Lindsey Long, Duke Divinity School student and 2011 Umoja Project intern  

On Friday night when I arrived at my first home stay, I found out that I would be preaching on Sunday at the Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. My previous preaching experiences I was told at least a week in advance (with apologies for the late notice). So I asked Mama Rose, the wonderful woman I am staying with, how long I should preach and she said, “Not long…30 minutes?” Now I am a good, traditional Methodist girl and good, traditional Methodist sermons never go longer than 15 minutes. So being expected to preach for 30 minutes with only a day to prepare obviously made me nervous.

I was even more nervous when it quickly became apparent that I would spend the entire day on Saturday walking around Mama Rose’s entire community, meeting all of the Umoja students and responding over and over again to children yelling “Mzungu (White man)! Mzungu! How-are-you-fine!” To which I awkwardly responded, “Yes…fine? Hello!” Or some jumble of English words the young children wouldn’t know anyway. When it got to be 7:00 at night and I still had not had time to prepare anything for Sunday, panic started to set in. I finally excused myself from my hosts with apologies, saying “Please excuse me, I must study for my sermon tomorrow.” Fifteen minutes later three more families showed up at my home to greet me. At this point I was getting angry. I was angry at the people that seemed to need so much from me and I was angry at God for calling me to this place.

Finally at 9:00, after I had greeted more community members and had dinner with my family during which my plate kept being heaped with more and more food until I finally had to refuse (and thanked God I was wearing a skirt with an elastic waistband), I sat down in the living room with my Bible to try to throw something together. My host, Mama Rose, walked into the living room and sat down next to me and inside my head I screamed, “Please do not talk to me! I have to prepare something!” She said, “I will not keep you long, but I just wanted to tell you that there are many poor people here and many orphans, too many for the Umoja project. These people need something from you. They need to hear encouragement, they need something spiritual.” Her request was so earnest it shamed me both for my annoyance at everybody’s excitement to meet me and at my own lack of ability to give any of these people what they need. After Mama Rose excused me I went to my room, laid on my bed, cried for a minute and then prayed to God and said, “God, I literally have nothing to give. I don’t know what to say to these people, the only thing I have to give is what you give me.”

It is both a terrifying and a freeing thing to realize, to truly realize, that you have nothing to give. The people of the Ogada community look at me as if I somehow have the answer and I barely understand the problem. My white skin marks me as someone from the outside, someone that might be able to help. But I really can do very little but listen to their stories and hope that they will continue to allow me into their lives and both their joy and suffering. I suppose I have always known that I am nothing without God. Anyone who has been to Sunday school knows that, but I never really realized it the way I did on Sunday. At home I am shored up by my education, my books, my friends and even knowing the language of the people to whom I am preaching. All of these things make it easy to forget our reliance on God. Here I have none of that. I barely even understand the culture. A fact I have been painfully aware of as I have walked around like a bumbling idiot. For example, being white is like being a celebrity here. The other day at the market a woman came up and took a picture of me with her phone. So I’ve gotten used to waving and smiling at people. So when we went out on the lake I waved at everyone, including the naked men bathing along the shore (a fact I realized too late to stop waving). I am on the outside here. Here, if I’m asked to preach, I have a Bible and I have prayer and that’s it. And with a Bible and prayer I managed to somehow get out of my own way long enough to trust God and allow God to use me on Sunday. After all, what other choice did I have?