In the morning I will sing of Your love. Psalm 59:16
At home I am always singing. For the first time in my life I live alone-- opposite of my prior living situations with a large family, a dormitory, a sorority, or with numerous roommates. I’m adjusting to this new living situation, and find contentment in cooking and cleaning as so please. I sing while I cook dinner, wash my clothes, do the dishes, sweep and mop. I don’t feel alone while I’m belting out Adele or Beyoncé. I get lost in the music and the task of washing my clothes by hand goes quickly. In other words, my new roommate is my iTunes player.
Prior to Christmas I tried to sing some Christmas songs at my house, but it just felt wrong and made me homesick. For Christmas day I went and joined 11 other volunteers at my friend Lyda’s house. We made delicious food, watched Christmas movies, and had giant snuggle puddles. Lyda also lives next to a small cheese factory with the best cheese in Rwanda (I’ve found so far). Naturally we went on a trip there and bought out the store. While there with all my friends around me I finally felt like it was okay to sing Christmas music. I sang along with Michael Buble’s Christmas album while chopping up fruit and making scrambled eggs. With all my friends surrounding me, I had found a family that I had been so longing for and the songs felt right once again.
The Catholic Church choir in Kibangu has reminded me how much I love being in a choir. I have no idea what I’m singing about 90% of the time cause it’s all this complicated Kinyarwanda so I just write down all the words and do my best at pronouncing them. We had a choir party on New Years Day at the Pastor’s house. All of us gathered together to drink beer, eat food and finally do some singing. Through joining the choir I have met friends and found some purpose here. Now when I go out people ask, “Are you going to sing?” and often I am on my way to practice. I was walking home with some of the other choir members, and they started singing a song we had been practicing. I love how when you are in a choir it’s totally normal to break out into song. The director of the choir also let me play the keyboard this week, and he is going to let me practice more. My fingers have missed the keys of an instrument.
After Christmas, my friend Isaac took me to the Anglican Church where he goes to pray. The Anglican Church is much smaller than the Catholic Church but also more lively. We entered a bit late, but they made room for me at the front. I watched the mothers, the children, and the youth choirs perform. The songs were more simple and easy to pick up than the catholic hymns, so I started to sing along. Isaac also helped to explain some of the lyrics to me. Toward the end of the church service the women and children all came to the front of hall and started dancing. They move their feet quickly from side to side while raising their hands in the air. “We thank God,” they sing loudly. The love and passion quickly brings a smile to my face.
One day after going to an Anglican Church service Isaac and I were invited to Baptism party. We walked for about ten minutes down numerous paths finally arriving at a grove of banana trees. The home we went to was not the first or even the second building on the hillside, but the third down a steep trail. We entered the house, a simple home made of clay bricks, dirt floor, and a tiled roof. In the back there were some livestock and children playing. They served us a bowl of rice, beans, and potatoes and we drank some homemade banana juice (which was delicious). Then we started singing. I looked on in the hymnal Isaac had brought and sang with them. They cleared the center of the small room and two ladies started dancing there as we sang. The sound of our voices seemed to bring a richness of a spirit despite the material poverty surrounding us.
Music is a global language. All around the world people find joy and fulfillment in music, and it brings us together. As I stand in front of the Catholic Church full of hundreds of children, youth, parents, old people singing songs with words I do not understand, the language barrier doesn’t seem to matter as much. We are all together singing for God, for all the blessings he has given us. Tears fill my eyes with gratitude to be a part of such a beautiful celebration and to feel God’s love all around me. In my village in the middle of Rwanda…we sing of Your love and for that I could not be more grateful.