Several of our readers have asked for our experiences about Sunday services here. Iringa, like much of Tanzania, is a population of the churched and the mosque-d. Whether Muslim or Christian, it's apparent that folks here are serious about faith. Many of our students are very open about their religious life and affiliation, although as you can imagine with Tumaini being a Lutheran university, most profess Christianity. Still, it's not unusual to see headscraves among the group, and on Fridays the Muslim men come to class wearing their white robes.
There are many Christian churches in Iringa representing quite a number of demoninations, including the large Lutheran Cathedral, which we have attended on two occasions. The Cathedral looks and, for the most part, sounds like a Lutheran church in America; substitute Swahili for English, but it's easy to follow the gist of a service. They have several fine choirs, an organ, and lots and lots of instrumental accompaniment tapes.
The only other church we've attended in Iringa itself is the Assembly of God with our Tanzanian friend Hellen. True to form, it was full of music and drama, lasted over three hours, and had many charismatic features, including a session when the full congregation prayed aloud in various tongues.
But our usual Sunday experience is to tag along with the Bega Kwa Bega folks to one of the rural Lutheran congregations in the outer Iringa District. I can't explain this adventure without first giving a short description of Bega Kwa Bega. The Swahili translates to "shoulder to shoulder," and it's a partnership organization between individual Lutheran congregations in the States (mostly Minnesota) and Lutheran congregations surrounding the Iringa District. The partnerships provide scholarships for secondary students, clean water, agricultural training, vocational training, and many other projects, depending on the needs of the communities. Leadership is equally shared by Tanzanians and Americans with the local community here leading the efforts.
A typical morning begins by leaving the BKB apartments about 7:00, driving through the countryside over some of the worst roads imaginable (many are just dirt tracks, single lane), and arriving at our destination one to two hours later. Once at the village, we're always invited to the pastor's home for breakfast served by the pastor's wife. Breakfast is mendazi (a type of donut), chapati (flat bread), boiled eggs, tea, and Coca Cola. Without fail.
After breakfast, it's time for church. We make our way to the nearby sanctuary--often accompanied by singers and dancers--and process to the front. We're seated in places of honor with a translator. Services are on average 2 1/2 hours long, but with the singing, dancing, drumming, a certain amount of whooping and hollering, and an entertaining sermon, it never feels like more than a service in the States. (On one occasion, Russ and I discovered we were expected to deliver the sermon 20 minutes before the service started. We did it! We preached on "sin.") At announcement time, we're always expected to get up and introduce ourselves and say a few words. We never know what's going to happen until the actual service begins--baptisms, services of reconcilliation where a wayward former member is welcomed back into fellowship, multiple offerings taken (money, yes, but also assorted agricultural products like vegetables, eggs, and chickens), etc. At one service, five people came forward for baptism spontaneously--two Muslims and three Masai.
(For a Muslim or a Masai to join the Lutherans often takes real courage. Muslims risk being thrown out of their homes and families--and they end up at the mercy of their new congregation. Both Muslims and Masai practice poligamy which is legal here, so the agreement when they join is to not take on additional wives. Although Christians don't condone having multiple wives, to divorce them would be to leave them without support. Other more minor practices are accepted as well, such as Muslim women retaining their special clothing.)
In the States, once the blessing is given, everyone is ready to go home. Not so in Tanzania. First, there's more singing and dancing in the churchyard. Then everyone gathers for the weekly auction (remember the offering?). At one church, a man turned to me to explain the auction: "This is the American part!"
Once the service is complete, we either return to the pastor's home for lunch or meet with special committees to discuss digging wells, donating corn, running sewing schools, educating the children, or other projects shared between the Bega Kwa Bega partnerships. One way or the other, we're fed a second time: chicken, rice, peas or beans, mustard greens, spaghetti and tomato sauce, white bread (this is a more formal meal), maybe goat or beef, and Coca Cola. Sometimes mutual gifts are exchanged; certainly lots of photos are taken.
By the time we've completed another bumpy ride home, it's 5:00.
A few particularly delightful memories stand out:
*The service when a man from the Masai community was baptised so that he could enter the seminary;
*Meeting Pastor Paulo Korapach, a Masai from Matebete, where Russ and I had spent the prior weekend;
*Listening to a deafening musical combo of electric guitars, keyboard, and microphones for all the soloists--all powered by the single solar cell in the churchyard in a village with no other electricity;
*Spending an entire lunchtime in front of a deafening Gospel television program because the pastor's home had a satellite dish--again, in a community with no other electricity;
*Watching a pastor actually answer his cell phone in the middle of a service;
*Babies breastfed by their singing moms during choir performances;
*Choirs usually perform dances when they sing, and last Sunday a "full congregation" choir ranged in age from four years to eighty years--no one missing a beat or a move.
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