Church and School

[Ed note: This is from earlier this week, but we had internet issues. Sorry the posts are sporadic because our internet is sporadic!]

As of today we have been in Ribe for exactly 3 weeks. Time has gone very quickly, and it still feels like we are getting settled. We have taken everything relatively slowly, so it’s amazing to think that some short-term trips are here and home again in only two weeks, and how much they pack in. Our schedule, though, has enabled us to acclimate and actually “move” here rather than just visit. We hope that the work we do and the relationships we develop will be enhanced because we have taken the time to get to know the community better.

Church

We have now attended 3 different churches in Kenya: Nairobi Chapel, which was half English and half urban Swahili slang; Ribe Methodist, which was entirely coast Swahili except for “praise Jesus” and “would the visitors please come up here;” and Crossroads Fellowship, which was so American we could have thought we were in Wisconsin.

Attending Ribe Methodist was amusing not only because we couldn’t understand anything they said, but also because of all the cultural phenomenon we didn’t really understand, either. When we arrived we sat together, only to later realize that one side of the aisle was almost all women and the other side almost all men. We still have not figured out if that is intentional, but there is slight mixing so we feel okay sitting together. There were many hymns for which you were supposed to provide your own hymnal, and people very kindly handed us hymnals so we could belt out syllables that were still mostly nonsense to us (though we recognized the tune for Amazing Grace).

As expected, the church runs on Kenya time, which means that the 10 am service has “intro” music from 10:10 to 10:20 or so, finally people start to trickle in by 10:30. Then, church lasted almost 3 hours! No fewer than 10 people got up to say something lengthy (prayer, sermon, announcements, we weren’t really sure). When Tito arrived later, being the district councilor, he got up front, called us up again to “officially” introduce us, and then the service seemed to evolve into a town meeting for a bit!

One of the most unusual things was that after the offering there was an auction of physical offerings. We had heard that this is fairly common; for their tithe, many rural people will bring whatever they produce: maize, bananas, mangos, a live chicken, etc. Luckily we had just learned our numbers in Kiswahili and were able to pay “hamsini” (50 shillings) for a bunch of bananas. The funniest thing was the fact that after the auction, the service went on for a while with the recently-sold chicken trying to escape between the pews, capturing our attention, but with little concern from the Kenyans since its legs were tied together.

Located in a wealthy suburb of Mombasa, Crossroads Fellowship was the exact opposite. The pastors as Crossroads are some American missionaries serving in the Mombasa area who are supported by various Baptist churches including Fox River in Waukesha, WI. Two weeks ago we emailed the missionaries asking about their church, only to find out that one missionary couple was home on medical leave and the other was leaving for a 6-month furlough in 4 days!

Luckily we could attend that weekend (which was comparable to Fox River, Elmbrook, IPC, or any other big American church) and connected with the family who was about to leave and they introduced us to some other local missionaries as well as one girl in particular from Waukesha, WI who is here doing volunteer work with schools and orphanages for 3 months. Kristen is about our age and we hung out with her and some other folks from the church again last weekend. She is staying in one of the missionary’s home right by the beach so we had a chance to enjoy an oceadside Italian dinner (pizza and pasta never tasted so good!) and swim in the Indian Ocean.

We are very thankful that Crossroads provides the opportunity for us to worship in a familiar environment as well as “retreat” from the small rural community, but it takes us almost two hours to get there so we will continue to split our time between churches.

Picture: Us at the Indian Ocean

School

A couple weeks ago we met with the headteacher of Ribe Primary School to discuss what subjects would be appropriate to teach, and I (Lesley) am teaching Class 6 (6th grade) mathematics and Class 7 (7th grade) English. We determined that Chris will not be teaching a course right now because of varying time commitments with community projects, but he has already been very active in the school by participating in soccer matches! Last week we observed teachers and worked on lesson plans, and this week I began teaching.

So far it is a little overwhelming, since I have 60 students in English and at least 77 students in math. The kids are good: they listen well, respect the teachers, and try hard, but it is difficult to assess how much they are learning. Today I tried to “mark” (grade) about 50 English compositions and 70 math assignments, and learned that I will either have to limit the problems I assign or they will have to grade their own in class. I’m sure I will write more about school in the near future, including the needs we have observed here, so stay tuned.