Undignified

I was sitting outside watching two little kids play when I wrote this. I had just gotten done showering outside with a bucket in the same place that we used for the bathroom. I spent a week at a camp for high school and college aged kids. There were about three hundred students including eight of us tubabos (white people). At first the week seemed like it was lasting forever, but as we got into our new routines and the simplicity of living with the Malians time started moving.

It was interesting to hear what their sessions were about, to listen to the students ask questions about the same issues we question. Pretty soon our differences although still apparent started diminishing as our similarities became more blatant. I learned a lot about what it means to live with the bare essentials, what hospitality and friendliness looks like, and about our faith. But the largest thing that I learned, the thing that blew me away and made me uncomfortable, sad and excited at the same time is the way that the Malians worshipped my God. In America we hum and sing our songs and we might smile or close our eyes, maybe we will even clap a little. In Mali I can honestly say that I witnessed worship with reckless abandonment. It didn’t matter what anyone else was doing, everyone had their own rhythm, their own clap, their own dance and movement. There was screaming, laughing, crying, praying. And while the tubabos stood in the back awkwardly shifting our weight from foot to foot and trying to find a beat to clap to my heart broke a little. The excitement, energy, and raw realness of these kids who were unaware of how foolish they might look made me feel so silly. They weren’t even unashamed because they didn’t even know what shame was. They were unaware. It was them and their God and the satisfaction and joy that they found in Him at that minute. They weren’t living in the past or the future, they were living and they were living with Him. So our worship times were dance parties. And while I felt completely out of place, I loved being in that place. At least on the edge of that place.

I have two more weeks in Bougouni, then some of us are heading back to Bamako to do our internship for three months with a local ministry. I’m excited to get my hands dirty and jump into this world. Before we go back we have one more class here on intercultural relationships. Our last one takes place in Bamako and it’s about church planting and evangelism.

I just got done running in the rain. With tomatoes, green onions, and butter. Courtney and I went to the market—grocery shopping. I felt the first rain drop. And in Africa, when it rains it pours. Really pours. So we sprinted back the half mile to the compound drenched and laughing in our flip flops and skirts. The Malians loved it. We suffered one casualty and there might be a little butter on the road, but we beat the clouds.

I will dance
I will sing
To be mad for my King
Nothing Lord is hindering
This passion in my soul

And I’ll become even more undignified than this
Some may say it’s foolishness
But I’ll become even more undignified than this
Lay my pride by my side

It’s all for you my Lord

-David Crowder Band