What's in a voice?

Pittsburgh, PA NLDS Game 3 (October 2013)

What's in a voice?

I have known the sound of nothing so long

Since I was just a flutter

from the tenderness of her "shhhhh...."

to the distress of her "[sigh]......"

from the stern holler of "HEIDI!!!"

to the delight of "Heidikins!....."

her inquisitive questions

her seldom shared life suggestions

There's reason

There's reassurance

There's familiarity

There's functionality

There's correction

There's compassion

There's conversation

Then it creaks and groans and slows...

threatening to halt

A word here, a throat cleared there

I want to pull it back

back from the ALS abyss

A voice, you say?

Would by any other name sound so sweet?

Not hers.

It's just a name - letters, sounds, syllables - you say?

Yes, but it's hers.

It's just a body - bones, muscles, joints - you say?

Yes but it's hers.

It's just a voice - tones, pitches, vibrations - you say?

Yes, but it's hers.

God made this name, this body, this voice.

and He made them hers.

He made my name, my body, my voice.

and He made them hers.

What's in a voice, you say?

It's hers.

Susie

"Hello, is Susie there?" - anonymous caller to 5445 Kincaid St., Pittsburgh, PA ~ circa 1985

"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number." ~ 6 yo Heidi, sure that there was no one by the name of "susie" living at our number.
Sue? yes, but Susie? no.  Turns out it was my aunt Cynthia, calling for my mom, who at the time went by Sue, but back in the day was known by her family and others as Susie.  And these days she's known as Susan.
whoops.

Yesterday was "Susie's" birthday.  She spent it in the black Honda Civic with her hubby of 37 years,

Labor Day Weekend 201

driving across the flat plains of IL, IN, and OH headed for Pittsburgh, the first stopover on their much needed R&R trip to a family favorite, Maine.  If there's one thing the Lutjens' are good at, it's road trips...

one such infamous trip - to Maine I believe - in the Dodge Caravan

...long hours, long distances, but usually pretty spectacular destinations.

Thunder Hole - Acadia National Park - Bar Harbor, ME

This was one of those destinations (stollen from google images...I can assure you there was not this level of photographic technology around when we visited this spot when I was small - well, or if there was, this pastor's family for sure didn't have it). I don't ever remember Thunder Hole being so sunny and clear, usually overcast and misty...I also don't remember those snazzy guard rails, but maybe they were there and I was too young to notice.  I'm not sure if you've had those experiences in life which when recalled, the sheer memory of which is a visceral experience...feelings I'm sure I cannot put adequate words to...standing on those rocks, covered in sea spray and shivering, watching/listening to/feeling wave after wave CRASH and THUNDER into this rock cove along the ME shoreline...grabbing onto mom or dad or brother/sister for security...not so much in fear, but more in awe, wanting to touch someone else and be sure this was real...imagine our small minds and bodies, literally quaking in the wonder and power of these waves, this noise, this marvel created by the expression of life by God's creation.  May very well be one of my favorite places on earth.

I've been thinking lately that one of the things I'm thankful to my mom for, one of the many things that I love about her, is her shared sense of wonder and marvel in what is around her.  Her facial expressions when she finds out something fascinating or surprising, the dramatic "you're kidding?!?!?!" that often follows such expressions...her love and recognition of the wonder that is physiology and the inner workings of the human body, her appreciation of natural and created beauty of all kinds, from simple things like the color in her salad, to the complexities of pieces of music and grand works of art...her intrigue about people and places that are different from her own experience, her enjoyment of the pursuit of really understanding something and not just glossing over the seemingly "small and unimportant" details...all of these things and more I've experienced all of my life and grown in gratefulness for as the years go by - here's to the hope and prayer that some of it has rubbed off on me!   Marvel she does.  Wonder she knows.

Thanks mom.  I love you.

He knows

“Daniel answered and said, 

Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to him.  And it is He who changes the times and epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding.  It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness and the light dwells with him.’”

