Friday Nights...out to 1 am?!?!

Tehela is group of people who get together on Friday nights. One of my roommates, Delicia, has an amazing voice so she goes and sings with them every week. But this isn't a normal worship, they are dedicated to worshiping God on friday nights!!

But its amazing to see all the people from churches all over Dar just worshipping and singing, praising, praying for HOURS on EVERY Friday night.

As soon as I walked in, you could just feel the presence of the Lord in the room. There are very few times in my life that I can actually say that I knew God was present, but also felt his close presence like this.

The musicians are so fun to watch. Mom said before (we had gone to one before when she was here) Delicia’s face transforms when she sings. And it is so true. All of the musicians and singers just flow together as one and really just allow God to take over. It is a lot of fun. By the end of the worship time, I was jumping, dancing, singing…it was the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t have a choice but to just throw myself into worship.

A missionary, Shaun, did the preaching that night. One thing he asked really struck me. His question was, “Who did Jesus hang out with? He was always getting himself in trouble with the Pharisees because he was hanging out with drunkards, thieves, prostitutes, etc…. Then Shaun asked, “How many people do you know like that?” And it threw me so much because my gut reaction to that question was, “No one of course! I wouldn’t hang out with people like that!”

Shaun said, “Most of you probably answered, not that many.” But even thousands of years later, we are still rejecting the same people from our society! Amazing that we can have the word with us for so long and still be so blind. Yet these are the very people who need to hear about the love of Christ that breaks the bondage of sin. Talk about conviction…now it’s a matter of what to do about it.

The hard part of the evening is how long it goes on for! Starting your day at 5:30 and ending it after 2 am isn’t really easy. Michelle, Naomi, and I made it to midnight…everyone else starting worshiping again, but our bodies were done! So we headed home. Delicia finally rolled in around 1:30 am. Not really sure how she does it!

It does make me understand how important it is to be doing the thing that God has designed for you to do. You can see it in the way she serves while she sings. She was made for singing for the Lord. I feel the same way when I’m teaching. Only..I don’t sound as good as she does! Not fair.

:-)