Before anything else, there is always hospitality

Today Pastor Haferman (PH) took us into a village where Luca (a close friend of PH who has also been through seminary) has just finished building a church. We left LJS around 8:30 this morning, as not to be late, and arrived at the village somewhere around 10:00 because we had to take about an hour stretch on a one lane dirt road. Upon our arrival, a few people had come to a building near the church where they began preparing a milk base tea and fried bread for us to eat. We all greated one another and patiently waited for tea time to begin. As Pastor Haferman says, before anything else, there is always hospitality...and after anything there is also hospitality. After tea time, we continued to wait for more villagers to arrive and for PH and Luca to prepare for the service. While waiting for the service to begin, Audrey (a pale-skinned Canadian) and I tried to interact with the children. Many of them just stared at us becaust it is so rare for them to see a white person. In fact, there was a young child no more than 2 years old who began screaming frantically at the sight of us. It's as though they think we are ghosts.

Once the church was full, the service began with many of the women from the village leading songs in their native tongue. In this particular village, it is mostly woman who come to church while many of the men continue to resist the church; however, there were a few older men present and many young boys. I couldn't understand much of the sermon as PH and Luca delivered it all in Swahili. They also performed several baptisms because this is only one of 50 some churches PH travels to and is only able to visit each church about twice a year.

At the end of a service, an offering is taken up and people from the village donate all sorts of strange/useful things: soaps, fabrics, pineapples, bottled beverages, jewelry, even a live chicken. After the service, the offerings are taken outside where everyone gathers around for an auction of the newly collected items. The money collected from the auction goes back into the offering, and from there I do not yet know what happens to it (I suppose to meet the needs of the villagers, but I will have to ask PH about that). Today, the first item up for bid was the live chicken and PH and I were both trying to buy it until I finally bought it for 7,000 shillings (about $6.50 US). I thought aboht taking it back to the school and keeping it for a pet in my room, but I decided that my purchase could better be used as food than company. So I donated my chicken to a family who had just moved into town and they were very appreciative.

After the auction, the people fed us again, this time with rice, chicken and beans. It was very good, though I have absolutely no idea what parts of the chicken I was eating because none of the looked all that familiar. As we got ready to leave, everyone in the town asked us to take their picture and many of the mothers wanted a picture with their children because none of them have pictures, and many of them, especially the young children, have never seen their own face before. Mareto (a young teacher here who went with us) said he would help us get prints to take back to the villagers the next time we visit.

Back at LJS, I find myself exhausted. I can hardly stay awake even until 9 p.m., and because I fall asleep so early, I have yet to sleep past 4:30 in the morning. I don't mind being up before the sun, but I'm hoping my body will continue to adjust to this new schedule so that I have more energy towards the end of the day. Until then, I just get lots of time for reading and studying before the day even begins.

Usiku mwema (good night).