~ Daniel 2: 20-22~

darkness...

physical pain/disability, emotional distress, spiritual distance/isolation/dryness, mental reality distortion, grief, loss, change, unknown, unbearable circumstances, hateful people, corruption, deceit, theft, violation, war, complete exhaustion, presence of enemies, sin...

“there’s a light at the end of the tunnel...” 

- if things are bad now, don’t worry, there’s hope [light] ahead

“shed some light on the situation...”

- if things are difficult or murky, the light will help make things clear

“lights, camera, action!”

- first part of the movie making sequence? you need to SEE what’s going on, then you start recording 

                                  what’s going on, THEN you cue in to what’s actually going on

“make a right at the second light...”                        

                                - landmark

- (ever heard “make a left at that place where you can’t see anything”?)

“this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine...”

- “lemme show you my dark corner”? nope

“scared of the dark...”

- place of fear not of comfort

“I wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley...” 

- place where bad things are done and no one can see to rescue you - unknown

“lurking in the dark corners...”

- places where people do not often choose to go

“he has a dark past...”

                                - he has done the kinds of things he would rather keep hidden

“those were dark times...” 

- periods which you would like NOT to revisit

“It’s too dark in here, I can’t see anything! Turn on the light, will ya?”

- The antidote for the darkness? Light.

to know: (verb) = be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information

“know” the facts (information)

“know” the feeling (experience)

“know” the place (observation)

Daniel says God knows what is in the darkness.

He KNOWs it.  He knows all the facts.  He knows the who: names, faces, and stories of all people involved, or not involved.  He knows the what: every detail that makes up this particular story.  He knows the when: the timing of the circumstances, what came before and what will come after.  He knows the night or day, weekend or weekday, the day the month the year the hour the minute, and how inconvenienced/stressed/pressured you are as a result.  He knows the where: home or work, street name and address, state, country, continent, and climate.  And maybe most importantly AND most puzzling, He knows the one we rarely if EVER know...He knows the why:  not the means but the END, the purpose, the goal, the justification, the motivation, the cause, the value, the benefit, the role in your life and the lives of those near or far.

He’s KNOWs it.  He’s experienced it.  Been there.  Felt that. Seen that.  Heard that. Smelt that.  He’s NOT unexperienced, immune, or naive.  He notices.  He’s read the briefing and the background checks.  His nerve endings are sensitive.  All 5 of his senses (and maybe more?) are not only functional but keen.

He KNOWs it.  He’s the ever-present observer.  Nothing has gone on that he is not privy to...not only has he been on the receiving end of all of it already, but he’s also been the witness to ALL of it.  It’s a different perspective than that of participant, but just as valid and important and pertinent...

In our Bible Study chapter on El Elyon last week, in the verse after verse that we read about our God Most High, this is the one that stuck out: 

 “...He knows what is in the darkness...” - Daniel 2:22

What is it though, about these simple words? Well, this post is me working that out...And in the end, I realize that the comfort is in the fact that He knows...not just in fact, or witness, but in experience...the feeling of, the reality of the darkness.  

Now that I stop and think about it, the fact that “He knows” was also the main take home lesson I learned from Dr. Calhoun’s class I took at Covenant Seminary entitled “Sickness and Suffering.”  Dr. Calhoun started the class off by telling us he was not, in fact, going to be able to answer the “WHY?!” question that He knew was looming large in all of our minds, and in his own as well...but he did remind us that God was not untouched by darkness [sickness and suffering] himself - the loss of His only Son, the betrayal and rejection and violation from His people...and the list goes on.  THAT was “worth the price of admission” for me.  After watching children die day after day in Uganda, after watching “big men” eat money and resources out from under their neighbors and those they are intended to serve without accountability, after struggling to  love my teammates well and them struggling to love me well, after hitting rock bottom emotionally, after having every single prop or buffer I was used to leaning on knocked out from under me, and preparing to head back to a long term commitment of more of the same, THAT was what I needed to hear, THAT was the lightbulb I needed turned on.  I needed to know that He didn’t look down from his comfy throne in heaven where everything is peachy keen all the time.  I needed to know that the suffering, the darkness, was not something He doled out to all of us, but something He knew something of Himself.  He knows what it’s like...He knows what is in the darkness...my darkness, your darkness, his darkness, her darkness, OUR darkness.

