Sunday

It’s Sunday. The
boys are in Mozambique. They left on some great “secret” adventure early
yesterday morning, refusing to tell us where they were going, but we have our
ways of finding information. We had the girls from young women’s group over for
a sleep over last night. It was an enormous success. Three consecutive hours of
dancing (I took video that I will hopefully be able to post at some point
because it was highly entertaining) followed by nail painting and watching
“Princess Tyra”, a very, very low-budget Nigerian production that Jessica and I
had fun laughing at. I was awoken at 6:30 this morning by DJ Call Me, the most
popular DJ in Swaziland, blaring “Marry Me” from the main room. The lyrics go
like this, “If I marry you, will you marry me, marry me, my love. Put the ring
on your finger and never take it off, ooh ooh my love. It’s our wedding, our
wedding.” That’s it. Over and over again. I could easily have been annoyed, but
instead Kate and I just laughed. It was so Swazi.

After the girls
left Jess and I made scrambled eggs and toast, which is the equivalent of a
honey butter chicken biscuit when all you’ve really had for breakfast for six
months is cereal or toast with jelly. We watched “Meet Me in St. Louis” and
colored. Then I got locked in the shower for a few stressful minutes. Jessica
went to the soccer game at Nsoko and Kate and I stayed to do church. Every
Sunday at 4:00 about fifteen women meet on our porch for church. We sing songs,
mostly in SiSwati, then one of the five of us gives a message and someone else
takes the kids to the pavilion for children’s church.

I really dread
Sunday afternoons. The mornings are so nice and peaceful, but there’s something
about church here that kind of makes me want to scream. It seems like they only
come out of obligation, but I’m not sure who exactly they feel obligated to.
They sing songs with tired faces and arms raised high. They pick at their nails
as you speak and rarely make eye contact and then clap when you’re done like
you’ve just delivered a fantastic message. There’s no joy. There’s not even
pain. There’s only what seems to be tremendous boredom. When we pray I am so
distracted that I can hardly string two thoughts together. I get so frustrated
with these women. Why do they even come? It won’t hurt our feelings if they
didn’t. I would rather them not come at all than come with pretense. I feel
like there’s some huge spirit of religion over this place. Like their hearts
aren’t really in, they just come because they think that if they come to church
God might provide for them.

But today it
rained. It very rarely rains here, especially during the day. Swazis hate the
rain. They would stay inside all day long rather than venture out on a wet day.
Four o clock came and went, and by half past there were only three women here.
They decided we would just pray a quick prayer and they would go home. I was so
relieved. I didn’t have to speak. I didn’t have to sit through an hour of
“church” with people who seemed to want to be anywhere doing anything but
sitting a porch listening to me.   

And yet, I
wonder, is this how pastors in America feel? Is this not a very similar
portrayal of the church in the States?  Have
you never sat in church wondering why exactly you’re there?I know there have been Sundays in my life when only went to church
because that’s what I did every Sunday, even though I would much rather have
been in bed. I don’t know whether that’s a statement about my own personal
discipline, or whether it’s a statement about my own pretense. I’m inclined to
think the latter. Who am I to judge and critique the Swazi church when I am a part
of the very same thing myself?

Conviction.