His name came up once or twice today, because our hosts were members of the local township church of St Francis, Tsching; but we were meeting in the centre of the old Afrikaans settlement, still predominantly a white residential community. So even the locals were urging circumspect behaviour, and calling for restraint in the event of any hostile provocation during the day from local people – though as it happens, I don’t think there was any.
So, the Dean came to collect Tom, Ed and myself from the house where we are staying at about 7.30 this morning. The others were travelling separately. We were first among our party to arrive, before 8.30, soon followed by Helen and Millie, and then Ros and Ruth. But Hannah and Hollie didn’t show up until we’d begun singing the first hymn. It was a lovely moment when our group was fully reassembled after our first evening dispersed to four places overnight. All had positive stories to tell about their accommodation, though we’re staying in quite diverse situations. Some homes are grand, others more simple; some are in quite affluent suburbs, some in more ordinary neighbourhoods.
The service was three and a half hours long. There were about 500 in the congregation, which consisted of representatives of congregations drawn from across one of the four archdeaconries in the diocese – the Cathedral archdeaconry. This was the third of four such ‘family days’, when Bishop Stephen draws the diocesan family together for celebration services and fund-raising.
The ministry of the word was startling. The first bible reading was read (like much of the liturgy, in the local Setswana language) with impressive fluency and poise by a girl who may have been as young as six. The second bible reading was equally impressively read in Afrikaans -- by an adult black woman (besides the 9 of us, I saw only two other white faces in the congregation, one of whom was the Revd Nita Edwards, another visitor from the Lichfield Diocese!). The psalm was recited partly in Setswana and partly in English, with the Gospel in Setswana and the sermon in English! Everyone apparently understood enough to engage with the whole experience.
At the offertory, after the peace, came the fund-raising. It began with one of the senior lay people in the Diocese announcing to the congregation a target (one which had previously been negotiated with the parishes, but which seemed barely attainable to us): 125,000 rand, or about £11000. First there was a collection in a form quite familiar to us in England: during the singing of a hymn (exuberant singing, and dancing), bags were passed around and each of us gave what seemed right to us to give. But that was barely the appetizer. At that point, the congregation was invited to come forward, parish by parish, organization by ordanization, category by category, to make their gift (Mothers’ Union, Youth Fellowship, clergy, lay ministers etc). Each came in procession, under cover of a chosen song, with the gifts being placed openly and visibly on a centrally placed table, behind which sat some elders in the Anglican diocesan family, totting up the gifts in real time, equally openly and visibly. We were called forward in our turn, and did our best to conform to the local custom, singing ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice’ as we went, and making as much of a donation from our ‘kitty’ as we had available in cash.
At the end of this process, the diocesan bursar declared herself disappointed. We had failed to meet the target: we had given only 123300: we were 1700 rand short (or about £160). Not just the overall total was announced: so were the totals given by each parish (and an indication of the target which had been agreed with them). There was no apparent inhibition about naming and shaming those whose gifts had fallen short.
I had mentioned to Bishop Stephen the good news that, thanks to the generosity of the Cathedral congregation in Lichfield, and the Traidcraft group just one week previously, we had been able to transfer into the bank account of the Matlosane Diocese a gift of £10000, or 11000 rand. Bishop Stephen called on me at this point to share the news with the congregation, which was, inevitably, greeted with great gladness. But the bursar was not ready to take our gift as a sign that the archdeaconry had met its ‘common fund’ target, so a further hymn was sung and an appeal made and the ‘collection’ was not concluded until the target was met. It seemed that considerable self esteem was bound up in the process, and everyone was thrilled when the milestone was achieved.
The ‘collection’ must have taken 40 minutes at least. At that point we returned to the liturgy of the sacrament, and (though I had neglected to robe for the service) I had the great privilege of assisting in the administration. It’s something special to look into the eyes of strangers, especially those from such a different culture, and yet feel bound to them by a shared faith, a shared outpouring of God’s Spirit, and to say to them ‘The Body of Christ, broken for you’.
After the service came a lunch, in which we had seats with the honoured guests (eating inside the church hall, food which was already prepared, rather than finding some shade under the sparse tree cover, to picnic).
Many members of the Anglican church family came for the afternoon, even though they hadn’t been present at the service. I suppose there were 700-800 in the compound for a great, colourful, noisy party which had begun at 1pm local time and was still going when we left in the darkness at 8pm. People sat in groups, in the increasing amount of shade available as the afternoon wore on. We were glad of the shade: it’s far hotter here than we were expecting – which is tiring for us. It was fully 36˚ today.
Back home, we’d made a couple of decisions together, uncertain how the local culture would play out: that we would dress modestly, and abstain from alcohol. We still will. These seem like good calls to make, when you are visitors in a foreign land. But it’s clear we needn’t have worried on either score. The young people in particular dress as skimpily as teenagers do in England; and with every ‘braai’ (barbeque), there was a coolbox of beer and wine. But truly – although a considerable quantity of alcohol was consumed by the gathering, the atmosphere was never anything but boisterious. There was no ‘edge’ of aggression and no hint of anti-social behaviour.
The other highlight of the day was the kids ‘bouncy castle’. As far
as we can tell, it was unsupervised by adults in a way that has become simply impossible in England. We estimate that 40-50 little children, dressed mostly in their pants, played happily together on it, first in the dry, then in water and finally in soapy water, for well over an hour. It was Ros who pointed out that we didn’t see a single child reduced to tears by a bump or a knock or a feeling of being bullied or excluded. We wondered how long it would have been in England before someone ran crying to a parent.By 6pm there was more food. A ‘braai’ had duly been prepared for us. Then we watched the sun go down, and the stars appear in the unfamiliar southern hemisphere sky, and we listened to the loud music coming out of the parked cars of the young people, who were singing and dancing, quite tipsy in some cases, but without creating any intimidation.
We left group by group from around 7.30 and as I right this all are now safely back in our respective accommodation. Tomorrow will be another challenging day: we are going to do some manual work, helping with the building of a new church structure. We’re not very sure what it will entail, except that the weather will be hot, hot, hot. We’ll need hats and sun-protection, and we’ll drink lots and lots of water!
Oh, and to follow Newcastle’s 1-0 home win yesterday against Wigan, I was hugely relieved to see this afternoon that while we were sharing in that long but memorable act of worship earlier, the All Blacks were beating France, just, in the Rugby World Cup Final. Any other outcome would have been a travesty, I think even many French fans would agree.
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