All-Night Worship

Last night I went with a few friends (two Kenyans and two people from my group) to a truly African experience: AFLEWO, Africa Let’s Worship, an all-night praise service with over 10,000 people. The event was held in a large church just outside of Nairobi in the town of Karen. There were a few white missionaries there in the beginning, but by midnight I was the only white person still around (besides a 64 year-old woman dancing in the choir). We sang songs in both English and Swahili, with lights on and off, dancing and swaying, standing or sitting. I was so thankful to be with so many other (mostly) young people worshipping the Lord in their own unique way.

And yet I could not help but feel out of place. I don’t think it was so much my whiteness- people weren’t staring at me, even though I was horribly off-rhythm. The words we sang were familiar but the tune was different. I was also really tired, semi-sleeping in a sitting position for about four of the nine hours we were there (9pm-6am). For whatever reason, I was not able to feel comfortable and therefore was not able to fully relax and worship.

We were told at one point that many of the worship experiences here would be vastly different from home, and that it was very important to keep up our personal devotions in order to maintain a real and relevant relationship with God. I’m finding that to be all to true as I struggle to find outlets of expressing praise and adoration to the Lord. If I am here as a missionary– to serve these people in whatever way I can, even if it’s only to listen– I feel like I must have a very real and worshipful connection to the one in whose name I come. Is it my own unwillingness to let go into the unknown? Or is something so different about the faith here that I cannot connect? To prayer I go.