South Africa: Sunday, July 21

Today, I attended church with the Lukens again. Harry came to pick me up at 8:45. This week at church there were 17 young people from Holland, so the church was quite full. During the service, I went with Joke to the Sunday school room and listened to her do the Sunday School lesson. She had a range of students from about 3 years old to about 12 years old in the room.

This means that some of them have no understanding of English whatsoever. Typically, there is a translator that comes along, but this week there was none. She tried without a translator, but most of the kids just looked at her blankly. So, she went into the church and asked someone to help her. Once she had a translator, things went much more smoothly. All the kids had a Gideon Bible that I believe was provided to them by the church and so they spent a bit of time reading about “being anxious for nothing, but casting all your cares upon Him.” Joke also explained what it meant in connection with the birds and the flowers. Towards the end of the lesson, it was very hard to hear what was being said. The pastor was becoming quite energetic in his sermon and was speaking quite loudly. (J). After church, there was some singing in Zulu by the African’s, and Nederlands by the Dutch. It was really neat to hear. As well, some people from the group were introduced. As I was introduced two weeks ago, I did not have to stand again, but I was mentioned as the Canadian who did not know how to play soccer.

The pew benches

Half of the building

The pulpit

The other half of the church

A drawing on the wall

After church, I stayed behind with the young people from Holland (I’m still in my 20’s, so I’m still a ‘young person’ – lol). They wanted to interact with the young people from that church and have some discussions with them. The evening was started out with an icebreaker and then we were put into random groups. In these groups, we had to discuss reasons why young people aren’t coming to church and the differences between Dutch/Canadian/African church services. We also discussed how important/non-important these differences are in terms of believing on God. It was an interesting discussion with all the different nationalities present.

Singing

An icebreaker

Group discussion

In the afternoon, I went for a walk around the part of Kwamghlanga that we live in. It was interesting to see the different types of houses that there are. There are also some very beautiful plants that are flowering.