Worship

Matt and I love being a part of Hope Christian Church.  When we are there, we are refreshed and renewed.  The worship is different from the hymns and organ music we are used to, the language is different as most of the people who come do not speak much English (we are working on getting a translator), and the people and culture are different.  And it is wonderful.  We love the people who come to worship on Sundays.  We are praying we can continue to serve them even better.

Here is a rundown of how things work on Sunday morning at this little church.

Matt and I are usually up pretty early regardless, because we have a baby who wakes up early.  Because we worship at a school that is not super-secure, we store everything for worship (besides the chairs) here at the Blessman campus.  We used to keep everything in our house, but the supplies are multiplying and that was no longer practical, especially since we had to carry everything downstairs to load it and back upstairs again after church.  So we moved everything to the office, which is much more convenient.  So we load everything into our cars around 8:15 am.  This includes the keyboard, keyboard stand and bench, the speakers and soundboard, the poles for the speakers, microphones, stands for the microphones, about 50 teacups, spoons, coffee, tea, creamer, sugar and cookies for coffee hour, a hot water boiler for tea and coffee, etc.  The list goes on.

We arrive at church at 8:30 and start setting up.  Romeo (our keyboardist) and Matt set up all the mics and sound equipment while I strap Stella on my back and set up the chairs, walk to the water spigot and fill up the boiler with water, and set up the cups and everything for fellowship time.  Once everything is set up, Matt or I drive back to the farm where we live to pick people up.  Another staff member, Maxwell, drives to a nearby farm to pick people up there.  Transportation is a major issue as cars are extremely expensive here in SA and most people do not own them.  We must pick people up if they want to come to church.  We need to get more driving help so we can fetch more people.  It's great that there is now a church in this area for all the farm workers, but the problem is that the farms are so spread out that we must drive many kilometers to pick people up.  And with only two or three people picking people up, there's just not enough time or space for everyone.  So we go to a couple different places now, but we're hoping to expand that reach to bring more people to church.

By the time Matt returns with his carload, it's about time for worship to begin.  The worship team, consisting of Romeo, Hilda, Rutendo and sometimes Doris, begin singing.  Worship begins at 10am.  We usually have between 40 and 50 people, and I am convinced that once we get a translator, we will have more.  We sing a couple worship songs and everyone dances and sings out loudly.  Matt begins the service.  He does a confession of sin, more music, a children's message, a scripture reading, a sermon, and offering.  We do communion as a church on the third Sunday of every month.  The service ends with a lot of singing.  It usually lasts an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half.

After the service, we have fellowship time with tea, coffee and cookies, which are gone instantly!  It's a really nice time to visit and get to know people.  The men pick up all the chairs and clean up all the equipment and load up the cars again.  The women sweep the floor and clean up any messes.  Then we drive everyone back home.  I wash all the teacups and communion cups if it's communion Sunday, and then we put everything away in the office again.

Then we relax the rest of the day, as all that really takes it out of us!

Here is a video of one of the popular worship songs, taken this past Sunday, May 18.