"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning."
-Bill Gates
On my very first day at the Scout Bureau, Pauline invited me to come to church with her that Sunday. I put it off saying that we were still majorly jet lagged (which was the truth) but that we would this weekend instead. While Heather, Natalie and I don’t go to church, we were all interested in going here for the cultural experience, so we figured since we had the chance to go so early in our trip, we might as well.
Pauline told me to ask the infamous Elly if he would mind picking us girls up for church since he went there as well. He played it down like it would be no big deal, but he was clearly thrilled at the prospect. He told me he’d arrive to pick us up at 7. My one sleep-in day a week, and I had to be out of bed at 6! I managed to get out of bed relatively painlessly at 6, but the girls, who had gone out last night, had a considerable amount more trouble.
Natalie was tired and “hung to high heavens”, and while she denies it, Heather was almost certainly still drunk. At least, if she wasn’t drunk when she woke up, the Bailey’s she poured into her morning coffee certainly helped (“We had no milk!” is her defence.)
So we managed to be outside on the curb dressed in our Sunday best by 7am, Heather with portable travel mug in hand, but no Elly in sight. Within minutes, he screeched up, he had slept in. The girls were teasing him about having a late night, he claimed he’d had a “meeting” (though it was apparent as the day wore on that he was just a hung over as the girls).
We pulled up to church about 725, and got seats quite near to the front. This church was in an odd building with really low ceilings, and a big white tent sent up with more seats outside for overflow. All in all, it held 4500 people!!!!! Truly, it didn’t seem like that much, but I highly doubt they lied to me about the capacity so there have you.
The first half hour was “Prayer Time”, and consisted of a lady SCREAMING a prayer into the microphone, while everyone around us started praying loudly to themselves; some in tears, some joyous, many praying in tongues. It was so loud, and a little frightening. We were all quite overwhelmed.
At 8, the service started. A choir sang great gospel songs, and we had a great time clapping and dancing along. For about 2 songs. Then Natalie, who had used every dance move in the book, started looking a little, and then a lot, green. Luckily, my supply of emergency fruit bars quickly warded off an unfortunate “sick in the middle of church” scenario. Definite Grandma points were earned by me. While Natalie was having her little hangover tummy crisis, she glanced at the program where we saw that the service was scheduled from 8-11. It was 815.
The singing went on for a long time, it was a lot of fun and the people really got into it. Then came a sermon, and then some more songs. Then the main Reverend took the pulpit. The man was crazy intense. Like, I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life. How he still had a voice after SCREAMING at us for an hour and a half, I’ll never know.
While I’ve never really gone to church in Canada, I can’t imagine that it is anything like this. It was so loud, and intimidating, and, just, loud. After checking with Elly to make sure it was ok to do, Natalie took a few videos, they will be able to give a more clear picture of how wild this service was. And I mean, the people were acutally going wild!! I have seen people get less worked up over the Stanely Cup winning goal than those people did about God. Seriously, the Reverand would say "Let's here you cheer for Jesus", and people were leaping up and down like they were at a hockey game!
The most horrifying moment of the entire service was when the Reverend asked anyone who was joining the congregation for the first time to stand up. Naturally, EVERYONE in a 5 row radius turned to look at us, we were the only 3 white people in a crowd of 4500, it was obvious that we were new. All of us looked at each other umcomfortably, and Elly finally stood up so that we could stand with him. With 9000 eyeballs focused on us, the Reverend welcomed us, and an usher came and handed out a welcome envelope of treats to us while everyone prayed for us. I was glad we were dressed so nicely!! I had no idea we'd be put on public display.
The funniest moment of the morning was when parents all brought their newborn babies to the front to be welcomed into the church. Once they were all gathered at the front, the Reverend announced each one of their names. About halfway through, he read out "Barack Obama" and he, along with everyone else in the church BURST out laughing! Apparently it's become a huge new popular name for Kenyan children (Obama's father was Kenyan). Again, half of the eyes in the place, assuming we were American, turned to see our reactions. We, of course, were in absolute stiches,mostly because we had so much nervous energy built up, it was great to have an excuse to let it out.
The Reverends final sermon was very long and very, very intense. I didn't really agree with alot of what he was saying, but it was incredibly eye opening. Christianity is HUGE in Kenya, and the people here literally LIVE for God. When Elly found out that we don't go to church on Sundays, he was horrified. When he asked if we believed in God at least, the only acceptable answer is a resounding "Of COURSE!!!". Nothing else would be socially acceptable here.
Once the sermon was finally over, we had to go for tea and cookies since we were visitors, so we ended up leaving around 1130 or so. We took a matatu and then a bus back to the hotel(which we were recommended not to do for safety, but we were with Elly, so we all felt totally safe; it's a whole different ballgame when you are with locals). The only scary moment was when the bus slowed (not stopped, just slowed) to let people off. I was at the back of the row of people getting off, so the bus was practically racing by the time I got to the door, and I had to do a flying leap of the speeding bus in my Sunday church clothes while Heather, Natalie and Elly were screaming "JUMP" at me from the safety of the sidewalk. It was intense, but clearly, I've lived to tell about it!
All in all, it was really a great cultural experience. Not something I could do on a regular basis, but a great way to gain some insight about the culture and appreciate the differences between here and back at home. As for me, I think I'll stick to my once a year spiritual cleanse at the Gospel Service of the Jazz Festival with Papa :)
No comments:
Post a Comment