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PS: The same week as the Daniel light bulb, this Op Ed article, coming in from Japan, was published in the NY Times.  A Facebook find for me from a friend from college, it was timely, fascinating, and powerful.  I don’t think Pico Iyer knows this line from Daniel about the darkness.  I don’t think He believes in the God that knows said darkness, but his reflection on darkness or “suffering” is spot on in many ways.  See for yourself.

partial truth

one of those days.  one of those belly-rumbling, slightly-more-aware-of-ones-muscles-and-joints, dizzy-headed-even-while-lying-down, days.  This one spent in bed, reading.  Book of the month = Cutting For Stone.  I’m not a very good missionary, in that I’ve read very very little of what’s written (fictional or non) about the countries/continent which I call home.  This particular choice is a fictional tale set in our neighbor to the east, Ethiopia.  I have some faint recollection that President Obama made a big deal (in a positive way) about it when it was first published...and several members of my family have read and recommended it.  So far tales of medicine, that since I’ve been mostly out of the acute clinical practice setting now for a year and a half or so, I can enjoy in my “time off”...a tale of family and it’s looser-than-biology definitions...a tale of culture...a tale of hearts and souls and life and the lackthereof and the stuffs of those lives that are important.  It’s good.  I doze in and out as a read, not yet sweating in my pajamas.  Various teammates come in to check on me, and eventually I emerge for something for lunch.

After achieving nourishment, I head back to the Shire and on the way notice that there’s an issue of Outside magazine I haven’t read yet on the coffee table.  I swipe it and continue on.  The cover promises a never yet told version of the famous American ascent of Mt. Everest 50 years ago along with something about a speed run down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon and racing horses across Mongolia.  Sounds hopeful for proper sick-day escapist reading material.  I lift up my net and along with my magazine climb back into the happy place otherwise known as my bed.

See, every few months, we get an installation of our mail from friends in Arua.  We brought said installation with us last week when we returned from R&R in Uganda.  Included in said installation was several months worth of Michael Masso’s Outside Magazine subscription.  We’re always eager for current-ish reports of the goings on of the “outside” world, and this publication never seems to disappoint.  Well written, often blunt and amusing reports of people even crazier than we are, doing things we would never dream of doing...okay, things I would never dream of doing (can’t speak for our slew of 23 year old male interns...one never knows what they deem reasonably do-able) in places we’re easily convinced need to be on our next travel itinerary.

I open up to the Everest article because when downloading Cutting for Stone from the St. Louis Public Library onto my Kindle, I’d looked for Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer but was disappointed not to find it available in ebook format...so, the mountain was already on my mind.  Christine asked me if I’d ever try to climb Everest...clearly she was never present on any of my family backpacking/hiking/camping vacations growing up...I quickly told her absolutely not...it doesn’t sound to me like fun by any stretch of the imagination ...well, except the beauty...okay, AND the adventure...AND the thrill of summiting...but lets be honest, I could never EVER hack it...even without the oxygen tanks and frostbite and altitude sickness and such...so, no, no thank you.  But reading about it?! Fascinating...

“Like all great feats of alpinism the West Ridge is only possible for those who fully commit.  Perhaps Hornbein put it best, describing his mentality that final day as ‘the total feeling of detachment with anything else in the world that seemed to matter - family, child - only Mount Everest was there at the time, and only the summit above us seemed to be beckoning me.” 

