I'm An Elder?

11/05/05

Saturday, church day. I walked up alone, around 10am. Any earlier is just sillier. This morning I ran into Shikuku at the gate and he roped me into sitting down with his prechurch study group, being conducted in mothertongue. Once your sitting there you feel a little rude standing up and walking away, but I would have much preferred to be trying to get pictures of kids in their church clothes. I will not be roped into a study group again.

The service was as per normal, except for one moment when everyone got down on their knees to pray. I thought, 'well, this is new' and joined them. We were down there for maybe a minute and then we all just sat back down on our benches. I still don't really know what it was all about. There was an announcement about our group, I heard them reading off the names of all our members, even me, we have a pretty impressive crew, all of the most respected community members, and of course we're still expanding. When it came time for me to greet the congregation they kind of let me off the hook and just asked me to wave.

After church was the moment I have been waiting for. There has been some reluctance, or maybe not even reluctance, just lagging, in getting the informal committee of SDA church elders to say once and for all that we could have the use of the buildings we want for the Health and Education Center. I asked Robert to get them all together after church and get a final answer once and for all, because very soon we want to shift into high gear in working towards opening the center. So, after the service we all met, me and twenty of the oldest and most revered community members, including the pastor, to get the final yea or nay. I was actually nervous. But Robert handled it like a pro, he explained again the total vision for the center, how we want to start it and what we want to expand it to (of course, all this was in mothertongue.) Then he threw it to the committee to get their reactions. There was a bit of silence, and then one of the elders started to talk. He talked, and talked, and I thought, well, this cant be good, it doesn't take that many words to say yes, but as it turns out, he was just using that many words to say yes. It's the old way of speaking. First you say a few thank yous and then you say a few parables ('like our father's said, the cow dies with grass in its mouth') and then you get around to the point of your having spoke in the first place. After he spoke and the gist was translated to me, then each of the elders in turn did the same sort of speech. The consensus was definitely that we have the full support of the church. Mzee Elisha spoke last, he said, 'I am saying. Thank you to everyone. In this community the orphans, the widows and widowers, and the people living with HIV and AIDS belong to all of us. Therefore it is important that we take every step we can towards supporting them, and preventing the further spread of this virus. That is why I support, and thank you all for supporting, this project. Through our visitor Brother Young we hope to show the world that we in Kanga are doing what we can to support our own." It was really nice.

I just flashed back to something Bob Speer wrote to me in an email. It's become imbedded in my brain. "We shant be afraid to bathe the truth in light." Well said Boss Man.

After church I walked with Mzee Elisha and another church elder to Mama's. She was hosting the church elders for lunch. So by default I guess, I ended up at the table with them. It was fun even though there wasn't a lot of English being spoken, although they were having a very solemn conversation, full of Jesus Christos and such, so I didn't exactly want to join in. I just ate my ugali and veggies and beef chunks with my hands like the rest, had a couple glasses of boiled well water, and then kicked back with a toothpick. After lunch they taught me how to tell Mama in the mothertongue that the meal was satisfying ("ayin kabool") and that got everyone laughing when she came in the room and I told her.

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