I was lucky enough to be assigned to lead singspiration during the Christmas eve event. Leading singspiration doesn't seem to be a big deal and I thought it is just a piece of cake. However God had a lesson for me. It turned out to be one of the most challenging singspiration I'd ever done. First of all we need to type the songs out so people can see it on the screen. Thank God we have Kristy who is really good at typing Chinese (though a local boy complained about her Chinese ...). Then I need to find a musician. And sister L was able to help out. So we are ready to go - I was quite confident that things were in control - until two hours before the evening program started. To accommodate more people, they (who?) decided to make it an outdoor event. Remember outdoor the temperature is about 1-2 C at nite. So they bought some charcoals and branches and started the fire - an hour and a half before the meeting is supposed to start. What added to the mess is the projector won't be available until 30 mins before the official starting time. People came early (because of the fire?) and started to gather around those hot spots. It doesn't take long until that area (that is an area between 4 板房) was packed with people - and we still didn't have the projector!! The challenge is there is about 45 mins to kill ... and we are told to start singing something without the projector and the keyboard.
Oh talking about the keyboard, since we moved to an outside area I thought it won't be possible to use the keyboard, but in fact the workers there managed to connect couple power cords and connection cables to supply power for the light bulb, the laptop, the speakers, the projector and the keyboard. There were so many people that for couple times the electricity was disconnected because people may just have kicked the plug or stretched the cables so the connection was lost. And there were motorcycles passing through the crowd of people and kids running around. That is the most electrically "dangerous" setting I'd ever seen. There was one time when the table fell and some of the speakers dropped. Luckily the laptop was fine. I am so thankful that this sister did bring her laptop which comes very handy when there are needs of any word processing, music generation, storing pictures/videos etc.
Anyhow we started singing some songs but after a few songs we don't know what to sing (and there are still at least 15 mins to go). Teacher C suggested us to start earlier but at the same time we just got the projector and need to hook it up to the laptop. Double challenges came when our laptop didn't work with that projector. We will need the laptop from teacher L ... So teacher C started to lead the congregation to sing Chinese worship songs. No lyrics because they all know how to sing those songs. He is very good in leading the crowd to sing and dance. He is the type of song leader that is full of energy and knows when to start and stop (and talk). His voice is very good actually (at least he can lead without loud speaker). One song we sang repeatedly is
"雲上太陽" from SOP. At times I think this song means a lot to them because most of the time it is cloudy and gloomy in SiChuan. And it could be rainy during the winter. To be honest I was quite confused about the details of the christmas eve programme. I was told to give 5 mins of the singspiration time to the field workers and they are going to perform a traditional dance with christian song. However it wasn't until the last minute (yes, very last minute when I was about to do the singspiration) that I was told the dance will be performed after Peter's talk. At the same time I can sense (am I too sensitive?) some disappointments from the field workers when they schedule were changed (without being noticed ahead of time). I was actually quite puzzled about how things work in this area regarding organizing an event such as Christmas eve gathering. They don't seem to have agreed ahead of time about the ave, the time and the details. And everything seems to be so ad hoc. This is very different from what we (from HK or US) usually do at our home church. Are we too organized and not following the flow or are they being too randomized?
But that night Peter's message is wonderful. Not only because of the contents but also the way he spoke - practically he was shouting to the crowd. There were no microphones or loud speakers. When I was leading the singspiration, people kept asking me to speak up but I couldn't, my voice is so weak and at the end of it I gave up and just started talking normally. And I know how hard it is to speak to the crowd (at least 100 people) in the open area. Peter kept talking for 40ish minutes and at the end his voice cracked. I started to understand what is serving - leave nothing for the Lord and ask nothing for oneself (為己無所求，為主無所留). I wished I'd video taped the whole speech(did someone taped it?). This also reminded me of Jesus talking to the crowd before the miracle of 5 breads 2 fish. I'd never asked the question why he didn't need a mic or loud speaker or someone to do sign language for the deaf. Consider He was talking to thousands of people in an wild open area!! The local people usually can sing very loud and how did they do it? People living in the villages usually talk to each other in the mountains ... across a river, or a valley. They are so used to "yelling" at each other.I forgot exactly how it ended, but after eating a birthday cake (for Jesus!) we sat around those bowls of heat and just talked randomly. It is a good way to communicate to each other and know the villagers. Too bad they speak SiChuan diag most of the time. The "Chi Fun" was very cozy though, I wish there was some hot drink, hot chocolate/latte ... Starbucks should consider setting up branches here in XY ...
Finally we went back to the inn and everyone was exhausted. I was kind of sick that day (too cold at night) and thank God for healing me over that night so I was able to continue my journey until we arrived CD (then I was very sick ^.^)
