When we first arrived at our boma in Turkana we immediately began building relationships with the discipleship students and their families. We were all somewhat frustrated by the language barrier at first. We had so much to say to these people and so much we wanted to hear from them. Over time God showed us how to express His love without words. Whenever we did have the help of a translator, we would often have to elicit the help of two: one to translate Turkanan to Swahili, the next to translate Swahili to English. It certainly gave us enough time to think about what we wanted to say next!
The next morning we began what would become a daily routine for everyone. All three teams would meet down by the riverbed (with no river of course) for prayer, fellowship, and worship. We would take turns with the discipleship team leading worship. We were blown away by the intensity and joyfulness of their worship, which was only produced by the sound of their hands and voices. Funny how with even our ipod and speakers our worship didn't hold a candle to theirs at first. God sure blessed Africans with such a natural gift for music. A lot of us agreed that we had never heard such beautiful worship before...even without all the expensive lights, instruments, screens, and sound equipment!
Oh and the prayer time...you want to talk about breaking language barriers? The teams would take turns praying and man was it powerful! We would have no idea what the other team was saying (or shouting) when they were praying but boy could you FEEL it. I think I speak for more than myself when I say I would be covered in goosebumps by the time we were finished. It was truly an example of Matthew 18:20 when Jesus says "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be in the midst of them"...no matter what languages they are speaking! And it was even more powerful to see the circle that we would form every morning go from a circle of thre
e teams to a ONE tea
m circle.
When we first arrived at our boma in Turkana we immediately began building relationships with the discipleship students and their families. We were all somewhat frustrated by the language barrier at first. We had so much to say to these people and so much we wanted to hear from them. Over time God showed us how to express His love without words. Whenever we did have the help of a translator, we would often have to elicit the help of two: one to translate Turkanan to Swahili, the next to translate Swahili to English. It certainly gave us enough time to think about what we wanted to say next!
The next morning we began what would become a daily routine for everyone. All three teams would meet down by the riverbed (with no river of course) for prayer, fellowship, and worship. We would take turns with the discipleship team leading worship. We were blown away by the intensity and joyfulness of their worship, which was only produced by the sound of their hands and voices. Funny how with even our ipod and speakers our worship didn't hold a candle to theirs at first. God sure blessed Africans with such a natural gift for music. A lot of us agreed that we had never heard such beautiful worship before...even without all the expensive lights, instruments, screens, and sound equipment!
Oh and the prayer time...you want to talk about breaking language barriers? The teams would take turns praying and man was it powerful! We would have no idea what the other team was saying (or shouting) when they were praying but boy could you FEEL it. I think I speak for more than myself when I say I would be covered in goosebumps by the time we were finished. It was truly an example of Matthew 18:20 when Jesus says "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be in the midst of them"...no matter what languages they are speaking! And it was even more powerful to see the circle that we would form every morning go from a circle of thre
e teams to a ONE tea
m circle.
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