- Grayson Schaffer’s last paragraph in the article

...and after a glance at the Marmot Polartec NeoShell jacket ad opposite the end of the article, I turned the page... “Born on the 9th of July”...and a dramatic photo of an ash covered Mundari cattle herder with his white long horned cattle in the background...whoah.  taken aback.  South Sudan was born on the 9th of July, 2011...South Sudan is home to the Mundari cattle herding tribe...and the Dinka, called in the article “the Tribe of Hummers” (refering to their affinity for the oversized and over priced 4x4 vehicles)...and the Moru, the predominant tribe here in Mundri where we live...wait wait wait...hang on...flip back the page... “Jon Krakauer”... “Life magazine”... fallen climbers’ bodies emerging from the icefall 6 years after their climb attempt of the highest mountain in the world...and an insullating shell jacket ad promoting their product with the phrase - “What gives you life?”...let’s try this again, and I flip forward a page...same Mundari shot...same mentions of Juba and brand spankin’ white Land Cruisers with the light blue and yellow EU symbol on the sides and road travel held up by potential land mine extraction procedures...from Everest to Juba, from frostbite and down insulated jackets to the dust covered bodies and stiff bone/rubber bracelets of the Mundari...un. real.  striking. along the lines of an out of body experience, to see the place you call home presented as such a wild and untamed wilderness with vast potential for tourism and adventure capital...in the context of this adrenaline rich publication geared towards people with way too much time and money on their hands...

Most of what this article about South Sudan presents is truth, but it’s only part of the truth...the photos are real, and dramatic, but really only represent a part of what I see and hear and smell on a daily basis.  It’s exciting to see and hear people “talking” about South Sudan, to see it get a place “on the map” so-to-speak...to see people write about the vast resources this land has to offer the world, to hear outsiders comment on the reality that is your life in ways you’ve never heard/thought of before...

“We are headed out of the dismal capital, driving south for four hours toward the Imatong Mountains...The ambassador wants to tour the south of South Sudan, get some exercise, and then fling himself off the peak in his paraglinder, avoiding a crash landing in the Central African jungles while claiming some fun distinction like First Unpowered Descent from a Place No One Has Heard of...”

- he he he :) and...

“South Sudan is not a society in recovery: there never was any real infrastructure, government, civil society, rules, laws, or rule of law here, so there is nothing to recover.  Instead it’s a scratch country, invented as a solution to an insoluble problem of semi-permanent war and defined by what it lacks.  There is no electrical grid, no mail service, almost no roads even of the dirt kind, and perhaps a few hundred miles of asphalt if you count every paved block in Juba.  The have-nots have a lot of not: barely a smidgen of schools, almost no health care, a population living on zero dollars per day in a subsistence-farming economy where cattle are traded like currency.  There are more guns than people who can read; refugee camps are more common than towns; snow would be easier to find than a road sign.”

wow.  well when you put it like that...or...

“Juba is more encampment than city, a sprawling settlement of homely huts and instant apartments whose population has swelled to more than a million as waves of returning exiles and rural people have moved in.  Many thousands of foreigners have come here as well, riding around in white Land Cruisers during the twice-a-day traffic jams that are a mark of pride for locals.  The most common signage is anything beginning with the letters “UN,” and a trip across town uses reference points like “Go past WHO” and “Turn left at WFP”... “In a place where hotel rooms are made from empty shipping containers and everything from gasoline to rice is imported on the back of a truck from Kenya, inflation has sky rocketed: a taxi across Juba costs twice as much as in New York, hastily built apartments are priced as if in central Rome...”

hm. crazy but ‘tis true.

But Patrick Symmes doesn’t mention the toothy ear to ear smiles that I love so much,

Mary

Vicki

 the cozy crackling sound of charcoal with a pot of, well, anything on top,

Mary & Mel making sweet potato fries 

the taste of a too-hot-to-touch cup of kere kede that’s been simmering for a while with sticks of cinnamon and is chock full-o-sugar...the waves and greetings along the road, the turn of a child’s face from wide-eyed wonder at your strangely pale skin to a smile creeping across their face when they look you in the eyes and realize you’re smiling and not going to eat them or hurt them like they’re told in the stories they hear...

