The last term of the academic year just began yesterday, so I’m back into the swing of things, but I need to make a little bit of time to give you all a bit of an update. Plenty has happened in the past 2 months!
Last term ended with a bang with giving mock exams to the diploma students and then being confronted with 55 exams to mark and only a week to mark them before the grades for the term had to be in. For my Church History exams, each exam had 5 essays to mark and the students had 3 hours to write, so this was no joke! I did manage to get through it all, but with the last night being an all-night marking affair. I’ll get to do the whole thing over again when the students write their final exams at the end of this term. Only I anticipate that should be a little quicker since I won’t need to be giving the students feedback on their essays. This term I’m continuing on with the same classes as last term, which is fantastic. So with my Church History 1 class we’re moving into such topics as the East-West Schism, the Crusades, and St. Francis! And with Church History 2, we’re continuing on with the global expansion of Christianity from the 19th century and moving into the 20th century, the World Wars, the charismatic movement, and the ecumenical movement! Exciting times ahead! I bet you wish you could sit in! I would mention what we’re coving in Greek, but somehow I doubt that will peak many peoples’ interest (and hopefully I’m not just fooling myself that the Church History topics are peaking anyone’s interest! Church History is awesome! Say it with me now, “Church History is awesome!”).
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| My student, Justice Chiphwanya and his family |
During the break between terms I had the pleasure of having my brother, Jeff, and his girlfriend, Stacey, come and visit. Part of me thinks I just served as a good excuse for them to come down and travel around southern Africa since they spent less than a week with me in Malawi (alas, I was unable to join them on the rest of their travels), but I’ll take what I can get and we had a wonderful time in Malawi. I took them up to see Lake Malawi, showed them around Blantyre, and escorted them up to the capital, Lilongwe. I like to think I gave them a full cultural tour, not just your typical, Lonely Planet Malawi expedition. Of course, you’ll need to ask them how it was. Since fuel is still a problem in Malawi and the cost of driving is more than the bus, we opted for the bus. To get all the way up to Cape Maclear by bus, though, was an adventure that I hadn’t yet tried, and had I known what it all entailed, probably wouldn’t have. On the way there it involved a big bus, which was at times packed to the gills with people standing (we were left standing for the first hour), and a matola (a flat-deck truck that you ride on the back of) to take us the final hour to the cape. On the way back we got on the back of a regular pick-up truck for the first bit, then a matola, for the next bit, and then a minibus (since the big busses apparently only go at like 4 am from that part of the lake to Blantyre). Each way we estimated to be about 9 hours! Traveling around in Malawi is no joke! Jeff and Stacey were amazing sports though! The bus up to Lilongwe was much nicer. While we were up at the lake we visited one of my students who lives in a village up there, and so Jeff and Stacey also got to get a sense of the village experience and got to eat nsima. They also came to my church. So that they could at least understand the sermon part of the service, I had arranged it so I was preaching.
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| My Church Bangwe AEC |
Since I don’t think I’ve done it yet, now would be a fitting time to say a little bit about my church. I go to an Africa Evangelical Church, which is the partner church of SIM. As most of the other missionaries go to the AEC church which is literally right beside EBCoM for the sake of an English Sunday School for their kids as well as the convenience of proximity, I’ve decided to go a little further afield – to an area called Bangwe. It would of course be much easier to have a 5 minute walk instead of either an hour and a half minibus/walk trip or a 30 minute drive (for those times I opt for borrowing the SIM vehicle) each way, but whatev's right!? Plus, I like my church much better than the other one anyway. My church definitely has its frustrations, such as punctuality, long services, and very uncomfortable benches, but the people are lovely. The service is all in Chichewa, which often times leaves me daydreaming, but there are some things I can follow. One thing that I have noticed in every African church that I’ve been to, and mine is no exception, is a rather clear and inflexible order of service. It might differ between churches, but each service at my church follows this order:
- Before the service there is some singing of choruses while the elders (and me) are in the vestry (the time is mostly spent getting the announcements in order)
- Welcome
- Psalm reading followed by Apostles Creed and the Lord’s Prayer
- Hymn #1
- Prayer for the Church and the Country (a man will pray for one and a woman will pray for the other)
- Hymn #2
- Announcements (usually followed by a prayer for the announcements)
- Choirs (typically Sunday School, Women, and then Youth choirs each come up and sing 2 songs apiece) (sometimes followed by a prayer for the choirs)
- Reading the Scripture passage for the sermon
- 2 Praise and Worship choruses followed by intercessory prayer (everybody prays out loud at the same time)
- Sermon
- Offering while singing one of 3 hymns always sung for offering (followed by prayer for the offering)
- Hymn #3
- Benediction
- After the service, the preacher first, then the men’s side, then the women’s side (yes, men and women - except youth - don't sit together) file out of the church and shake hands (as you exit the church building you shake hands with those already forming a line and then you join the end of the line and continue to shake hands as people behind you do the same).
