Holy Trinity Parish news....
Churches in Africa
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In August 2001, we published details of the Rawlins family's back-packing trip around the world. In this follow-up article, Jane and Dave report on their experiences of the churches and the Mass in the various African countries they visited. The text which follows is their own account:
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From August 2001 to August 2002 our family took a year away and backpacked around the world. It was a wonderful experience; we travelled through South, Central and East Africa, India, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Bolivia, the USA and Canada. The only schedule which we had to follow was the flights which we had pre-booked from continent to continent. Apart from that we had weeks or months to travel overland to no fixed plan, just that of reaching our outward bound airport by the due date. Time took on a new meaning. Hours and days no longer flew by as they do here. A day was a long, enjoyable time to spend exploring new things, learning new languages, meeting new people, experiencing new cultures and, most importantly of all, being together as a family. A week was an age, anything might happen, there was usually no fixed schedule. The only thing which regularly marked the end of one week and the start of the next was that we always tried to go to church on Sunday. We did miss a handful of Sunday’s, but on those days we usually read through the bible readings in the Missal which we carried with us.
The effort we made to get to Mass (and believe me, sometimes it really was an effort) was important to us. It was a time to thank God for getting us safely through another week, to ask for help and support through the next week. It was a time to realise with wonder that the Catholic Church, in one form or another, was represented everywhere we went, from the grandest of cathedrals to the poorest of brick huts. It was a time to reflect on all the momentous, the sad, the wonderful, the terrifying experiences we had been through. I nearly always shed a few tears of joy during Mass, particularly when I recognised hymns from home. It was always a moving experience.
Mass in South Africa was very like home. The language, the hymns, all had a familiar and comfortable feel. Even more so when we went to Holy Trinity Church in Durban and sang ‘Here I am Lord ‘. The congregation in the Catholic churches we found in South Africa was always predominantly white, the language was always English. We didn’t begin to learn about the ‘real’ and wonderful Africa until we left South Africa.
In Swaziland, close to South Africa, we found a different Africa: friendly and non racist. One church service in the town of Manzini was held in English. Here is an extract from our diaries:
No combis were stopping so we started to hitch and
got a lift in the back of truck, arriving at the church in good time.
In fact it was classed as a cathedral and was large, with a tall,
working, bell tower outside. The church was very full, maybe
100-150 people and this was just the English Mass. We wondered how full
it would be for the next Mass. A new priest, just ordained the previous
week, was there to celebrate his first Mass since being ordained. He was
a local man and obviously there were lots of prayers and warm greetings for
him. We were struck by the number of hymns which were sung. A combi is a minibus which picks people up along the road when flagged down. Once they get full, and they need to be incredibly full, they refuse to stop. From Swaziland we travelled through Mozambique. This was a country which we needed to hurry through because we only had a 7 day transit visa. We travelled by local bus and bumped our way from town to town along with goats and chickens and lots of other people. We arrived in Chamoi on the Sunday evening, having been up since 3am to get the 5am bus (buses leave very early as they often do 10 to 12 hour journeys). It would have been so easy not to bother about church, but we had promised ourselves at the start that we would always try. This is what we wrote in the diary:
We found the church easily. A small, attractive
church with a shrine to Our Lady in the form of a grotto in the grounds
outside. Mass was at six o'clock, in Portuguese so the Missal really came in to
its own. We could just follow enough of the readings in Portuguese to be
confident that we were on the correct pages in English and we gave all the
responses and said the prayers in English. As in South Africa a couple of times, no
Hail Mary was said. Unlike in Swaziland where so many hymns had been sung, here only a couple were sung,
but even so we recognised one of them as, according to Beth, 'Love is Flowing
like a River'. We all felt really glad that we'd made the effort to find the
church - it is something that seems to bind the whole trip together, Mass is so
familiar and a recurring theme no matter where we are. It has a cohesive effect
on the trip. Beth commented when we walked out of the church that no matter how
we are feeling when we arrive in a strange place, we always feel at home when
we are in the church. Malawi was the place where we most enjoyed Mass. Malawi, in Central Africa, is a tiny landlocked country, along with Bangladesh one of the poorest countries in the world. Despite the poverty, the people are warm and friendly, the country is known as the ‘warm heart of Africa’ and a lot of effort is being put in to eradicate corruption and to generate tourism. There are many languages in Malawi but, as a hangover from colonial days, English is still the ‘official language’, though not everyone speaks it. Although most of the time we cooked for ourselves, one of our favourite eating places was tiny ‘shack’ named the ‘God First Little Chef’ restaurant where we could eat fish and rice or meat and rice. Mass was an extraordinary experience. We went twice to the same church at Nkhata Bay. This is our first diary entry.
The Mass was not in English but was extremely
enjoyable. I always remember a priest from Burundi, who came to our church in Newark, saying that everyone in England was so serious when they
came to church and how in Africa everyone comes to church smiling and the services are so lively.
Up until now, in South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique the services have been pretty much the same as at home. Here in Malawi it was lively and great fun
to watch, even if we couldn't participate. Half the congregation formed
the choir and band, with drums and rattles. The rest of the congregation joined
in for a lot of the time and very often they simply repeated what the choir had
sung, so we could attempt to join in too. The choir was lead by a young
man who stood at the front and conducted and the music and singing was superb.
