trips.schrull.us

Continuing with the catch-up posts  (by the way, this is Cathy.  Neither Bill or I can remember my login on this computer.):

We were scheduled to NOT work at the Kasulu Bible College Saturday.  Our schedule read “Relaxing and Visit Kusula Market”  which had been expanded to visit a few churches…and to visit our God Child, Frank, who at the age of 5 years is at boarding school with his older brother Jonathan.  The boarding school is not very far away but normal visiting with parents is limited.  Not realizing that Franky was away at school I had brought him some colored pencils, tracing paper and a coloring paper, which we gave to Frank during a short visit at the school.

After a wander through the market – hot and busy as it always is on a Saturday – we started our church tour. 

First we went to Murusi Parish, a church that we had visited for a confirmation service the last time we were here.  The area has been growing so a second parish, Marusi B has been started.  The parish is very new  and has a roof, but not much else.  If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see that the the walls are made of reed mats.  Inside the walls are lined with blue tarps, and the floor is dirt.  A good stiff wind would blow this church down quite quickly at home.  It is actually a good thing that the church is of a rather temporary nature as the government has said that the church has to move (there is a lot of “no one is here let me make my house here” kinds of building going on in this area, including the church).  The parish has a plot of land that it is looking to buy and will move the church there. 

As always, the pastor’s wife insisted on providing us with a meal.  She only had short notice but still managed to provide us with bread, fried chicken and sodas.

After lunch with the Bishop we spent the afternoon in our house resting (I think that I, at least, am still dealing a bit with jet lag, or at least the lack of sleep caused by jet lag) and preparing for Sunday.  Shaw worked on his sermon and Bill and I worked on two songs to share if requested.  One was “Sing for Joy” which Bill did with a Swahili chorus the first time he came and is kind of a standard for him to do. The other is much newer, “Forever Reign”.  There is a bridge in the song that goes

“My heart will sing no other name

Jesus, Jesus”

Which with the help of a translation program and after consulting with with Daudi we translated to:

Myo wangu utaimba

Yesu, Yesu

(Literally, “My heart will sing Jesus, Jesus.”  There are so many syllables in Swahili that you often have to simplify phrases for them to fit to music written for English lyrics.)

   Sunday morning started (dim and) early with the 6:30 service at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Kasulu.  Shaw preached, Bill and I sang “Forever Reign” with the congregation doing a good job on the chorus.  And of course, the Kasulu Cathedral Choir sang.  It was communion Sunday, but we were led into the vesting room for tea (breakfast) of chapatti, chicken, and what some young ladies who traveled with us once named “donuts of love”  (I can never remember the Swahili word for this food.)  

Daudi picked us up in the KBC 4 by 4 and we drove out to the Mvilamvya Church.  This church was started only last July by members of the Bible College and originally met under trees.  It now has a roof and the foundation for the raised alter area and alter rail has been poured.  As the you can see, the sides of the church are split logs, lined inside with reed mats.  The floor is, or course, dirt (poring a floor and installing something in the window openings are the last parts of church construction here.) Their plan is to replace the log walls with bricks after they have paid off their current debts.

The pastor’s wife and friends treated us to a generous lunch and we returned to our house to indulge in liturgical naps.  Cannon Helen stopped by to invite us in joining them on a walk of the last part of the stations of the cross that occur on the access road built to support the Kasulu Hospital Hydro Electric Plant.  The view from the top of the hill was lovely, although the weather was misty (we all walked with umbrellas) and our shoes got caked with mud.  Dinner was at Daudi and Olivia’s house.  The house seemed so quiet with all of the children off at school.  Last time we were there all the children were home on Christmas break.

As I was thinking about the day I realized that over the last two days we had spent time in churches built by the three little pigs:  Murusi B with it’s reed walls, Mvilamvya with it’s log walls and finally, St Andrew’s Cathedral, built of brick.