Ministry Blog
Hope for the Children of Southern Sudan
Elephant Land - Blog 2
December 17, 2009
ELEPHANT LAND BLOG 2
There are many, many things in East Africa different from home. One of them is our UM worship services. They last about 2 and ½ hours, for starters. The people here call them going to ‘prayers.’ And there is a whole lot of praying that happens: not just an opening and closing, but also prayers for the country, church leaders, men, women, children, youth, families, etc. During one portion, it begins with a slower worship song, and then people begin to pray our loud, and eventually everyone finishes. Sometimes, one of the leaders finishes with a loud, urgent prayer, that can be longer or shorter—but usually longer. We also usually pray the Lord’s Prayer. In addition, on most Sundays toward the close of the service, we anoint people for healing, and usually there are two-deep across the front of the sanctuary. Sometimes, there is a place for testimonies, and sometimes at the end of those, all the pastors, leaders and church members pray for that one.
A few months ago, a very tall couple came to church. They have their foreheads ritually marked with lines, indicating that they are from one of the northern tribes. The couple looked a bit older, so I was surprised to see the woman nursing a toddler. There is also a bigger boy, and the father has to walk with a crutch. He was a soldier and hurt his foot in the war. At testimony time one day, he said his wife wanted to come and speak.
She said that many of her children had died, and she was so deep in grief, that she sought for relief in alcohol. After a while, she was drunk all the time, and her husband had to take care of the other children. (To western ears, this is not so strange, but it is not common in Africa.) Finally, she realized that being drunk would never bring back her children. So she stopped drinking, and now, she had come to the church to rededicate her life to Jesus Christ. Wow! We all gathered around her while she knelt on the dirt floor, and laid hands on her, praying aloud for this woman. Just two weeks ago, I baptized her, along with her toddler baby girl! Wow, again!
The worship songs are many, rather like a contemporary service. They really love the ‘hot’ songs (their term) that have a great beat. All singing is a capella, with only drums and shakers accompanying them. But they not only sing—they dance! Many people, especially the children, come up to you and grab your hands-and jump up and down to the beat of the music! If it’s a long song, you really get a good cardio workout! Sometimes a woman leads the song, and sometimes a man. And sometimes the leader doesn’t think the drummers have the right beat, so they stop them, go over and pound on the drums to show them!
The song leader or the worship leader, or a musician—anyone can get up and exhort the people. Sometimes they go up and down the aisle, like Bishop Swanson does at a camp meeting. One day, one of the drummers jumped up and danced alone, just to show his joy in the Lord. Some of the songs are in Bari, some in Juba Arabic and a few in English. At any point in the service, women will do a joyous ululation, very high and loud.
One of the best parts of the service is when ‘the Sunday School’ kids do their special music. They sing and dance, all in unison, and with hand motions. There are about 40-60 kids, and they line up according to height, smaller ones in front, and taller ones in back. They sing and dance from their seats up to the front of the church. There are other kids in the service who don’t take part in this. The youth leader (they combine children and youth) meets with them 2-3 afternoons a week for Bible study, as well as music practice. I do some songs with them—they didn’t know ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ And I did the Wordless Book, where you tell the Bible story with colors. I brought enough for 80+ kids, and gave each of them small pieces of construction paper with the colors. What broke my heart, is that most of the kids didn’t know how to fold a piece of paper. From what I’ve seen in their school rooms, about the only paper they have is their copy books on which they do homework. All the other teaching is done lecture-style. Paper is very expensive here, so there aren’t mountains of it like you have there. Even in our house, all paper that’s recyclable, is kept and used up completely. Some of our cardboard boxes are used for lighting the gas oven.
Anyway, getting back to the worship service, we do have Scripture reading, a sermon and the offering. The offering basket is held by a child, and everyone sings and comes up and puts in their offerings. Speaking of the sermon, we finally came up with a preaching plan for the local church—because with us, there are four preachers there most of the time. However, we’ve encouraged Pastor Amos to preach two Sundays, then one of us, then him, etc. His preaching has really improved, and he is taking a more active leadership in the church. We took it from last year’s lectionary, because they said they needed more preaching from the Gospel—and last year it was Mark, the simpler and more straight-forward one.
One of my favorite things we do is baptize and serve Holy Communion. They only recently learned that we baptize children in our church. So we’ve done two already at Yei, and we are going to Gwiria this week to do the same. It’s one way we teach our pastors here. I also anoint each one with oil, as they did in the early church. One of us preaches on one topic, and the other preaches on the other one. Preaching takes on more importance here, because of the low level of literacy. We heard that the literacy rate here is about 20%. It was the same in the early church, and also for Martin Luther and John Wesley. Be very thankful for the educational opportunities you and your children have!
The service closes with announcements and a benediction. After each of these elements of the service, everyone applauds! How long has it been since you had applause in your church in Sunday morning?
Well, let me wrap up this edition. More later.
Grace and Peace, Phyllis Hankins (and Boo)
