Saturday, March 10, 2007

the middle of nowhere...part deux





alright, so for the last 3 days, i have been racking my brain for the words to describe what i experienced sunday night on my way home from mammoth. i did indeed time my journey to arrive just in time for the promised nightly revival at 7:30 (see the previous post with this title if you're confused) 40+ miles outside of victorville on us 395. as i was driving down the dark, desert highway, cool wind in my hair (just kidding), i saw lights in the distance and realized it was the tent. at 7:15p i turned into the dirt lot to find two other cars. i parked on the outer edge, as to make a quick escape if needed as well as for better picture taking. while sitting in my car talking to carrie, a man walked up to my car. louis, i learned his name was, carried a bible and a greeting, encouraging me to park closer. i told him i would in a little while. i sat in my car listening to more of the relevant podcast that had been playing on my ipod, wondering if anyone else would show up. finally at 7:24 i got out of my car, having moved it slightly closer, and went inside the tent. there were 46 chairs set up on top of indoor/outdoor carpeting laid over the dirt, ccm music playing through 4 powered mackie speakers, a large wooden pulpit set on an area rug in front of carpeted wooden platforms, and a drum kit off to the left (see photos). a woman, whose name i learned was tamika, came over and asked me to fill out a guest profile card. finally i learned who was doing the revival - valerie sorensen ministries. in the mean time, 3 more people showed up - an older white gentleman with a bible and spiral notebook, and an african-american couple. at 7:30, a tall woman dressed in black walked to the front with her head covered in a black shawl. adjusting the cd player to a new track, she turned around and started to sing to the cd "the year of jubilee" as tamika scrambled to get to the drum kit and play along. we then sang choruses (most of which i had never heard) with just the drums. then valerie started her message with a constant music track of piano hyms (to which she would occasionally sing). the primary text was out of hebrews 5 about being a priest in the order of melchizedek, but the message was a string of every christian bubble, christianese phrase or idea i've ever known or heard...and some that were new to me. oh, and don't forget "amen" and "praise the lord" thrown in every couple of lines. valerie asked at one point to pray for me, and so i let her. she also prayed for the couple. an hour and a half later, it was over. i've left out a lot of details about the message that were completely surreal, but this post is already too long. maybe I'll post more about it another time. she did give me a dvd/cd combo from a tent meeting they did in africa with clips of the preachigng and african worship music. i will certainly post about that upon watching and listening to it. so that was the revival experience. i'll post separately about my reaction to the whole deal soon.

2 comments:

Curtis Piatt said...

this is definitely an old blog post, but i was venturing through them and this one caught my eye since i absolutely saw that exact tent over the summer since i live in ridgecrest right off the 395, and i too was almost tempted to stop and check it out, but i was too much of a chicken. its funny to see that you saw it, and im glad you were brave enough to check it out

firewater said...

www.kingdomrevival.myevent.com We're still preaching! Come see us! Pastor Valerie