Prayer Day

Yesterday was a world-wide Day of Prayer for our organization.  Here in Musoma, all of our normal activities paused while everyone gathered at the office to spend the morning praying together.  It was the first time for me to see our whole staff (national and ex-patriate) in one place.  It's a pretty good crowd!  The long screened porch "lunch room" of our office could just hold us all, which was good, because the rain had us scurrying to bring chairs back inside before we even started. 

The day opened with prayer (naturally), singing, and a devotional.  We sang hymns and praise songs in Swahili and English, and one of our Tanzanian ladies led us in a call-and-response chorus, rhythmic clapping provided by anyone so inspired.  (Most of us foreigners just concentrated on keeping a steady beat, leaving the fancy stuff to our more talented colleagues!)  As I joined in the short refrain after each of the caller's lines, I thought, "This must be what Psalm 136 first sounded like.  Done this way, the repitition is beautiful."

Afterwards we split into smaller groups and rotated between different rooms of the office, each room having its own prayer focus.  In this way we lifted up Bible translation needs in our own Mara area, in Tanzania, in the whole of Africa, and around the globe.  Everyone was free to pray in his or her own language, to the glory of the One who created them all.

Part of our group.  Considering that our translators represent 9 different ethnic groups, and we foreigners come from 6 different nations, it's quite a mix!

On a personal note, I came to the event wondering how much spiritual/abstract Swahili I would remember (although most of the morning was bilingual).  I don't get much practice in Biblical vocabulary by going to the market or talking with my house help!  Nevertheless, I found I could follow along just fine; that was very encouraging.  On the whole, our prayer day was a great community/team experience for me, especially since I'm not part of the normal office work.  Plus, the thought that we were also joining our colleagues all around the world is inspiring.  May God answer our prayers in mighty ways!