"Come on in, child. Let's go worship the Lord."

One of our co-workers, Felicia, invited us to go to her church today, Poplar African Methodist Episcopal Church. As we asked permission to attend from our project director, Gary, he smiled, leaned in a bit and said, "Just in case you don't know, you'll probably be the only white people there."

I'll just lay it out there: I rarely find myself in the minority. I can count the number of times on my hand that it's happened. As Bayley, Danielle and myself drove 8 miles into the South Carolina countryside, the nerves started to hit. Before we stepped out of the car Bayley threw up a prayer, "God, we ask that you'd be with us this morning. Give us someone welcoming as we go into this church." I giggled nervously and wondered what the church would think of three white girls from Minnesota randomly attending their service.

God answered Bayley's prayer before it was even spoken out loud. A warm, wonderful black Southern woman in the car next to us greeted us, enveloping all of us in hugs and kissing us on the cheek. "Come on in, come on now, welcome! Come on in, child. Let's go worship the Lord."

We were greeted with handshakes, hugs, smiles and conversation. The church was small but pristine, with stained glass windows and quilted red velvet pews, women adorned with colorful hats, men in pinstriped suits, little boys in bow ties and girls with ribbons in their hair. The service started with a very unassuming woman in a white suit stepping up to the pulpit, gingerly taking the microphone into her hand. Then she started to pray. Don't kid yourself. She did not pray how you'd think a small, sweet, elderly woman would - her voice grew louder and louder and she threw her hands in the air and thanked the Lord Jesus. "Amen" and "Hallelujiah" rang out from the church pews, from the choir, from the Reverend. This was a church that prayed together.

The 2 1/2 hour service flowed without concern for time or appearance. I gave up trying to follow along in my bulletin. Reverend Matthew Furness spoke on Acts 24:24-25: "Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgement to come, Felix was afraid and said, 'That's enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.'"

Reverend Furness brought it home. Often we approach following God as something that must conveniently fit into our schedule - I do, at least. What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of what he might ask us to do, or give up, or bring into our lives? If I'm honest, it's challenging to always act on the belief that God is completely and fully good: that his plan for our lives is so much more amazing and fulfilling than the crayon-drawn blueprints we come up with, that he loves us perfectly, that the truth of God gives us more freedom than anything else in this world. We want control of our own lives because then, at least, it's predictable (or we'd like to think so).

As we were leaving, a woman came up to us and gave us each little plaques with the "Footprints" poem on it, thanking us for coming to church. Every single person that said goodbye to us thanked us for coming, and asked us to come back as they offered their open arms to hug us. I couldn't help but think that God does that very same thing.