Caleba

he doesn’t mention the teachers that really care and really are trying with what little they have to give the future of their country an education,

 he doesn’t mention the injections given by staff that care in health centers across the country that save lives from malaria, the wounds cleaned and dressed and healed as a result,

Mama Roda and yours truly

the babies born and thriving,

Salome and baby "Heidi" - my namesake - spelled for accuracy by request

the churches rockin’ with handmade drums and gourd shakers...he has only told half of the story.  But that’s okay, he’s left the other half for me.

parting of the red tape

"Parting of the Red Sea" - version 1

permission to be, please.

when you are guests in a country, you have to play by your host's rules.  What happens when your host doesn't actually know what it's rules are?  bureaucratic red tape chaos.  When you are a new country, you have the privilege of making your own new rules.  It's great.  Freedom = choice.  BUT when this freedom is found in a context like that of South Sudan, in an African context in which organization is NOT a cultural strong suit, freedom = choice = mayhem!  With no strong centralized process, every office takes the opportunity to call its own shots and every person in every office takes the opportunity to call their own shots depending on, well, who knows what, depending on the color of the shoes they're wearing that day or the number of full matatus that passed by them that morning on their way into work, I have no idea really.  It takes "getting the run around" to a totally new level.  Totally contrary information from every person you talk to, spending days going from office to office, desk to desk, as the amount of money that you owe in order to play by the rules goes up and up and up...

when you have even a single bone of organizational capacity in your body as a missionary you find yourself in the role of pursuing logistical issues for your team.  Like the African context, the missionary context is not one of organizational strength.  I'm a nurse.  I'm pretty good at following rules/directions.  It's a professional liability not to be.  But when you don't know what the directions are, things get, well, let's just say "complicated."

Our team has been trying to play by non-existent rules for several years now, and it's kind of exhausting.  Our operational certification as an NGO expires in October and in like good missionaries we are trying to gather what we need in advance and be prepared for the mayhem that awaits us in Juba.  It's a really long story, which would probably bore most of you, but it involves wading through the sea of red tape and trying to figure out what our hosts rules are and how we need to go about playing by them...NGO's need to employ a certain percentage of national staff and have work permits and we are an NGO but we partner with the church and what does that mean for our status with the government, and what if our goal as an organization is to strengthen and equip and encourage South Sudanese in already existing positions NOT to create new positions that will then one day cease to exist...we are willing to pay our dues but what if we are being charged dues without explanation of what they are for, or being charged for fees in years that the country did not exist...and the list goes on...

But there is hope at the end of the tunnel.  The week in which we were trying to make decisions as a team about how to move forward we had a guest - WHM South Sudan's Miri Moto compound has become a tourist destination believe it or not - soon you'll be able to find us on Yelp! - and this particular week we had guests from Maridi and Uganda taking their R&R time with us - the guest from Maridi overheard us discussion our dilemmas and recommended we talk to his team leader who had recently sorted through similar issues...anyone able to shed ANY light on this chaos was very welcome, so I gave Leah a call...I don't even know Leah's second name...I just know she is an American living in Maridi and leading a team there.  But that's more than enough to elicit a phone call.

Who knew.  Leah is a rock star.  I mean, not a REAL rock star, but a South Sudanese red tape rock star for sure, which is actually just as cool as a REAL rock star.  She informed me of their team's very recent saga which had come to completion in the last few weeks due to help from another large missions agency in country..."AAAHHHHHH!!!!!" - I'm pretty sure the angelic music was audible.  Turns out I have a nurse friend who works for said large missions agency who happens to be in Canada at the moment, which happens to be 8-10 hours behind us right now...and who happened to be online at that very moment...*unashamed plug for the Facebook chat function - never know when it might come in handy*...and you'll never believe this, but with Facebook chat and international emails between 3 countries on 2 continents, within 30 minutes my 2nd South Sudanese red tape rock star friend, Christiane, had hooked me up with a word document of exactly what we needed to do...yes, a word document...4 pages of pure gold!  Pure gold that outlined step by step, bullet point by bullet point what we needed to do to pursue registration as a Faith Based Organization...which seems to fit who we are much more than an NGO which puts us on equal par with those giants of UNICEF and WFP and such...did I mention there were contact names and phone numbers?  Did I mention there were scanned copies of the application form?  UN-BE-LIEVABLE! A registration that supposedly negates our need for work permits (ie. saving us literally thousands of dollars) and gives us approval for 1 yr multiple entry visas...incredible...seems too good to be true in fact...all of my bosses (Bishop here in South Sudan, and Michael Masso from the USA) grilled me on the legitimacy of such a thing...but I had done my homework...well, my friends had done their homework and I had read their answers so-to-speak, and it seems legit...for real!

