Wedding Bells and a Church Service

Saturday’s are the day for marriage here in Kenya.  Kristen and I were enjoying a nice Saturday morning out on our back porch when we noticed several cars coming up towards our house.  We do not have very many cars around our house usually as we are on a “road” that goes to nowhere and is mainly just used for those of us missionaries living in this area.  We got up to see what was going on and found a huge wedding party standing in our front yard taking wedding pictures!  We do have a beautiful front and backyard and apparently it is good enough for wedding photos.  So of course we got our camera out and started acting as photographers ourselves.  As I mentioned in another post, they like to decorate their cars with wedding decorations and parade through town on their way to church.  I am not sure if this was a standard wedding or if these people were a little wealthier.  They were dressed as if they could have been having a wedding anywhere in America.  They had a huge wedding party though.  Much larger than any wedding party I have ever seen.  Kristen counted 20 bridesmaids!  I saw about 10 groomsmen and there were probably about 5 ring bearers and 10 flower girls.  They seemed to encourage us taking pictures of them.  I even heard one of the guys say “mzungu” to his girlfriend.  What he wanted was for her to move a little to the left so she would appear to be in a picture with Kristen and I (mzungu’s) who were standing in the background.  We were not really dressed for a wedding.  Kristen was in hospital scrubs and I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but I guess we were dressed ok for the wedding album!

Cars getting ready for the parade

Some of the bridesmaids

ring bearers

flower girls

Notice the photographer wearing a coat.  It is in the mid 70's

The next day was Sunday and church in the morning.  We normally go to the 9:30 service which is an “English” service.  It tends to be just about half and half English and Swahili.   We were running about 20 minutes late this Sunday however as Kristen was on call and finishing up a procedure at the hospital.  We got there at about 9:50 and found that the service was just starting.  Apparently, they had decided to have one joint service today instead of the English and Swahili services.  African services are not so much like American services.  For starters, a start time of 9:30 is just a suggestion.  There were still people arriving at noon.  Which brings me to my second observance, African services are much, much longer than any American service.  By noon, we were 2.5 hours into the service and they had not even started preaching yet.  The service was kind of hard for Kristen and I to follow since it was 90% in Swahili and neither of us really know much Swahili yet.  There is a lot of singing where it seems like they sing the same few verses over and over again.  They also like “dance” and their singing tends to be much livelier then what you will find in the States.  I believe the pastor also invites people in the audience to come up and share a special song or passage in the Bible with the congregation.  I think this is somewhat normal for at least this church.  Several people will go up throughout the service.  They will just stand up where they are sitting and start singing as they head to the front of the church.  Occasionally, others will join them in song at the front.  We could not figure out if they were invited to come up or if there was any order to what was going on in the service.  We American’s like our bulletin which will tell us the order of the service and what’s coming next.  This does not exist here.  Another thing that we have been advised on is that it is not uncommon for the Pastor to ask you the morning of when he sees you at church if you would like to speak at church (and by speak, I mean give the sermon).  I have been told to always have something prepared as they like to have mzungu’s get up and talk as if we have something better to say than anyone else.  Luckily, I have been able to download podcast from Northridge Church.  I have been listening to Brad Powells talks to prepare my future sermon!  About 2.5 hours into the service, the church was finally jam packed.  There were no seats to be had.  I leaned over to Kristen and said I felt like I was in a motatu as they just seemed to put more and more people on each bench.  I was just sitting there minding my own business when two young Kenyan kids of about 3 -5 years of age walked down our row, passing all the Kenyans sitting in our row, purposely seeking out me.  They stopped in front of me, turned around, and waiting for me to pick them up and have them sit on my lap.  The little girl began to snuggle into my chest like she was going to take a nap while the young boy just sat on my lap staring at me and taking it all in.  Kristen and I just started laughing so hard that tears came to our eyes.  There were a bunch of Kenyan teenage girls in our row sitting next to me, and they all starting laughing too.  

Every seat was taken.  This picture was taken early in the service

a short video of the church singing