Sunday With the Mossi

Actually saying that we were at a Mossi church this morning may be stretching things a bit. There are supposed to be Mossi at the church, but it isn’t made up completely of Mossi. We are very interested to know exactly how many Mossi there are there. The service was not in Moore, but French. In any event, we had a great time.

We had a bit of trouble getting there as one of the roads we needed to go on was closed and we had to find a different way there. We finally made our way onto the tiny dirt road that we needed to be on. The path was very small and not necessarily made for cars. People and little shacks crowded the road on both sides. At one point we squeezed through with merely centimeters to spare on either side. We were quite a curiosity passing through in our big four wheel drive vehicle. We drew stares from both sides of the road all of the way down.

When we arrived at our destination, a cement block building with red doors, we hopped out to a sea of smiling faces and even an English “Good Morning”. We were a bit late due to the detour, but were ushered up to the front of the room where the kids and I were deposited on the front way and Mike and Jeff taken on up to the front of the room facing out at the crowd.

Music today came from 4 microphoned singers and what appeared to be a homemade drum set as opposed to the keyboard and guitars we’ve been encountering. It was actually quite nice. Most of the drums were square shaped today as we’d been told that many Africans do to distinguish a church instrument versus a ritualistic drum. After a little while I was joined by a man who translated most of what was said for me into English. They had a great “Conga” line this week with a little one dancing around in the center. All of the other moms had their wee ones tied snuggly on their backs as they danced.

The pastor preached to his congregation about the comfort of God through suffering and how we should hold one another up as we experience trials. The church had lost a deacon in the previous week due to cancer. I couldn’t help but think about how much suffering and loss that the congregation must face every week, that I’ve never had to face.

After the service we had a huge hand shaking line that began with the pastor and those seated with him at the front and continued on to include the whole congregation. After you shook hands with those already in line, you joined the line. It was quite fun.

We managed to attract more than a little attention with our camera at church. Mike had pulled it out to snap some pix of the drummers and then others began to ask to have their picture taken. We got a smile from all as they saw their face appear on the screen after the picture was taken.

Our kids drew an immediate kid crowd too. They were quickly joined by all of the small kids there. They had a good time sharing their names with us, which is about all that we can really do yet unless someone wants us to count to 100, name some veggies or conjugate a few verbs! One kid around Caleb’s age took on the role of protector. He ushered our kids outside by the hand and then as it was time to go, pried Karis loose of all of the sweet little girl hands that had her and deposited her over to the car. It was funny to hear one of the little girls comment to another as Karis walked away: “Elle(she) parle(speaks) Anglais (English)." They stood in a little pile and waved goodbye as far as they could see us. In translation later on we were told, the adults told Jeff they want us to come every week. Right now, it’s where I’d love to be. It is the warmest welcome we’ve received so far. We so want to be among those we came here for.