Jordan has found itself to take the place of my favorite country on the race thus far. It was short, but oh so sweet. All ten of us girls found ourselves in a small village in the northern part of Jordan for about a week and a half, but honestly, it felt like months.
It was an ATL month and we were praying about where to go and what to do. One of our squad leaders found an Airbnb that worked with a well-known organization. They were willing to house and feed us for way under our budget. As we prayed into it, we all felt peace. So the next day, we piled into a bus and headed on a two-hour bus ride to this small village.
When we got there, we were welcomed with open arms by the family who owns the house and lived right next to us. They had three girls and one boy, ages 19-9. That first night we spent probably about an hour and a half dancing. They were teaching us Arabic dances and we were teaching them popular dances in America (i.e. the Macarena). It was a sweet introduction to our time.
Throughout our time in the village, though everyone spoke very little English and we spoke even less Arabic, we got to spend afternoons at the house, watching cooking videos from a lady from Azerbaijan, playing games, having movie nights with popcorn and tea, we had breakfasts and early dinners together, and just lived life alongside each other. On top of that, we were also taken by our host dad’s brother, who also happens to be our other neighbor and the president of the organization that we were staying with, all over to meet new people and get a feel for the surrounding areas.
On our first morning going with our new friend, he let us have the aux cord to play music, so we started playing Joy in the House of the Lord by Phil Wickham. From that day on, every single time we got into the car, that is what he would immediately put on for us. He would dance with us as we sang along to the song. It soon spread into the house. We would put music on in our host family’s house and played that song a couple of times for them and other worship songs. Even though they couldn’t understand the lyrics, you could tell that they loved the music.
Even though there was a huge language barrier between us and all of our friends, we were able to introduce them to the Lord through music. Since leaving them we have received messages and been tagged in posts of them playing that song because they knew it was our favorite. There IS joy in the house of the Lord and my prayer is that my new friends get to experience that for themselves rather than through others.
More stories from my favorite country are coming soon 🙂
