Learning to Pray

The night of July 20, we all went downstairs to worship with Pastor David, his family, and anyone else who was around. People kept coming out of a room like a clown car. There were no formal introductions. They sang songs for us accompanied by drums and a metal instrument that looked like a rocket ship. It was beautiful. The pastor's wife led the singing. That night I wrote, The songs were rich and loud and had a lot of rhythm--a lot of soul. They sang boldly and with a genuine heart of praise.

Upon further reflection of the experience, I wrote this the morning of July 21: In worshipping with the Haitians, I realized I do not know how to pray. The pastor asked them to pray and words immediately poured out of their mouths. No hesitations, seemingly no awkward pauses. It was humbling to listen to--an introduction to a new culture of life and of worship.

This was not my first encounter with a group prayer time. During our prayer walks on Tuesday afternoon, we all prayed in a group for "Sumen" and Jonas and his family. I was uncomfortable. I mostly pray silently. If I do pray aloud, people in the group take turns praying. I was overwhelmed by the barrage of prayer and distracted. As I was praying, I'd overhear someone else's prayer and think how I wanted to say something similar. I think it's a very powerful way to pray. I appreciate how the individual prayer is part of the large group prayer. I had hoped to acclimate to this style, but I don't think I did.

God did give me unique prayer opportunities in a tent city, but it was just me praying aloud or someone prayed aloud after I had finished. More details regarding this experience will be in my next blog post.

Because of the prayer experience in the tent city, I thought I was making progress with prayer.

Until our last night when we prayed for our interpreters group style. I prayed a bit and was distracted a bit. Not much had changed.

I deeply respect those whose prayers flow like a river.

[photo credit: Kansas Corley]