Just the night before I had been at my wit's end, fed up with trying to figure out the system, fed up with trying to ask "permission to be" from people who didn't seem to want me to be...my teammates had tried to tell me it was going to be okay, but I wasn't quite sure.  I was kinda worried we were going to be kicked out of the country...for real.  The next morning my teammates prayed, and within hours it all came together...I was interrupting the teacher training going on with texts of excitement..."call me at your earliest convenience" I told Bethany, our fearless interim team leader at the time..."What is it?!" she said when she found her earliest convenience...and I launched into the kind of unbelievable saga of the morning...Now, I'm not sure about your feelings about prayer, honestly sometimes I'm not sure either, but this seemed like a pretty direct answer...I could hardly contain myself...and usually I have no problem containing myself...containment issues are not really a Lutjens problem...

But ladies and gentlemen, the saga is not quite over.  If you believe that prayer moves things, then I'd appreciate you take up our cause in your prayers...Bishop took our FBO paperwork to Juba on Friday, and hopefully passed it along to an ECS logistician....

• pray this logistician, Mawa, would be willing and ready to process our paperwork for us
• pray that the Bureau of Religious Affairs would be willing and ready to accept our application without delay
• pray that the BoRA would readily give us an approval letter for the Ministry of Interior
• pray that the Ministry of Interior would readily accept the BoRA letter and give us an approval letter for 1 yr multiple entry visas for our whole team
• pray that in fact, this registration/these visas negate our need for work permits in a very above the board way

I've never been so amazed.  Makes me a little more willing to pray big....but I need your help.

"Parting of the Red Sea - version 2"

home away from home: Uganda

• the spazzy excitement of banana tree leaves everywhere you look; 
• lingering 2.5 hour oil lantern lit and burning mosquito coil accompanied dinners at mexican resaurants with teammates who are coworkers as well as friends and, well, family too, at the end of a long day of details and travel; 
• 5 straight hours of paved road; 
• the amazing goodness of a leg of chicken roasted on a stick eaten standing by the side of the vehicle while your teammates use the favorite toilet location along said 5 hour stretch of paved road;        
• the swamps of Dr. Seuss-esque papyrus tufts; 
• the dukas with goat ropes hanging by the door; 
• the Kalita and Link buses rumbling by as they pass you on the one lane "highway"; 
• familiar phrases used and questions asked in the market and the ensuing stumbling/stuttering over words which have since been replaced by those of other east african languages in my brain's "language bank"; 
• discussions around the Rwenzori View family style dinner table with inquisitive Icelandic journalists traversing the country; 
• the familiarity of old teammates and ease of falling back into days of life shared; 
• the conversation that ensues over the loud hum of old 4x4 vehicles whose radios/tape decks are long broken as you "zoom" along the one lane highway unable to break the 100km/hr mark in the aging vehicle, saving you from the traps of the traffic police in their bright white uniforms as they wait in the valleys and around the bends for a reason to wave you to a stop; 
• the familiar and tiring complications of decision making and bill settling when traveling as a group of 6 single women, and the pauses of thankfulness for said women making it all worth it;
• the wind whipping through your hair on the back of strange man's motorcycle you voluntarily ride back to the hotel during rush hour traffic and the gasps and "eh!"s that ensue when the trust you put in this stranger's ability to get you from point A to point B in one piece is somehow broken around every bend; 
• the appreciated airtime acct balance notifications at the end of every MTN phone call/text message; 
• the refreshing treat of a cold Krest Bitter Lemon nearly everywhere you go; 
• the luxury of hour long phone calls to parents costing less than $5, 
• candle lit "last supper"s in the magical ambiance of Mediterraneo;
• and, of course, the ever present goodbyes...

lost {and found} in translation

“You know how every week we do communion at church, they also recite the Ten Commandments....(hear recitation of 10 commandments in Moru), well I’ve had those phrases repeating in my head all day today”...Larissa said, as we were gathering for dinner one night this week.

