laughing and weeping.

by austin pfeiffer

Last night was a pivot point in the life of our community. It may have been the most profound moment we have ever had. I always read and hear stories of the moment a group finds the identity God has for it. We have chased a lot of rabbit trails in our community, talking a big talk about covenants, events, but we have yet to really come together on a mission.

Our friends Abby and Daniel are adopting a little boy named Moses from Ethiopia, but as they approach the end of the process, things have suddenly halted in the region where he lives. We are filled with anger, angst, powerlessness, and sorrow. We organized a fast from sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday. People all over participated, not just the people from our community or Redeemer, our church and it was tough. We couldn't coordinate schedules or line things up, it was inconvenient. People had brunches to go to, meals planned, parties, it was not easy, but we had to do it. Moses is waiting in Africa and we found ourselves, not contriving some cute t-shirt to sell or benefit concert, but stopping our lives in their tracks, and fighting for that little guy.

We broke our fast by taking communion at church. Some of us returned to our house to drink some beer, eat food, celebrate breaking our fast and act out the celebration we hope to realize one day when Moses comes home. Our group grew as the evening waned and we sat around a table discussing what God had done in our fasts. People were refreshed by the clarity, empowered by the solidarity we felt in doing it together, and some were simply subdued into a state of prayer.

After dinner we moved into the living room, lit some candles, grabbed a Bible, a tambourine, and a Guira, a percussion instrument used in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. We stomped our feet, we sang Psalm 126 antiphonally, we prayed, we chanted, we yelled, we cried, we laughed, we confessed. We sang out like the soldiers from the movie Glory. We read Ezekial 37 and tried to pretend that maybe, just maybe, God would let us speak life into the dry bones of Moses' adoption.

It changed us, it changed me, we are not trying to build an organization, we want people to come on over, and yell and cry a little, we need some of that in America don't we? And we can pretend it happens in churches, but that's hard...sometimes you just have to finally let it be real, in your home. It was the real thing, a real life revival of spirits. I saw it happen and it was a defining moment. The people who were there will be bonded forever and we will cheer the loudest and cry the hardest when Moses' beautiful face emerges on American soil.