Dear Friends and Family,
Today we reflected on how much we love going to church to worship the Savior, partake of the sacrament, learn, and meet with wonderful people. It always makes us feel happy. Today we had the same feelings, but it was a little different.
(I will TRY to make this quick even though I have pages and pages I would love to share with you.)
This morning we drove to the township of Enseleni to attend church. When we turned on to the road where the church is located, we saw a huge white tent. This tent was set up right in the middle of the road and spanned the entire width of the road. There was no way to drive, or even walk past the tent. Luckily the entrance gate into the church was a few feet before the tent, so we could enter the church. However, the people who were walking to church from the other side of the tent, would have to turn around and walk quite a distance to detour the tent and get to church. (We are the only ones driving to church because we live 35 minutes away....and only one other person in the congregation has a car.)
When we arrived at 8:45 AM, the tent was empty and all was quiet. We went inside for our worship service. When we finished, there were several people inside of the tent and we called greetings to them. We wondered what they were doing with the tent.
At 10:30 Elder Todd began teaching Sunday School to the teenagers in one of little wooden "portables" you can see in the picture. I was teaching the children ages 3-10 in the other small portable. (These 2 buildings are new. We meet for our worship service in the larger building that is used as a Day Care Center during the week. The church provided these 2 small classrooms for the school to use during the week...they are next to the main building. It almost doubles their space and it makes such a difference to their school. And we use the buildings on Sunday.)
Halfway through our lessons we could hear noise and confusion outside. Our windows were open and the tent was just a few feet away. The noise got louder and louder and then the music began. Our students couldn't hear a word we said, so we ended class a few minutes early and went outside to see what was happening.
We discovered that this was a 21st Birthday celebration for a girl who was "good", and honored her parents by living a "good" life for 21 years. They had invited relatives from all over. There would be dancing and food throughout the day. All of the homes are small and most have small dirt yards so there is no where to host a big party. That is why the tents go right in the middle of the street and block traffic in both directions. However, these tents are very expensive to rent so we don't know how they afford them. One of the neighbors said that people borrow money for these parties. But afterwards they might have to move out of their home if they can't pay the rent because of the large debt.
The first pic is of the tent.
The next two pics are some of the young girls/relatives who came to celebrate and dance.
The last is a video of the dancing and music that ended our Sunday School class. DISCLAIMER: THE VIDEO SHOWS TRADITIONAL ZULU DANCING AND ATTIRE FOR UNMARRIED WOMEN I.E. TOPLESS. But you can imagine trying to teach Sunday School while this was going on 3 feet outside our window. We have a great video of the drums playing and Zulu chanting but it was too long to send and we didn't know how to shorten it.
Another day in Africa.
We love you.
Elder and Sister todd
No comments:
Post a Comment