The music during Home visits this week has been particularly exciting. When we enter homes, we do so while singing. It serves two purposes: to let everyone in the home know it’s time to gather in the living room and sing praise to God. The elders always pick the songs. Some weeks this means we do the same 3 favorites over and over again. Other weeks (like this one) we do a different song at every house. We almost exclusively sing in Swahili and Kikuyu so unless it’s a song we’ve done several times, I’m usually pretty lost. That hasn’t served me well this week because the group of leaders have an interesting assortment of musical gifts. On top of that, we have had the accompaniment of a harmonica which is a special treat since we normally sing a cappella. With this group each person sings the song in they’re preferred key and the harmonica player plays whatever chords his mouth decides to play while I attempt to identify some sort of melody to sing along with them. Talk about a joyful noise... we’re definitely living into Psalms 98 and 100. That’s a major difference in singing praise around here. At home, people tend to be super self conscious about singing. Here, everyone sings regardless of their musical ability. Sometimes the most beautiful harmonies come out and sometimes you can’t tell what song is being sung. Sometimes a harmonica novice joins the crew and makes the worship that much more exciting. Whenever I hear a harmonica I think of a sweet lady from the church that raised me: Ms. Fronnie Gardner. She has passed on now but I have such vivid memories of her playing her harmonica at First Pres. Ms. Fronnie taught 5th grade bible study and the theme was about how we could become Fishers of Men. Standing at the front of the classroom adorned by her Jesus is my friend hat, Ms. Fronnie would huff into her harmonica while we sang “I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men. I will make you fishers of men if you follow me......” When the deacon pulled out his harmonica this week it took me straight back to that third floor classroom with Ms. Fronnie. It’s funny what parts of this experience trigger memories from home. I hope you can find an opportunity to make some joyful noise today too! “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.” Psalm 98:4 ~ Nell in Nairobi
PS: Just for fun, here is a link to a random choir singing one of my favorite songs that I’ve learned here called Kwake Yesu Nasimama (Here on Jesus Christ I Will Stand).