a child in the face and say no, you can’t have my shoes or my shirt or my sunglasses. But Iris is committed to teaching the children not to love people only for what they can give them. There will be times for gift-giving, but not at daily meals.

For a couple of hours, relatively wealthy Westerners, who are accustomed to dining with chairs and tables, silverware and napkins and air conditioning, have shared a meal with Mozambiquan pastors, many of whom have left families in the poorest villages in one of the poorest nations on earth to follow Jesus and to get some training so they can go back and pastor their villages or go as evangelists into other parts of Mozambique. For a couple of hours, nations have come together and those “who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ…our peace, who has made the two one and destroyed the barriers, the dividing wall of hostility.”