Today I went to church with my friend Asita (pronounced Asta and as she says "in luzungu: Esther"). It was another over the river and through the woods adventure, was about a 45 minute walk or so to Bundikahungu Church of Uganda. Her husband Buligi is a church leader in this parish of the Anglican denomination called the Church of Uganda. He wore a white robe, he knelt and prayed and there were a few congregational "readings"/call & response type liturgical parts but of course no one has books of any sort so they have it all memorized. Mwesige Jophes sat next to me and translated a total of about 10 phrases throughout the 2.5 hour service. So, needless to say, I only got the highlights for sure but you can tell generally by people's faces/tones of voice, etc, what is going on. Just before the sermon, Buligi motioned to me to come to the pulpit and said something or other in Lubwisi that I didn't understand and I couldn't even understand what Jophes was saying in English (or "Luzungu" = white people's language) but I knew enough to know that he wanted me to come and say something to the congregation...hm...well, okay, here goes...I told them it was so good to come here to Africa from America and be able to worship with them, to experience another part of God's Kingdom...that all around the world we have brothers and sisters and that we all worship the same God, and thanked them very much for having me...whew, it wasn't too bad. Buligi then preached about the fact that Jesus came to bring peace to the world. We sang two songs I had heard before and the others I just clapped along with. The offering involves an auction of sorts, as it does in most churches here, if you bring soybeans, matoke, sweet potatoes, and give them as a tithe then they auction them off to someone that needs them for their family that week and the proceeds go into the offering plate...kind of a really nifty idea I think...
I hope to post a picture but the internet is being absolutely horrendously slow...On our way to church we passed another church in full swing, it was just a thatched roof held up by 5 wooden poles or so but it faced a breathtaking backdrop of the Rwenzori's. It's a beautiful day here today and I stopped on the way home to take a photo...one of these days you'll see it...
1 comment:
The offering involves an auction of sorts, as it does in most churches here, if you bring soybeans, matoke, sweet potatoes, and give them as a tithe then they auction them off to someone that needs them for their family that week and the proceeds go into the offering plate...kind of a really nifty idea I think...
This is unbelievable...it's no wonder the services are 3 hours!
J
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