On this particular Sunday morning, “church” was around 20 miles north of Nairobi and 7,000 miles, give or take a thousand, east of Rochelle. We would worship at Kikuyu Township Presbyterian Church. Oh yes, I was the preacher.
Since the pastor of the church was away, I was the fill-in, in charge of the two services including one in Kikuyu. The church and I were two strangers meeting together on a blind date — at church on Sunday morning.
The date got off to a rough start. We arrived late, so late that the church leaders were assembled in the hallway ready to start the service. “Bwana assifeeway! (Praise God!) You are here! Let’s go!” As we prayed and prepared to enter, they informed me I was leading Holy Communion, though I had no idea how they did it in their church. They quickly suited me up in the absent Pastor’s robe, two sizes too big with a zipper that kept coming undone. Loudspeakers from a neighboring Pentecostal church were blaring from the outside through the open windows and doors of our sanctuary. It was so loud I could not hear myself think, and I was supposed to think in African. Other than that, things were going smoothly.
Then it was my turn to speak. I introduced myself, and warm smiles were returned at my attempt to speak Swahili. My two traveling colleagues and I sang, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” and they broke into cheers and more smiles. I told them the story of my getting “kissed” by a giraffe, slurped in the face and mouth by a giraffe’s tongue. They laughed, cheered, and laughed some more. When my interpreter translated it into Kikuyu, they laughed until their sides hurt. It is a funny feeling when someone is speaking words you do not understand and three hundred people are laughing uproariously as they look at you. Now they were warmed up.
In the sermon I told them about David facing Goliath with no armor on his shoulders, but God in his heart. “What Goliath are you facing,” I asked them. “What fears are so big they tower over you like Goliath? Remember,” I concluded, “it is not what you have on your shoulders. It is who you have in your heart.” By their earnest faces, warm smiles, and the ovation at the end, I knew we had connected.
After the sermon and Communion, they exploded into praise, singing the closing hymn with their voices, faces, and bodies as they danced the message of the hymn. By the time I gave the Swahili benediction, we had worshipped in two services packed with worshippers, starting at 8:30 in the morning and ending around 1:30 that afternoon. We had been to church!
After the services we gathered with the church leaders in the vestry (church office) for some tea and pastry. We visited, reflected on the services, embraced, and circled in prayer. They asked if I could come back the next Sunday, but I explained that I could not. I would be back home, in Rochelle, Illinois, U.S.A., with all those people I had bragged about to them. “Kwahari akuanana. Good-bye until we meet again,” we said to one another. And we left.
Two strangers had met on a blind Sunday morning date … and they parted as friends. That is what happens when people get together in Jesus’ name and in Jesus’ love. Go ahead, try it. You’ll see.
Bwana assifeeway! Praise the Lord!
John G. Hamilton is pastor of First Church in Rochelle, Ill.
