Day 6: What Do You Do?

I'm cheating. I didn't like today's topic (but I did really love Amy's answer), so instead I am addressing this one: "Explain an unforgettable lesson you learned and the circumstances that surrounded it."  Please understand that this story is ugly.  It may cause you to think differently about me.  It may inspire judgement and disappointment. I deserve it.  But please keep the end of the story in mind. It was written not long after I returned from this trip but I have never had the occasion to publish it, nor the guts to confess it, until now.

I was twenty-one. It was my first trip overseas. I journeyed with my university's music department to South Africa, a nation I knew only through the eyes of Alan Patton, whose novel Cry, the Beloved Country I had read and loved, but mostly forgotten a few years prior. Had I taken time to study the history of this country, marred by discrimination and battered by prejudice, perhaps I would not have found myself so readily ensnared in both.

I traveled with a group of musicians. We performed musical numbers all over the country for all types of audiences. On Sundays, we performed in churches. Our first Sunday brought us to a beautiful chapel, neatly tucked in the shade of an upper-class neighborhood with nicely paved roads and large, well-kept houses.  The church was the sort you might see in London or Paris, with marble stone floors, towering ceilings and breathtaking stained glass. Many people arrived for the service - men and women, black and white. They were well-dressed and very formal. There were very few children.

We performed our numbers at the beginning of the service. The pastor, draped in his religious robes, thanked us for our performance in English, and procceeded to deliver the remainder of the service in Afrikaans, one of the many languages spoken by the weatlhy and educated congregation. I kept myself occupied staring at the beautiful people, admiring the diligent craftsmanship of the ceiling above, and enjoying my comfortably padded pew.

After the service, the beautiful people at the beautiful church filed out.  Not one of them looked at us, much less spoke to us, and we didn't dare speak to them. It was as if they were gracing us with their presence and we were lucky to get a glance. I felt lucky.

The next Sunday, we visited a very different church. I first began to feel uncomfortable when we turned off the paved road and on to a dirt one. I surveyed my surroundings through the window of our tour bus. The neighborhood was filthy. The streets were made of muddy dirt, and the homes were small and grungy. They looked like small sheds - the sort you might find in someone's backyard here in the states - and they went on for miles and miles in every direction. There was trash in the yards and on the roads. There were little children in ragged clothes running barefoot through the streets. There were old men and women sitting outside their homes staring at our bus as we passed.  Then came the church.  It was an old, shabby looking building that looked as if it might collapse at any moment. It was nothing like the beautiful, stained-glass church we had visited the week before.

I realized I did not want to get off the bus. I did not want to go into the shabby building in the dirty neighborhood with the trash in the streets. I did not want to be watched by the eyes of the strangers sitting in their yards. I wanted to be back at the pretty church with the sermon I couldn't understand and the pretty people who didn't look or speak to me. I wanted to be where I was comfortable. Not with these people. But I really didn't have an option. I kept a straight face and filed off the bus and into the shabby building.

I will never forget the moment I hit the threshold of this place of worship.  All around me were happy, smiling faces.  Everywhere I looked, someone wanted to shake my hand and say, "Welcome, welcome! We are happy to have you!" I began to feel ashamed. "Hello! Welcome to our church! We cannot wait to hear your music!" And with such enthusiasm. If you've ever been to Africa, you know that Africans are some of the most beautifully uninhibited people you will ever find.  After being greeted thus by many people, a young boy showed us to our seats.  As I followed him, my shame began to mount.  These people were far kinder than the well-dressed ones at the pretty church, and I hadn't even wanted to go inside this building because I didn't like the way it looked.

As the service began, the pastor of this church, who was dressed in a suit jacket that looked decades old, said, "Greetings all, and a very special welcome to our American guests. We usually speak Afrikaans since it is the language we know best, but we want you to participate with us, and hear our Good News, so instead, we will speak our best English."

Oh, the shame. It was beginning to become so heavy on my shoulders. I understood that these were the underprivileged and uneducated. Unlike those from the previous church, they did not grow up learning English in school. This was a legitimate sacrifice for them.  And for what? So that we, a group of foreigners they didn't know and would never see again, could understand and be included.  They began to tell stories in English. Stories about their God - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Rth and David, of Exekiel, Daniel, and Hosea, of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Of Paul. Of Titus. Of Peter.

Of me.

A young boy of fifteen or sixteen got up to speak. It was obvious that English was difficult, but he wanted us to understand that his young life had been radically changed by the God of the Universe, who had spared him from many cruelties.

They sang some songs in English. I remember specifically listening to one: "Oh Lord, my God, when I, in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made..."  I knew the words by heart, but I couldn't join in. I listened to their voices - their heavily accented words, harsh consonants, short, clipped vowels. I looked around. Their hands were lifted, their eyes closed, or clapping their hands and dancing like only Africans can dance. And I began to understand. When Jesus told the Pharisees that the poor woman who had only given one coin had given more than any of them, with their heaping bags of money, this is what He meant. It has nothing to do with appearances. It has nothing to do with clothing, or money, or brick and mortar, or stained glass. It is all about the heart.

And oh, did these people have it. When we sang, they stood and clapped and cheered. When the service was over, they prayed for us in English, and then they brought out cookies and tea for us. They wanted to know our names and where we were from. We visited for half an hour with them before boarding our bus and departing.

I left the first church believing I had experienced beautiful people. I left this church feeling blessed to have experienced real people - people whose joy was so present that they would go so far as to do an entire service in our language, and make tea and cookies, which probably cost them a fortune, and show us what it means to have a well-spring of joy in their hearts.

The lesson? A real-life example of the truth that it is not what is outside, but what is inside that truly matters. Every time I am tempted to think as this world has conditioned me to think - that it is important to have an impressive body, expensive cars, beautiful clothes, a large checkbook - I am reminded of this experience; of people whose earthly wealth was almost none, but whose treasure in heaven is great indeed.