Thoughts from Jake

This morning I led worship along side an incredible team of Ugandan worship leaders at Gaba Community Church.  It was without a doubt one of the coolest experiences I have had leading worship.  The first service was English speaking.  We played songs that we would play at my home church in North Carolina.  The congregation was ready to sing... and dance.  I am sure I was cheesin’ the whole time.  I just could not stop smiling.  People jumped, fist pumped, and shouted.  God was glorified and it was so fun.  The second service was English translated into Llugandan.  I was told that we would be doing a few extra songs this service that we had not done in the first service.  When it came time to play the first “new song”, I literally had to stop playing.  I could not help but step back and just watch what was unfolding.  They began to play a few songs that were being sung in Llugandan.  I do not speak Llugandan.  I had absolutely no idea what was being sung, yet it was so beautiful.  I loved seeing and hearing a church pouring themselves out to the God of the universe in their own language.  It was definitely heaven-practice.  Oh man, I can’t wait for that day.

This is my first time in Africa.  I have done a fair bit of traveling in my short, 21 year old life, experiencing places such as China, Thailand, Malaysia, Czech Republic, and more.  I can remember going into China for the first time and being completely taken back by how different the culture was.  I am not going to say that I was “shocked” upon arriving in Kampala and the first few days that I have spent here.  And that may be the saddest part for me.  I knew I would see a third world country.  I knew I would see poverty.  I knew I would encounter the motherless and fatherless.  We hear these stories all of the time.  We read the articles and the blogs (perhaps like the one you are reading right now), and friends who have gone on trips to places like Uganda bring back incredible tales of what they saw, heard, and did.  But we do not see the faces.  As a musician, for me it is the difference between singing a song someone else wrote, and then singing a song you wrote and hearing people sing along with you.  It is personal and that is the way God intended our relationships to be.  Romans 12:15 tells us to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”  There is nothing more compelling than to watch someone’s non-verbal expressions and to hear with your own ears while they tell you there life story.  Today, a boy came up to me to show me a song he wrote called “Testimony.”  He explained to me that he has nothing but his testimony.  We can get into the theological implications of that statement, but I understood what he meant.  He spoke of his story of redemption and how God pursued him and gave him new life.  It was personal to him.  That’s how our relationships should be.  That’s how God wired us to be.

I needed to be shown this.  I needed to be reminded that sometimes I need to be less big-picture minded.  The intricacies of the stories and the small parts of life are important.  They give the validity to those life stories.  I am learning that my efforts, too, sometimes need to be less big-picture minded.  Sometimes the “scrub the floor with a toothbrush” type of work and effort is necessary and not something that I need to hand off to someone else.  Why? Because it leads to a better appreciation of the outcome.  It is not a bad thing to get your hands dirty.  When we step into the trenches with a fellow person in this place called our world, and we see the intricacies and we see the lines in their faces and we see the burdens that they carry. Only then can we give back the appropriate love that is less about a statistic and more because they are a brother or sister. 

*Please excuse any typos due to jet lag and late nights..From this blog and past ones....thanks to my "spellchecker" Stephen.