Maybe God Is Trying To Tell You Something

Sunday June 16^th

I could barely sleep last night. I just tossed and turned even with sleeping pills. Jetlag? New environment? Nerves? All of the above. My mind couldn’t stop racing from everything that has happened and everything yet to come.

I helped Sisanda make breakfast. She made these delicious sweet biscuits, some she would bake and some she was fry, yet they tasted almost exactly the same. People from the community would pop in every once in a while to buy her popular biscuits. I helped cut up the potatoes for hash brown fries as Sema helped point out to me the ones that I missed.

I help mix up eggs while Sisanda walked over and added a TON of salt. I saw chicken feet and heads thawing out on the counter and wondered if that was our dinner.

We are and then got ready for Church. Today is a National holiday celebrating and remembering youth. In the 70’s a group of students went on strike and refused to learn their lessons in Afrikan, they wanted to learn them in English. During the rally they were shot and killed.

Church was indescribable. I don’t really consider myself a religious person. I grew up being told about God, Christianity and being given guilt tripping looks from my grandmother about going with her every Sunday but somewhere along the line I lost faith. I remember praying when I was younger and really believing. I remember really feeling something. But looking back now I wonder if it was just because I was told I was supposed to feel something so that’s why I did. I remember the few times I went when I was older thinking, worshipping, praising isn’t supposed to be like this.

Sitting in a pew and being talked at about how bad and wrong I was, how much I’ve sinned and how I will go to hell if I was not baptized, if was gay or if I was any other religion other than Christianity. “How could God be all loving if that is what he truly believed?” I wondered. Being told that dancing could be lustful and tempting when in my mind dancing can be nothing but pure celebration and praise.

Feeling like a zombie barely staying awake and thinking this can’t be the spiritual connection that everyone talks about and searches for because I sure don’t feel it.

Going to church today with my host family was like a scene straight up out of “The Color Purple” (one of my favorite movies of all time btw and if you haven’t seen it, you need to and then you will understand the title of this entries)

Half of the service I couldn’t understand what was being said but I sure felt it. Tons of people from the community crammed into this small run down building with plastic chairs, a few speakers, a drum set, some microphones and a portable piano all raising their voices up in praise of something that they believed in.

Whether the word God resonates with me or not it was beyond words. Beyond beautiful. Singing, praising, dancing, sobbing, chanting, praying, and all I could was cry. I was fighting back tears before I even knew what or why I was feeling. I can’t even really explain it now.

Maybe being there made me feel connected with the spirit of my grandmother –bringing back memories of when I used to go to church and singings with her, maybe it was just being in pure awe of that much love, praise and positive energy being in a one place at one time - it was overwhelming.

It didn’t matter if I believed in what they believed in, if I praised what they praised, they were all there united in love, community and faith. Seeing that many people, people that most would consider poor and unfortunate, united in faith, pure faith and love for this higher power, this source, this person that they have never “seen” was so breathtaking.

At first I held back the tears until I looked around and saw no one cared. No one was judging me. No one was standing up and saying that I should be experiencing this presence of love in any other way than it was showing up for me right now.

After church some of the teen boy community organizers (community members that help connect us with members of the community as well as translate and do many other things) showed me around the community. I cannot explain how welcomed I’ve felt from everyone since the moment I arrived. Kids, Elders, every community member staring, coming up and saying hello. Just wanting to shake my head even if they don’t speak any English.

Children coming up to me and immediately holding my hand. What trust they have for this strange, bald, white chick that they’ve never seen before. Decide, he told me to call him Chris (he sat next to me and translated most of the sermons) said “People in the community aren’t used to seeing white people before. So when they see you it’s like ‘WOW, how beautiful!’” Quiet (my community organizer who is anything but) added  “It’s like all day every day we see planes but then a helicopter comes and we get so excited!”