Learning to Pray Out Loud

As we sat down in church on Sunday and sang hymns (in Kiswahili. My favorite is the Kiswahili version of "Nothing But the Blood."), Pastor Zac leaned over to George and said "My phone didn't work yesterday so I couldn't call you, but you are preaching today." If he were talking to me, my first reaction would be to panic and say "I can't. I am not prepared." That is because, preaching is not my gift and because.... I am a chicken sometimes. Once I calmed down, I would be sending flare prayers up to the Lord saying...."what do you want me to say!!!! Help!!!!" and frantically flipping through my Bible. George simply said "ok." George is gifted in speaking and I am always impressed and inspired by him. He is always ready to teach. He went on to teach from Philippians about having the attitude of Christ. After, Pastor Zac said "It's good I couldn't call yesterday because he would have prepared something different, but today that was the message the Holy Spirit wanted us to hear." Amen.

It was an interesting Sunday for me for another reason. I learned to pray out loud in church. That may sound weird so let me explain. In many churches here, there is time for prayer in a church service. That's not the weird thing. At the churches I attended in the US, there was time for prayer too, but we prayed individually, silently. Here, that prayer time is LOUD. Everyone prays out loud...loudly... all at once. When I first experienced that, it freaked me out and made me uncomfortable. Because they are praying in Kiswahili, it sounded strange to me, almost like everyone was speaking in tongues. Which again, isn't weird to some, but for me, I am not used to that. It stopped freaking me out after a while, but I still felt uncomfortable and distracted. I tried to pray silently to myself while everyone else was praying out loud, but I could never focus. I couldn't block out all the voices around me. So I usually ended up humming a song quietly, trying to get in the spirit of worship that way. This past Sunday, I found myself once again unable to pray and something made me think, let me just try speaking out loud too. So in a small voice, almost whisper, I began to pray. Low and behold, I was able to focus on my prayer to the Lord. I was amazed! Now I understood how they all could pray so passionately out loud. It works. I am not a loud person so I will not be someone shouting my prayers, but I can speak them quietly and be able to focus on the Lord. It was a big revelation for me... only two years in the making! I am so glad because it's part of the culture and I really struggled with it. Now, I can embrace it.