Baptism by Fire

On Saturday, several of the leaders of the Marera Church of Christ came to visit us at our guest house to plan Sunday's worship service.  They kind of trickled in because some of them had to walk over five miles to come to the meeting.  

Not knowing the cultural protocols is very uncomfortable, particularly in church meetings.  I don't know who is supposed to speak first or who is expected to lead the meeting.  I don't know how much time I'm supposed to spend asking about people's families before we get down to business, and I don't know whether I'm supposed to interrupt the meeting to greet people who come in late.  

Most importantly, I don't know how to end the meeting.  When a dozen Kenyan men and women are sitting silently, staring at me, and I have already made as many closing statements as I can think to make, how do I signal that it is time to leave?  Am I supposed to stand up?  Do I lead a closing prayer?  Maybe there is some secret phrase or hand sign I'm supposed to make.

I have decided that a confession of ignorance is usually the best policy.  So I ended up just saying, "I believe we will continue the meeting until 11:00pm because I confess that I do not know how to end a meeting in Kenya."  They all laughed at me, and my friend Bernard helped me save face by drawing the meeting to a graceful conclusion.  

It has been so nice in past years that my friend, Stephen Greek, has been the one to speak for the team.  As a long-time missionary in Kenya, he always knows just what to do, but since he and Claudia do not arrive until June 4, I'm just having to wing it for a while.  We call it "baptism by fire", and all of our team members have been experiencing that in some way or another.  

These church leaders walked so far to have this meeting to "plan" the worship service together with us, but we quickly saw that they already had the order of worship nicely printed out before they even arrived.  And of course, all of our team members had been given significant roles in the service.  Katherine and Alice were supposed to teach a ladies class together.  I was supposed to preach the sermon and teach two different classes.  And Lauren was supposed to teach two children's classes.  We had a good 12 hours advance notice for all of this before show-time on Sunday morning.  Baptism-by-fire.

All of us felt a bit overwhelmed, but Alice and I had kind of been expecting something like that.  If you go to Kenya on a mission trip, it doesn't matter who you are or what you think your role on the trip is, you had better have a Bible lesson up your sleeve because you will definitely be asked to teach something or other.

The schedule said that the worship started at 9:00am, and the church leaders recommended that we get there a bit early so that we could pray together before the service.  So, on Sunday morning we all scarfed down our breakfast and ran around frantically to get our kids in the taxi and get to the church before 9:00.  But when we finally got there 10 minutes late, we noticed that we were the first ones there.  I ran over to the home of one of the church leaders only to find that they were still eating breakfast and getting dressed.

I've been to Kenya a couple of times before and it has always been this way, so I should have known to be prepared for "Africa time", but they just sounded so sincere when they had said 9:00 that I thought just maybe it was different in this part of Kenya.  Nope.

Once church finally got started around 9:45 we got a few more surprises.  The program said that we were supposed to sing a bit and then have 45 minutes of Bible class, so I was all prepared to get up there and teach my Bible lesson when all of a sudden another man was invited to the front to preach an hour-long sermon about giving before the collection was taken.  When he sat down, another man got up to preach another hour-long sermon in preparation for communion.  The adults never had Bible class at all, but poor Lauren ended up being stuck with all the kids for two hours worth of children's Bible class.  

When I was finally invited forward to speak I didn't know whether I was supposed to teach my Bible lesson or preach my sermon.  Fortunately, all the children started dragging their little wooden benches back into the church building (leaving Lauren an exhausted heap on the grass outside), so that was a pretty good indication that it was sermon time.  

By the time I started the sermon, attendance was up to about 60 (they kind of trickle in because many of them travel long distances to come to church).  On the whole, I thought the sermon went fairly well.  Preaching in Kenya with an interpreter is so much easier than preaching in America.  For one, I must speak slowly to be understood by the English-speaking listeners.  And secondly, I have to wait for each sentence to be interpreted before proceeding.  All of this really slows down the pace of the sermon delivery, forces me to be efficient with my words, and gives me plenty of time to think about what I'm going to say next.  It's wonderful.  What would otherwise be a rambling mess of a sermon can turn out to be pretty good just because I have to wait for the translator.  In America, I usually feel the need to write out my sermons first in order to keep me focused and concise.  In Kenya, I can just speak whatever is on my heart.  

It also helps that Kenyan church-goers aren't looking at their watches.  Most of them don't even own watches.  There isn't really a scheduled ending time for the service,  so there isn't any artificial time constraint on sermon length.  The preacher just goes on until he is finished conveying the message he has been given. 

Once the sermon was over we had about 15 people come forward for the invitation, so we got to pray over each of them individually about their various needs.  Most of them wanted prayers that they would grow closer to God, some wanted prayers for healing, and some wanted to be better mothers of their children.  It was very interesting that of all the people who came forward, only one was male.

Once our worship service was over we resuscitated Lauren (still pooped after her marathon Bible class), and then the whole congregation had lunch together.  After lunch, we divided into our separate Bible classes.  I taught the men, Katherine and Alice teamed up to teach the women, and Lauren got one more round of the kids.  I was kind of concerned about how Lauren was going to hold up to all of that, but after class was over she was cheery and positive.  So, I guess she must have gotten a divine second-wind.  It was her baptism-by-fire.

We finally got home about 5:00pm, tired and very wet (because it has rained every afternoon we have been here).  Kerith, Anna, and Bethany held up to it all very well.  I have been so proud of my girls.  Kerith particularly, is being quite a social butterfly.  Anna found a friend today, too, a little Kenyan girl her own age.  Unfortunately, their budding friendship had to come to an untimely end when they decided that it was fun to lick each other's tongues.  Anna's mama freaked out so much about that, that I'm pretty sure Anna isn't going to try that again.

On the whole it was a really good Sunday.  Katherine and I both felt like good things happened at church today, in the main assembly and in our classes.  These people are hungry to hear the word of God.  Most of them are already baptized believers, but they really desire to go deeper.  And we are very excited about the transformation that can come to this entire community when Christ's life-transforming power takes a hold of this little congregation.

Lord, we confess that we are incompetent ministers in Your Kingdom.  Hide us behind Your cross so that those we minster to see only You.  Amen.