I look around; some people are dancing, letting the music pulse through their bodies, others have their arms raised and are enthusiastically swaying back and forth, while still others are on their knees. They’re all praying out loud at the same time and singing. They’re worshiping. We’re worshiping. Behavior like this has been surprising and was at first disconcerting for an extremely conservative, “frozen chosen” church-going girl like me. But one thing is clear: the spirit of God is alive and present in our 20×20 square foot worship hall.
They told us in the beginning of training camp that they were going to attempt to prepare us for whatever we would experience on the field. Of course this is impossible, but I think they have done a pretty great job: from creating our own wilderness haven to sleep in the first night with nothing but a tarp, to having half-eaten oatmeal spooned into our bowls by fellow campers when we ran out. I have been told multiple times that India is a spiritually dark and intense place; spirits and demons are much more tangible and real to those people than they are to the people in our culture. We like to distance God from the supernatural. It feels safer that way. I think for this reason, I have always misunderstood the power of the Holy Spirit and therefore been slightly skeptical. And this is exactly where training camp came in and has impacted me hugely: we talked about how the Holy Spirit dwells in each of us because we have accepted Christ, and because of this He speaks to us. Literally. We can hear His voice. Pray pray pray is the message we often times get from pastors and counselors. Listen was the message we got here. God is speaking to us; we just aren’t listening.
God is speaking to us while we are worshiping, and the swaying, the dancing, the praying out loud, these are just ways to experience God’s presence and his voice. A prompt for this post is what advice we would give to future Real Life participants about training camp, and I would say all you need to bring is a humble heart, an open mind, and your dancing shoes.
