More notes from Rwanda, Africa                                                 9-23-07 

 Church services in America are so short!  Even those boring one-hour sermons when the entire congregation is yawning and counting the number of buttons on the pastor's Sunday shirt do not compare to Rwandan services.  Some can go for as long as FIVE HOURS! We went to a short service, only four and one half hours, and we made sure we were two hours late.  We arrived at the two story cement building where the church meets in the Smyth's diesel Nissan at 10:00 AM.  We arrived mid way through one of the many sermons that occurred that day.  It was on the love of God and was preached by a woman in traditional Rwandan garb speaking loud Kinyarwanda.  Dan, Mrs. Smyth, and I had two translators.  One sat between the two of them, and the other was just out of my hearing range, as he was also translating for Pastor Rogers who is the senior pastor at the church.

While you could tell that the people there loved the Lord very much, there was very little ceremony, or should I say organization, of any kind.  It was refreshing to see that people were not in a rush to leave the premises, but the fact that things take so long to get done over here counts for something, too.  After an hour and fifteen minutes of announcements, and a song while taking up offerings, we got on with the important things...  Well, that isn't quite true.  There was the issue of the huge stalk of plantain bananas that had been given as a tithe by one of the parishioners.  For forty-five minutes they discussed what to do with the oversized monkey-food.  They talked of giving it to the pastors, or to the needy, or auctioning it away.  I don't know what they decided to do about it, but in the end everyone was happy, and the service continued.  Pastor Rogers gave a great evangelistic message, and at 1:00 PM service ended.  We had a good time there, and met many brothers and sisters in Christ.  In this culture, time is not important ...relationships are.

Ben Rider