"Jambo kanisa!" "Jambo sana!"* (by Jennings)

*"Greetings, church!"  "We greet you so much!"

(All photos in this post were taken by our friend D. Wright and used with his permission)

Church in Ibambi – a Congolese village church. Exuberant, participatory, communal. At least those were my impressions. The head translator's son picked me up, led me to the church, took me in the women’s side, and sat me next to a very kind older lady. The service was entirely in Swahili, but that didn’t matter too much – my neighbor told me when to close my eyes for prayer, when to stand, when to get my offering out.

The women were on the right side of the church, the men on the left. Children – some just toddlers – sat on low stools (which they carried in with them) at the front, off to the side a bit. I loved seeing them there, I loved that all ages were together in church, all singing together, dancing, giving offerings, praying. It is a huge church with tall, open (no glass) windows and a very high tin roof. An artifact of missionary days. No ceiling, terrible acoustics. It was hard for me to hear what the service leader was saying, but no one else seemed to have any trouble following what was going on. And the kids could mill around and giggle and it didn’t really disturb anything.

There was a Scripture reading from Colossians. I was struck by how many people had brought their Bibles and were following along. Anzabati told me later that there is a real lack of Bibles, not enough people have them. But those who do sure do seem to use them! There was a sermon (I think), and the “chef de poste” spoke for a few minutes. But most of the two hour service was singing! We used the Swahili hymnal for 2 songs; otherwise, there were maybe 5 different choral groups who sang, mostly in Lingala. There was a trio of young men, a trio of middle-aged ladies, a choir of 20 or so girls – from tiny to teens – who sang in perfect harmony and danced, and a couple of other groups who stood up and sang. Two young men (part of the trio) played drums, and a few church members had other traditional instruments (flutes, shakers). Near the end, the whole church was singing, led by one of the drummers, with some call and response, lots of swaying back and forth, and other gestures. Everyone joined in, from the littlest kid to the oldest lady, they all knew the song, they all sang and gestured. It was wonderful!

When it was time for the offering, they brought out two huge wicker baskets and one small one (for the kids, I think). The women went first, swaying back and forth and shuffling forward slowly in a sort of conga line down the side aisle, toward the back, then up the front aisle. I have just enough rhythm to be able to sway in time. They had a time for visitors to stand up and be greeted, but I was grateful that I wasn’t asked to say anything, and no one made any kind of big deal of a muzungu being there (except for the children who stared at me open-mouthed, but that is to be expected).