Muraho, friends and family of MCC. As we finished up our Lord’s day this evening, our minds were on you as you gathered for worship today. We’re hopeful that you met God in a special way today, as we did here in Rwanda. We apologize for not blogging yesterday. I will try to fill you in on what we have been doing the last two days, and then close with a strong take-away I have from this trip.
Yesterday ended up being a well-needed restful evening for the team. We had a chance to meet with the Shalom Choir again and work specifically on skills early in the day. Picture a small room with drum lessons going on in one corner and guitar and vocal lessons going on in another. It was quite the sight. We eventually moved the drums into the next room to make things a little saner. I had the joy of bopping between rooms with the video camera attempting to capture these priceless moments, and of course entertaining the children outside by showing them live video of themselves. It was an utter joy to see worshippers connect together and learning new things.
Today, we worshipped God with the people of the Hermon Church. This is the church that the Shalom Choir attends and also a church we met for the first time in August of 2008. The service was a mixture of singing, praying, welcoming, dancing, and teaching. During one of the meetings with the choir leaders this week, we discussed this idea of planning songs around the pastor’s message. This is a challenge for them as they don’t usually know what the pastor will speak about. However, for today, they asked OUR TEAM to bring the message this week- so we were able to plan the message to accompany the songs we had been working on with the choir. Nathan taught the first part of the message (Sundberg fam, you would have been soooo proud—don’t worry I got it on video) and Dan taught the second half. Dan’s conclusion led directly into the song we had taught this week in English and Kinyarwanda. So, as Dan wrapped up, the choir joined him to sing the simple lyrics “To worship you I live” or “Ndiho kukramya.” I don’t have words to express the beauty of that moment.
Later in the day, we had the blessing to be apart of a brick laying foundation for the Hermon Church, as they currently own land but do not have a building on it. Pastor Theophile wanted us to be present for this very special occasion. It was quite an honor very each of us to lay a brick in the cement alongside some courageous Rwandan pastors and church leaders.
In the evening, we were invited to attend a very large worship gathering as the biggest church in Kigali, Zion Temple. I’d estimate that there were about 10,000 Africans there from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. It was the closing ceremonies for their conference. After the singing and worshipping, we were amazed to watch a group from Burundi that I can only describe as drum-dance-musician-gymnasts. It was incredible. (Johnny, we were sure that if you were there you would have either simply fell down from shock or sold all of your belongings and moved to Burundi).
Yesterday ended up being a well-needed restful evening for the team. We had a chance to meet with the Shalom Choir again and work specifically on skills early in the day. Picture a small room with drum lessons going on in one corner and guitar and vocal lessons going on in another. It was quite the sight. We eventually moved the drums into the next room to make things a little saner. I had the joy of bopping between rooms with the video camera attempting to capture these priceless moments, and of course entertaining the children outside by showing them live video of themselves. It was an utter joy to see worshippers connect together and learning new things.
Today, we worshipped God with the people of the Hermon Church. This is the church that the Shalom Choir attends and also a church we met for the first time in August of 2008. The service was a mixture of singing, praying, welcoming, dancing, and teaching. During one of the meetings with the choir leaders this week, we discussed this idea of planning songs around the pastor’s message. This is a challenge for them as they don’t usually know what the pastor will speak about. However, for today, they asked OUR TEAM to bring the message this week- so we were able to plan the message to accompany the songs we had been working on with the choir. Nathan taught the first part of the message (Sundberg fam, you would have been soooo proud—don’t worry I got it on video) and Dan taught the second half. Dan’s conclusion led directly into the song we had taught this week in English and Kinyarwanda. So, as Dan wrapped up, the choir joined him to sing the simple lyrics “To worship you I live” or “Ndiho kukramya.” I don’t have words to express the beauty of that moment.
Later in the day, we had the blessing to be apart of a brick laying foundation for the Hermon Church, as they currently own land but do not have a building on it. Pastor Theophile wanted us to be present for this very special occasion. It was quite an honor very each of us to lay a brick in the cement alongside some courageous Rwandan pastors and church leaders.
In the evening, we were invited to attend a very large worship gathering as the biggest church in Kigali, Zion Temple. I’d estimate that there were about 10,000 Africans there from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. It was the closing ceremonies for their conference. After the singing and worshipping, we were amazed to watch a group from Burundi that I can only describe as drum-dance-musician-gymnasts. It was incredible. (Johnny, we were sure that if you were there you would have either simply fell down from shock or sold all of your belongings and moved to Burundi).
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