Church

I was raised Catholic. That meant at the end of every week I had to trade in my muddy overalls and bare feet for a "Sunday" dress. The whole get-up--frilly socks and all-- felt like a prison sentence. Especially when you spent all day Saturday digging for worms, catching frogs, and learning how to spit. It also meant that I'd have to sit still for an hour. After mass ended I had to stand in the hall and let strangers with red lip stick and long-clawed Grandmas pinch my cheeks and ruffle my hair. That wasn't exactly how I wanted to spend the weekend. I mean, they only give you two days free of school, am I right?

A "Sunday" Dress

In high school going to church was part of our curriculum. That meant we only had to go to school til noon on Mass days and we could spend the afternoons at Busy Burger and Mario's Italian Ice. It also meant no homework and rushing to find your friends and comparing your Forever 21 dresses with everyone else's. It was more stressful than you're imagining.

So I suppose I didn't have a real good track record with church when I arrived in Uganda. I mean, I had never, not once in my life, ever, attended church of my own free will and interest.


NOW. Let me just explain how church works in Uganda.

Imagine if we celebrated every Sunday the way we (Americans) celebrate the 4th of July. Imagine that every Sunday you lit sparklers and watched fireworks, stuffed your face with hotdogs and potato salad and watermelon. Imagine that every Sunday people came out of their houses to meet at the parade donning red, white, and blue, waving American flags. That's what church is like in Uganda. Every single Sunday.

No matter if you are a widow, sick, pregnant, have a broken leg. Now matter if you have a beautiful Sunday dress or wear an oversized withered t-shirt as a dress. No matter which dialect you speak. No matter if you are blind or lame or have ever read the Bible. No matter if you can donate to the live auction. No matter how far you must walk to get there. Everybody comes together on Sunday morning.

I had absolutely no idea how many people lived in Kishanje until we went to church. It is a giant mountain with many twists and turns and hidden houses. All the sudden I had over 3,000 faces in front of me. Maybe more.

The church building doesn't fit that many people. The pews are for the eldery, pregnant women, women with infants, then the aisles fill up with the tiny bodies of toddlers and Kindergarteners. Everybody else stands in the back, around the windows and outside. Jammed in so tight that you can't sit down or sneeze, holding hands with the stranger next to you you begin to dance as if your bodies are connected.

If you don't fit in the church, you still have church.

At the live auction people present whatever they can to the altar. Live chickens, stalks of sugar cane, bags of sprouts, a potato, a hand-written letter, an empty plastic water bottle, a bottle cap. Then you dance again and again and again until you can't stand any longer.

The joy that filled that church is unbelievable. It is nothing I will ever witness again until I return. Can you imagine how Easter and Christmas are celebrated? Baptism celebrations last days. Weddings can last a week. This is a community that loves one another and finds happiness in being together.

 

One of my secret fears before attending church was being only one of three white people in the building.  At church I would meet the entire community--adults I had not met, children who were not sponsored by Juna Amagara, people that had never seen a white person before. In the beginning I got a lot of curious stares, children were crying trying to figure out what I was.

By the end of the ceremony I had hands all over my body, my hair was braided, I had kisses planted all over cheeks and arms and hands--a whole number of kids hanging on my back, climbing in my lap. And then 3,000 black people prayed to welcome me into their family, declaring me African too. I don't think I will ever be able to feel the way I did that day again. It was absolutely a once-in-a-lifetime emotion. Tears down my eyes with two babies in my hands I joined the procession out of the church forever transformed.

MY heaven.

And to leave you with a smile...