Church... the African Way

On Saturday, some of the young African nannies invited Shermaine and I to go to church with them on Sunday morning. Not only was it my first time experiencing an African church, it was also the first time I had been to church on a Sunday. It did feel a little strange closing Sabbath by myself on Saturday night and then waking up early the next morning to go to church!

Elizabeth (one of the nannies) and Safina (the cook) met Shermaine and I outside the volunteer house at 7am. We walked to the church, which is only about five minutes away - actually only a hundred or so metres down the road from the old volunteer house. We were still a couple of blocks away when we started to hear the music from the church - there was singing and a brass band and a sound which I can only describe as a war cry. I was thinking that if it was this loud blocks away, then it would be absolutely overwhelming once we actually got inside!

We went into the front gates of the church and we were greeted by this sight...

People dancing and clapping their way into church!

Church was just starting when we got there and I was worrying that if it started at 7 then we were going to be there for hours and hours, not understanding what was happening. It didn't turn out to be so bad though as it ended at 10 and the only part that was a little boring was what I assumed was the sermon. I only understood about one word in a hundred! I don't know what denomination it was, but there was a lot of stand up, sit down, kneel down, stand up again. Interesting when we couldn't understand so we just had to sort of mimic what everyone else was doing!

Shermaine told me that it was quite a modern church, compared to some of the others she's been to since she has been here. There was a sound system which played loud music and there were also African drums. We estimated that there was about 500 people there - there were twelve people squished in our pew alone! We were already quite crammed together when another lady came along and sort of sat and wiggled her way between two people. It was a cold morning, but it was quite warm being in such close proximity to so many other people!

There was not a great deal of congregational singing, but there was a lot of singing from the choir. This particular church had two different choirs who sat facing each other at the front of the church. They would get up and have a sort of "battle of the bands" thing where they each appeared to be trying to out-dance and out-sing the other. Some of the dancing was quite interesting - rather "come hither" and accompanied by cat calls and the war cry thing (I don't know what else to call it, but it is a shrill warbling noise made with the tongue and appears to be a sound of appreciation). Anyway, I thought a lot of the dance moves were rather risque for church, but clearly I am just not familiar with the African way! The choirs were very entertaining however and I enjoyed watching them greatly.

The other thing that I found interesting was the way they took up the offering. At the appropriate time, the people in the last pew stood up and filed down the sides of the church, put their offering in the basket at the front, and then filed back up the centre aisle to their seats, followed by the second to last pew and so on. Shermaine and I didn't really know what was happening, so we just followed everyone else, put some money in the basket and then returned to our seats. I felt very conspicuous as I was the only "mzungu" (white person) in the whole church! That was all well and good though, until the people at the front of the church had finished, and then the people at the back stood up and filed down again. A second offering! I was so confused and was starting to wonder how many offerings there would be... thankfully there was no more after that. Next time I will know to only put a small amount in each time, rather than one big amount in the first offering!

Altogether it was a very interesting experience. Even though I didn't understand either what the people up the front were saying, or what was happening in general, I enjoyed it. It was neat to experience a different style of worship to that I am used to. I guess it made me realise that there are a lot of different ways of worshipping God and that we should not automatically assume that our way is either the best or the "right" way. Watching the look of joy on the locals faces as they sang and worshipped God was amazing. I will definitely consider going back there some time - maybe once I know a bit more Swahili and can understand a little better what is going on!

xoxo,
-Hannah