Home

Strange as it may sound, it seems that I have found a little bit of home here on the other side of the world. The people here on the base are truly incredible!

Every Monday morning the entire base gathers for worship, so yesterday we all filled into a hot, humid, brightly lit concrete room for a couple hours just to seek out God's face. It was a noisy, sweaty, definitely chaotic time. Over in one corner were some people dancing in response to the worship. They had to be careful not to trip over people kneeling and laying face down on the floor, though, and it became hard to hear the worship music over the sounds of people yelling out prayers in multiple languages. If I understand correctly, all these diverse responses are planned on when the worship leaders prepare a set.

I begin to understand Paul's injunction to the Corinthians about having orderly services.

Not that this was unruly in a distracting manner. Rather, the heat and the sweat and the nose and the movement and the humidity and the shear enthusiasm was one of the most tangible examples of joy I've ever seen. Oh. The music itself was also spot on.

Given that the service was a couple hours long, you'll understand why I had time to observe all this. As I stood listening to one I was unfamiliar with, I stared looking at the other people in the room.

For better or worse, these siblings-in-Christ will be my community through the upcoming months. They may not be what I expected or wanted, but for whatever reason, God has assembled more than 300 people from every continent and religious background for some purpose.

There truly is nothing quite like standing in the assembly to see Koreans rubbing shoulders with Brazilians, Irish, Mongolians, Egyptians, and many others, all united by the desire to serve God.

I'm excited to see what's going to happen while I'm here!