Nope.  I had no idea that the liturgy for Holy Communion sundays included a recitation of the Ten Commandments. 

 The liturgy in the church Larissa and I go to is done completely in Moru.  There are Moru prayer books, this is the EPISCOPAL Church of Sudan, remember, so every Sunday is a prescribed liturgy.  I chose our church because of all the churches in the area, this is the one with the most Juba Arabic translation used - due in part to it’s proximity to the Army barracks and the area of town where there is a high concentration of “returnees” from Khartoum.  But it’s usually the announcements and the sermon that are translated...not ever the liturgy.  So, I usually mentally check out, standing and sitting at the appropriate times, but also smiling at the cute babies that are invariably sitting around and staring back at me...or on my better missionary days I try to make use of the time to pray for the church and for God’s work in hearts through the liturgy and Word being preached...I’ve always been quite content going to a church service I couldn’t understand...because it means that I have the privilege of worshiping with brothers and sisters who are worshiping in their own tongue...you know those parts of Scripture that talk about “every nation and every tongue”...what joy there is in the experience of a small sliver of that.  It’s not always a terribly spiritually enriching experience to have absolutely no idea what’s going on...what’s being said/prayed/sung...actually most times it’s not, but for the privilege of worshiping with “every nation and every tongue”, it’s totally worth it...even when it’s 5 hours long and when I’m falling asleep doing the head bob/jerking awake thing...or when it’s really really really hot and it seems there’s no air moving at all inside the mud and thatch building.

But today, I understood every word.

Jess is in from Ug to visit, and Scott was preaching about sex at the english service at the Cathedral so I went with Jess and Bethany to support Scott in speaking boldly about  something the Moru church is reluctant to talk about.  He did a GREAT job.  He presented what God calls us to in love for us and about what he calls us not to do out of love for us, and about the forgiveness and grace and mercy God offers to us.  Balanced, clear, simple, truth.

But the unexpected bonus was that at the english service, the liturgy is the same as at my church, but it’s in ENGLISH (shocking, I know).  And it was a Communion sunday, so i got to hear what is actually said in the Communion liturgy (including the Ten Commandments).  But there’s so much RICHNESS in the liturgy and this time, I could understand EVERY word...well, *almost* every word...after the visitors introduced themselves the leader said, “we warmly and hardly welcome you...” I looked confusedly over to the prayer book Jess was holding for us to share...not hardly but HEARTILY :)

But other than pronunciation issues, the richness of the liturgy really encouraged my heart today.  So much that I stole one of the prayer books (it doesn’t have a cover, so I have no idea what it’s actually called) - shhh, bad missionary...I promise, I’ll return it by next week!  But I wanted to be sure to go back over what was said:

Particularly fitting for today’s sermon topic:

“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen”

and after each of the Ten Commandments the people say:

“Amen, Lord have mercy upon us, and make our hearts to obey your law.”

and then the Sh’ma - a harken back to my semester in Jerusalem and the important role of these words in synagogue liturgy and messianic congregations:

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord, you shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength...”

and in the preparation for the Lord’s Table:

“We do not presume to come to this your Table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies: We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your Table.  But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.  Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink His Blood, that we may evermore live in Him and He is us. Amen.”

and the hope we claim:

“Christ has died.  Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

and the richness continues page after page...

I wonder if it’s so rich to me because it’s so new...I had a conversation with a friend in the US about communion and his insistence on the “best” way to do it...he thought the “best” way was the way I’ve done it all my life...but for me, sometimes that way has lost it’s meaning or poignancy because of it’s regularity and habit in my life.  For me, the most meaningful way to do it is the way most other people grew up doing it...because it’s new and fresh to me and it makes me think about things more to do things in a new way.  For that reason, this whole missionary life is so very rich.  We are ever doing things in a new way...having to think about what we think of, or how we feel about, these new ways and why...

Today was one of those new ways.  The old liturgy was “new” to me, found in translation into my own tongue, whereas before it was lost on my deaf-to-Moru ears.  Rich. Wealth IS mine.