Another thing that came out of my conversation with A. yesterday was that she and some family members would be going to church the next morning. She asked if I would come with them, and I said I would: I went twice last year, and it was really interesting. It was interesting partly because of the language, and partly because of the religion: Jehovah’s Witnesses do things very differently from the mainstream Protestant denominations I am used to.
I also remembered thinking (and blogging) after the first service last year that I would be really happy with myself if I could follow what was happening in one of those services by the time I went home. I remembered the preacher speaking very clearly, but quickly enough that I did not really know what was going on.
So I went with them this morning. There were lots of people who were surprised and excited to see me—definitely the only white person in attendance in a packed sanctuary—but what nagged at me beyond that was how many people greeted me by name! I guess I did say hello to a lot of people in the congregation a year ago, and I recognized many (if not all) of their faces but remembered few (if any) of their names. In my defense, it was kind of unfair: all these people had just one muzuúngu to remember, while I had dozens and dozens of Banyarwaanda. And I’m not that great with faces I see just once anyway…
One thing I had not been told was that another friend of mine, who I will call A.',¹ was something like a lay preacher for the day. He had prepared some pretty extensive remarks, with the general thrust that our lives are a gift from God, and therefore protecting our health is a very important goal.
I missed most of the finer points of what A.' said. I was very satisfied, though, that I got the basic idea of it, and that in almost every sentence I felt like I heard at least half of the words (albeit without much of the grammatical structure). In spite of all that I did not understand, though, I could tell that he was speaking well: he enunciated, did not speak too fast, paused at the right moments for people to laugh or contemplate, and only occasionally looked down at his notes.
And the quality of his own speaking was really driven home after he finished. A distinctive feature of the services I remembered last year was that they included a lot of audience participation, and this was no exception. The pastor got up briefly to introduce another lay reader, who moderated a discussion about a spiritual topic from an article in something like a lectionary, which most congregants had read beforehand. This week’s gave spiritual guidance for those considering emigration in order to give their families a better livelihood.
The article framed a discussion of that question with a vignette about a woman who wrestled with the problem herself. I was pretty satisfied with the general conclusion it came to, actually: that, though God would not want us to starve, both parents have critical roles to play in raising children, and separation can end up causing unintended stress on all involved. More than once, it invoked Matthew 6:24:
“No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”I wasn’t so sure about how much that applied. I kind of wish I could have heard what people in the congregation had to say about it. Unfortunately, they all mumbled! Or, at least, they didn’t articulate enough for me to understand. I think they were generally in agreement.
I said I would keep going back as long as I was here, and I intend to. I do not plan to convert—though I have been asked about this several times now—but it is interesting, and a helpful, if tiring, chance to hear a lot of Kinyarwanda. And they very considerately gave me a study booklet (in English) with reading material for next week!
Vocabulary Words (Inyunguramagaambo)
- guhaangana /ku-hang-an-a/: v.i. to oppose, to face each other
- guhumiriza /ku-hum-ir-ir-y-a/: v.t. to close (eyes) (from guhuma “to be blind”)
- guhúungabanya /ku-húngaban-y-a/: v.t. to annoy, to irk, to bother (from guhúungabana “to be annoyed, to be disturbed”)
- gushiishikaza /ku-shiishikar-y-a/: v.t. to encourage, to exhort (from gushiishikara “to work hard”)
- kubaanguka /ku-banguk-a/: v.i. to hurry; to arrive on time
- umugaragu /u-mu-garagu/: n. male servant
¹ I have been referring to friends by the initial letter of their first/given/Christian name. (Remind me to write a post all about Rwandan names, because they’re really interesting.) This guy’s name starts with an “A,” though, and I already have an A. So he will have to be A.'—which you might instinctively read as either “A-prime” or “A-bar,” depending on whether you have more recently taken a math or linguistics class. I endorse the latter, of course, but I’m not the one pronouncing!
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