Church

On Sunday morning I had the opportunity to go to church with Kayijuka and his family. This was no ordinary service as they had a very special guest, the Archbishop of the Rwandan Anglican church. The church was beautifully decorated and many came who were not regular attenders of the church, including the governor of the district, village chiefs, and local officials.

During the service there was a time where members of the congregation brought forth the first fruits of their harvest as a means of tithing. The neat thing was that these items - bananas, papayas, cassava, etc. - were not simply left at the alter but after the service they were auctioned off and the monies went back to the church. It was a fun time as the auctioned took a turn and people started purposely raising the prices and people paid what they bid, regardless of whether they won or not.

My favorite part of the day though was getting to play with the children. When we first arrived we were greeted by many stares - who would be the first to say hello to the Muzungos? Slowly they came up to us and within a few minutes Diana had all of them singing and dancing. There were a million of them - all different ages, boys and girls, big and small. Some of the girls danced for us as well. I tried but I don't really think my body is suppossed to move that way! During the auction I made two friends, one named Estelle who was a bit disappointed that I did not have any candy to hand out and the other, Shadrach Meshach (yep, just like in Daniel) who was content sitting on my lap as we drank some Fanta (Citron for me) and Coke.

I loved the whole thing and the hours flew by. I still have song 146 (from the blue songbooks) stuck in my head.