City Church, Village Church

Our first Sunday here, we got the privilege of going to a nearby city church. Church here is long, but happily filled with many worship songs. Despite the patience test under hot and less comfortable conditions, I am thankful that Mozambicans have great joy in celebration of Christ’s gift of salvation. It’s loud and full of drums and clapping and even some dancing.

The following pictures were taken during Sunday school, which was divided up into age groups. Sunday school walks through a curriculum written by a missionary here, John. The curriculum explains our Christian faith and the Southern Baptist practice of Scripture.

Rachael and Abi’s Portuguese nurturer is Elsa, who is also the children’s Sunday School teacher at the city church.

Elsa is preparing to study English at the university, and therefore, was able to give the girls a few English cues to the Sunday School games they played. That Sunday they played a game of Cherades, guessing the animal a particular child acted out.

The girls really enjoyed participating and when Eden was tired of sitting quietly in the adult class, she also enjoyed watching the children’s games. As Eden becomes more comfortable, she will be able to stay beside her sisters in the children’s Sunday School.

I am thankful for Wanne’s help in easing Eden through this sometimes confusing transition.

In the city church, the children are free to sit or play with the other children outside when their attention spans give out. The littles and I made it until the sermon began (some hour+ into the service) before we enjoyed the sand outside. 😉

We went to the village church building for a reading group last week, but the littles and I stayed home our second Sunday morning due to some sickness (it was all me, so no one panic. nothing serious ;)). The following are a few pictures I took of the village church while waiting for reading group to begin.

The village church is a dark mud/stick building constructed about a 30 minute drive from our home. The length of the drive is mostly due to rough roads requiring slow speeds verses physical distance. It was a bit surprising to me how much I felt like we were “in the middle of nowhere” when we were only just “across town” from our home. How quickly the scenery changed to the typical African village scene with it’s mud/stick homes, roaming chickens, and barefoot children running about.

Wanne and I brought Rachael with us to the reading group and we enjoyed sitting on our straw matt outside of the church building to go through a reading book with some 3rd-5th graders. Despite the sand blowing into our eyes, Rachael and I enjoyed our time there. In the pictures this church may look large, but in reality this church is VERY small, pretty dark, and contains 6-8 skinny log-benches in two rows with a middle aisle. There is one door in the front right of the designated altar area and one door in the back of the building. A barebones tin-roof tops the little church building and sunlight comes in through stick window slats.

These are the two churches we will be getting familiar with and attending for the next while as we continue our Portuguese and culture learning. =)