On Saturday evening we had Pastor Alphonse and his wife Alice round for dinner. Not knowing what to cook them we opted for African food and made them rice, beans and a chicken stew – it seemed a good choice for them as they ate well, but unfortunately I’ve been suffering from one of those mysterious traveller’s sickness bugs and have been mostly living off glucose biscuits and porridge oats for the last few days, so couldn’t eat any. It was lovely to spend time with them, to learn more of their family history, the history of the local area, the hard times they’ve come through and the priorities of their ministry in Kasese (although Alphonse is the Pastor, Alice studied at Bible College with him and they work as a team).
On Sunday morning after a night of torrential rain and thunderstorms Alice turned up with three of her five children to “take us” to church (ie they all squeezed into the back of our fortunately large car and told me where to drive to). Kasese Central Baptist Church is one of four Baptist Churches in Kasese (or five depending on who you ask, but that’s a whole other story), and at 10am there were very few people there, the service therefore didn’t start until 1025, but by 11 the building was full with maybe 70 adults and about 20 children. The men sat on the left on plastic garden chairs and the women and children on the right on hard wooden benches – as is common throughout much of Africa – which allowed Samuel to shuttle between us, play with other small children, or dance in the aisle as he saw fit!
Having hymn books in Lukhongo, Swahili and English was a bit confusing, and there weren’t enough Swahili ones, but as many of the Swahili hymns are direct translations from English to the same tune you can sing along in either language! It sounds cliché to go on about how great African singing is (and to be honest it isn’t always), but the choir is amazing and only twelve singers (11 female and 1 male) managed to lift the roof off with their joyful singing and dancing in their purple robes, skilfully accompanied by a boy producing most of the sounds of a whole drum kit from one African drum, and by another boy on a keyboard who would have sounded great if he’d always been in the same key as the singers! The Pastor also invited Bethan to sing a song which she did with her usual confidence and skill. Luckily I was only asked to say a closing prayer, which is considerably less scary than singing in front of so many people! Our BUU colleague Chris preached. As he is Acholi and doesn’t speak Swahili or Lukhongo he preached in English with the Pastor translating into Swahili, which made it a lot easier for us. We finished by 1pm which was good by African standards.
This week we will start our Swahili training in earnest and attempt to move on from the greetings and numbers we have mastered so far. As the population of Kasese includes Bakhongo, Congolese, some Acholi, a few Bugandans and some Ruchiga and Rotoro, each of whom have their own language, learning Swahili will be the way ahead if we are to avoid getting lost in a bewildering concoction of tribal languages!
For those who are interested yesterday it reached 31c and over 60% humidity - which is a tiring combination. Today following the rain it felt pleasantly cool at only 25c!
For those who pray:
· We give thanks that we have been made so welcome in a church that is clearly striving to serve God and its community.
· Please ask God that he continues to deliver me from this weakening sickness and gets me back on proper food soon.
· That we have a skilled and gentle nurse to give Samuel a jab tomorrow (we have the vaccine and needle in our fridge but need a nurse to administer it).
No comments:
Post a Comment