The Dennis Life

Sunday. Resurrection Sunday! Day 7.

As the sun rose in the east, so did the Son of God; the promise of a new day dawned in this land­­, a new song in my soul, a new Christ in my heart. The Promise, His Promise, fulfilled in the Resurrection of our lives, rebirth, welcomed spiritual adjustment as we walk a closer walk with Him (“Pagau Hallelujah!” by Cameron Mendes from Yeshua CD - not sure of the spelling or exactly what the song is saying, but this is one of the praise songs we sang with the Hindi team throughout the week, and with the word Hallelujah in it, I’m sure it’s fitting for Easter)!

We had determined a few days ago that we would split up into three groups and attend as many New Life Fellowship Easter services on this beautiful Resurrection Sunday. I believe that Pastor Jobe and some went to the church we visited last night, Sion and Buddy went to the Metro church, and LaMar, Matt, Cheri, Alison, Mandi, the Weehunts, and I went to Shannon’s church.

We arrived a little late and the worship had already begun. Up behind the platform was a large background poster that said, Yeshua! Jesus in Hindu. We were brought together again with some of our worship friends, Shannon leading worship, Diana, and forgive me, but I never caught his name, their wonderful drummer. And guess what girls?! They have a female bass guitar player! How awesome is that!!! We were again treated to their wonderful, enthusiastic, upbeat, thrilling worship. The pastor led in some prayer and then the IWI worship team (comprised of LaMar, Mandi, Alison, me, and Matt on sound and the performance CD tracks) was introduced. We worshipped some more and LaMar led us in some deep, freestyle, vertical worship.

Reverend Buddy and I had a conversation during the week that besides being here to serve and to have the gift of worshipping in another country with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, each of us would also be given personal gifts by God. One of my personal gifts on this trip was to learn what freestyle, vertical worship is and to learn how to let it flow in Spirit. I finally found out from Sion the chord progression he uses and plan to practice in my living room when I get home so I can lead others in this freeing, transforming God-song. I learned a distinction from Sion’s talks that praise is when you sing about how good God is and how great He is to us, His acts; and worship is when you sing about God’s majesty and omnipotence and about His Attributes, who He is. I learned from LaMar’s teachings how to sing from my heart to God’s heart, one-on-one, vertical, vulnerable declarations of love from a daughter’s heart, mine, to My Father’s heart, God.

It just seemed that every time we gathered for worship, the power meter would pick up from the previous venue. It was the same for this Resurrection Sunday. LaMar was the guest speaker for this morning, and as always, I received blessing upon blessing and kept on learning. Before I came on this trip, God spoke in my heart that this would be a time to look, listen and learn; and I was richly blessed in all three areas!!

After the service, our driver (still Aazoo) skirted us over to the Mumbai Marriott, yet another beautiful hotel. We were treated to an incredible Sunday brunch, including the Easter Bunny of all things!!! We were joined by our friends from Sower of Seeds Ministries, the Weehunts, Shannon and his wife, and the pastor and his wife from Shannon’s church (I don’t remember his name now and that’s what I get for not writing down every person’s name as I learned them!!!). We shared a beautiful meal together (although at this point I wasn’t too interested in food, but definitely in the Perrier, as this was the worst day for me with Deli Beli).

We said our goodbyes and I realized how we had grown as family and felt sad as I parted company with Shannon, our fellow worshipper for the last week. But promises were made that we would all see each other again in the future!

Aazoo whisked us back to the Sheraton where we had to rush to change for that night’s venue (and the plane ride home); rush to pack; rush to check out of our room; and, rush to the Metro church for the 6:30pm service (the church was over an hour away and it was 6pm when we left the hotel. I must take the blame for that, and my cronies were very gracious, but I had to keep running back to the bathroom in our room. It was not fun!). In fact, I suffered my way physically through the rest of the night, but I didn’t care and it was a minor thing compared to the Glory of each moment in India.

By the way, when we asked Aazoo how his wife and child were today, he answered with a twinkle in his eye that they were both well! This is about as religiously political as I will ever get, so I will just speak this out boldly, even if Aazoo was praying to Ala when we prayed over him last night, we were praying for healing and health over he and his family in the name of Jesus Christ!! It speaks for itself!!!

Our evening with our Hindi brothers and sisters at the Metro church was just as great as every other experience we had had in this lovely country. As we grew together spiritually as a worship team and engaged in freestyle worship, although we were completely exhausted by now, the power of God filled the house and lots of people came down front to pray and sing and receive His Blessing! In other churches, when people come down front, I’ve heard it referred to as The River. I think that’s very fitting. The River of Life, where we find Refreshing and Blessing and Joy in His Love; a River of Light where all things are Healed! During the freestyle worship, I remember we were all singing back and forth about the Light and the Father’s Light and raining down Light. It was surreal. It formed a vision in my mind of droplets of light, like rain, falling on India and healing the land and renewing the hearts of the people in God. It looked like Healing Rain!

At the end of the service, we were thanked by the congregation (with people in attendance from a lot of the churches that had attended the IWI conference this week). A lovely man and his wife gifted each one of us with a beautifully framed, hand-painted, water color picture with a scripture that was hand-written in calligraphy. We were given little gifts and lots of hugs and prayers for a safe flight home.

We, the IWI worship team, our friends from Sower of Seeds, and friends from the New Life Fellowship church, all said our goodbyes to each other and were whisked away once again into separate cars that would take us in our various directions home.

It was about 10:30pm, and a long, quiet trip to the airport; about an hour and a half. Looking one more time at the streets and stalls and abodes and people and trying to take it all in so as to remember every detail…silence once again and thoughts of what had transformed in my being from the week and what tomorrow would bring …