The Wedding

Like many mornings we did not know what the day was going to consist of. We came back from the museum early on Friday afternoon. Upon arriving "home" Miriam informed the group that we were going to have a wedding. Earlier we had heard her joke about a wedding but never imagined that anything would ever come of it. When Miriam told us that we were having a wedding the guys and girls were separated and we were not allowed to communicate with each other until the wedding. The guys were isolated to a small room in a different house with a sahawari man. We had never met this man before and we soon learned that he did not speak Spanish very well and his English was even worse. After the first hour we sat in the room asking questions to each other about the wedding, "Who's getting married?  How long is this going to take?  What does a sahawari marriage look like?,  and Why are we having a wedding?"
When the first hour passed we started joking that we would be in this small, hot room all afternoon. Our jokes soon became a reality. Hour after hour came and went and we quickly realized that we might be in this room for longer then we first anticipated. We began to prepare ourselves for the long haul. We started filling our time with conversations amongst ourselves, small talk with the Sahawari man, sleeping, and pouring tea. I looked around at my surroundings and thought to myself, here I am with one Sahawari man, confined in a boiling hot room... Not doing anything. We still had more hours to put in under the intense heat of the desert sun. In total we sat in that small room for 7 hours baking underneath the Saharan sun. After 7 hours the girls were still not prepared for the wedding so we decided that we had to go walk around the camp to get some energy out. When we arrived back to the house at 8 o'clock in the evening we were dressed in what felt like large garbage bags that made the temperature rise 20 degrees. At least we were finally ready to start the wedding... Not so fast. We apparently had to drink more tea before the wedding. We gathered around in a tent with friends of the family and had tea with them. We hoped that the wedding would start right after we finished tea, no such luck. We waited another 2 hours until we were finally summoned to start the wedding. All of the anticipation of this wedding and we were finally going to find out what a Sahawari wedding was like. It did not disappoint... The next 45 minutes was filled with laughs, smiles, dance, fellowship, and cake.
In that hour the Father showed me what we had waited so long for... I saw hurt people rejoice and smile. I saw eyes that once looked hurt and hopeless filled with joy and hope. I saw people who felt that they were forgotten feel remembered. I saw people who had never been introduced to the Master's love feel the love He has for them. 
This moment was so important for the remainder of our trip. These hours showed the Sahawari people that we loved them and their culture. From that moment on I noticed a difference in the attitudes of the people that attended the wedding. The wedding allowed us to grow deeper with the Sahawari people and see who they truly were and bond with them on a new level.

This moment was great insight to what the majority of our trip looked like... This trip did not involve us doing anything tangible where we could look back and say yes we finished that and that and that. At many points throughout the trip that was a difficult concept to be content with. Doing nothing and having the faith that the Father will use it in a powerful way. When I reflect on this specific moment and the whole trip; even when we didn't have a specific schedule the Father had a bigger plan.
-Colby