I would love to have had a recording. Every bit of the Mass which could
be sung was sung, in addition to many hymns. There was no organ but the
singing was so good, accompanied by the drums and rattles, that it did not need
any further accompaniment. Somebody took our names and at the end of the Mass
we were welcomed, in English. We talked to the priest, Father Mark,
afterwards. He explained that there were three priests who looked after that
area and that if we came the following week there would probably be a different
priest. He arranged for the 'snack bar' to be opened for us
so that we could buy a cold drink before our walk home, but when we came out
again we found that he'd also managed to organise a lift back to the town. Somehow drums and rattles would not be right here in Newark, nor would the rhythmic swaying and singing. In Malawi it is so right, so full of enthusiasm, so full of a love of church and God. I sometimes wish that we could be that open and full of hope and enthusiasm. African Masses don’t usually last less than an hour. We were to discover extremely long Masses in Tanzania, our next destination but our introduction to the ‘fluid’ length of the Mass started in Malawi. Here is the diary entry for our next visit to the same church.
We were sad to leave Malawi. Tanzania, our next destination, although a lovely country, never quite gave us the sense of warmth that we had experienced in Malawi. Looking through the diary I remember that our first Sunday in Tanzania was spent on an overnight train journey from Mbeya to Dar Es Salaam and we missed Mass. Our first Tanzanian Mass was in the village of Boko. We had had a taste of a lengthy Mass two weeks earlier in Malawi, now we were to find out quite how long a Mass could be.
We hurried breakfast and left with her. We walked all the way through the village as we had done the previous day, across the tar road and on through the village on the other side. The church was large and modern and very full when we arrived. I did a rough count of the number of rows and the number of people per row and reckoned that there were between 800-900 people in the congregation. As usual, the men sit on one side of the church and the ladies on the other. The girls and I sat towards the back with Elisa, whilst Dave and Thomas were ushered right to the front on the other side. The Mass was in Swahili and I was trying to follow in the missal when it became clear that it was not following the usual pattern. Large numbers of people were moving to the altar and I realized that there was to be a baptism. Then we realized that it was not just one baptism, but many. I lost count after about the 25th baby but there were well over 30 being baptized. In addition to the very lengthy baptism service,
the announcements at the end of Mass seemed to go on for ages. In all the
service took two and a half hours, the longest yet! Elisa was the maid at the house where we were guests. We had met a family over the internet who had offered us hospitality. Our next experience of church in Tanzania was at the foot of Mount Meru, the mountain which is second only to Kilimanjaro as the mountain to climb in Africa. Here tourists are much more commonplace and it was clear that any ‘white person’ was deemed to be someone aspiring to climb the mountain. We were warmly welcomed and told that prayers would be with us for the climb. We were not planning to do the climb. The one time that we had a heartfelt compulsion to help a local community was when we visited the Maasai tribe in Longido. Actually this was very strange. The Maasai are not traditionally Christian but the many missionaries compete for converts, the main faiths in the area being Catholicism, Baptists and Lutherans. The most popular church seems to be the Baptist church because they ‘give lots of presents’. We spent some lovely days with the Maasai, including a very demanding walk up Mount Longido which Shona, then 6, was deemed to be the youngest ever to have climbed. During our conversation over the evening camp fire with our Maasai guide, we were amused find that he said that he was Baptist, but he still intended to have several wives. We asked what the Baptist church thought about this and he didn't seem to think they minded! On the Sunday after our climb we went to the local Catholic Church in Longido. This is what we wrote:
The front of the church and altar were on a raised concrete block but the rest of the floor was just rubble. The altar was a small, undecorated, wooden table, and apart from a cross there was no ornamentation whatsoever - no glass in the windows, let alone stained glass, no stations of the cross. The service (no eucharist) was delivered by a catechist because the local priest covers such a wide area that he can only be present once every few weeks. Despite all this, we were impressed, as we always are in Africa, by the quality of the singing and music. In this case most of the choir seemed to come from the local secondary school. At the end of the service we were welcomed, in English, and Dave was asked to say a few words. Mention was made of the fund raising effort going on to finish the church and it was hoped that “our friends from England would feel able to contribute” We chatted to Justinian, the fund raiser, after
Mass. He explained that they have recently had to extend the church
because of the large number of people at the school who have become catholic.
He also explained that there would be a second Mass later in Maasai,
because so many of the Maasai do not speak KiSwahili. Maasai still tend to
follow their traditional religions but some are changing to Christianity. It is a strange dilemma. I believe strongly in my faith, but I am not sure how strongly I believe that others should be converted from theirs. Yet when I saw the meagre church and heard about the ‘competition’ with other churches, I wanted to help. I don’t know how many of you are aware, but Beth was so struck that she emailed Father Dazely when we reached Nairobi to ask if Holy Trinity could help. You sent £200, a magnificent amount. It wasn’t only at church that we turned to God. I certainly found myself very aware of my need to seek reassurance and ask for help on many occasions. It was in Longido, in Maasai land, that Thomas developed appendicitis. Although we did not know for sure what the problem was, we did know that we were many hours from the nearest city, Nairobi in Kenya, and that we had a son in terrible pain. Then we prayed. Thankfully we got Thomas to hospital in Nairobi for an emergency operation and stayed for a week while he recovered. Mass with the American priest in the church on the outskirts of Nairobi was important for us for giving thanks for his safe recovery, but it lacked the warmth and vibrancy of the Masses we had experienced in the heart of Africa. A few days later we flew on to India. More about that another time. |
The night before Dave had checked
out the Catholic Church and the Mass times. There was an English Mass at 9.00
and a Siswati Mass at 10.30. We got up at 7.00 so that we could leave the
house at 7.45 to get in to Manzini for 9.00.