To keep this order going smoothly, each Sunday there is a convener of the service – somebody different from the preacher.
Once a month there is something called a Golden Sunday. This is different from the Paper Sunday I talked about earlier. Golden Sunday is also a special offering Sunday, but in it the church competes in its giving according to the areas where people live. There is singing and some dancing as they do it. The money from each area is tallied up and the area that gives the most that Sunday receives a little trophy. I have significant theological problems with Golden Sunday. Jeff and Stacey now know what I’m talking about since they were there on a Golden Sunday. The Malawians in general seem to love it. Anyway, I leave it at that.
One of my big frustrations with the church is punctuality. Now, I know this is Africa and it is a relationship-oriented culture rather than a task-oriented culture, but for me it is still a frustration, and even for the pastor it is a frustration. At one point the pastor tried to make a push for starting church at 9:00 instead of 10:00. It was unsuccessful except that now church generally starts around 10:15 instead of 10:30, 10:45, or 11:00. Around the same time as this push for an earlier start was going on, I was leading a Bible study before church. It was supposed to run for half an hour, from 8:00-8:30. The elders were supposed to start meeting in the vestry then at 8:30, and the service was supposed to start at 9:00. People weren’t coming for the Bible study though, and it usually ended up being myself, the pastor, and the EBCoM student who came to church with me. An additional hour in an already long day of church, when people weren’t actually coming, was too much for me, and so I’m no longer leading the Bible study. Services can run anywhere between 2 hours and 3+ hours (remember, all in Chichewa), and that long sitting on a hard, low bench with no back support is trial enough for me (see from the picture above). All that said, I still like my church. The singing is enthusiastic, the pastor is great (a graduate of EBCoM and also the youth coordinator for the AEC church in Malawi), and the people are very friendly. Lately, I’ve been opting more and more for taking the SIM vehicle to have only 1 hour of travel instead of 3, and that is much better for my spirits every Sunday morning. Another missionary couple around my age, the Voights from America, who are wonderful people with an adorable 2 year old, have also been coming to my church and so sometimes it works to catch a ride with them as well. Anyway, that’s a quick introduction to my church.
Perhaps some of you have seen Malawi in the news recently. You’ll remember from previous posts that both economically and politically Malawi has not been in a very good place. There were anti-government protests that were particularly holding the President, Bingu wa Mutharika, responsible for the woes of the country and criticizing him for increasingly autocratic behaviour and for loosing Malawi’s foreign aid from the UK, the EU, and the USA by bad governance and poor diplomatic relations. Anyway, things in the country took a dramatic turn on Easter weekend. On Good Friday the President died suddenly after suffering a cardiac arrest. The official announcement of his death, however, was slow in coming and there were fears that the delay suggested that the transition to new leadership might come with conflict. Constitutionally, the Vice President is to take the Presidency should the President be unable to rule. However, the VP, Joyce Banda, had a falling out with the President and had been kicked out of the ruling party and had subsequently started her own party. Bingu had since been raising up his brother, Peter Mutharika, as his preferred successor and functional deputy. There were some arguments at the time of Bingu’s death that Joyce Banda could not rule since she was no longer part of the ruling party. Anyway, thankfully the Constitution was honoured and Joyce Banda was sworn in as Malawi’s fourth President on Holy Saturday. Thank God for a peaceful transition! Of course, the problems in Malawi have not been instantly fixed, but there appears to be greater hope for the future. Relations with donor countries, for example, are on the mend, and with renewed foreign aid, the economic problem of foreign exchange should find some relief.
Well, that’s the latest update. As I mentioned last time, I have some professional photos to share, so they are up and available here (at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.563411877726.2041733.180500047&type=1&l=dde89833ae) along with others of my own photos. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.
