so beautiful

Hey all! so, good news: not far from the lodge where I am staying is a hotel with WIRELESS internet in the restaurant. So, along with my laptop, a nice cup of tea, and a view of the beautiful Shire river, I am able to be an internet glutton again for the first time since arriving. Look forward to more updates from the Hippo View lodge.;)

Rather than trying to think of what to write about, or write about stuff I've already taken down in my journal again, in this post I'm just going to paste a page from my field journal that I wrote yesterday. I think y'all will find it interesting, and it has a lot to do with the questions I'm trying to ask while I'm here:

"Today was an incredibly full day. I spent the morning at the Assemblies of God church in Liwonde, which was a four-hour service in a hot, crowded, loud room in which I was highly-conspicuous and had no idea what was being said about 75% of the time. That was the downside, though; otherwise, the music was beautiful, the people were kind, and it was for the most part an incredibly fun and enriching experience. It was amazing to see the fervor of these people; their hearts were so THERE, with no critique, skepticism, or self-consciousness. That was what was most amazing to me, I think: the total lack of self-consciousness in the room. When the music would start, the people would move freely and readily; when it was time, they would sing or pray at the top of their lungs; and even when seated, strangers’ limbs or possessions would touch and crowd each other and no one would apologize. Women would discipline or speak to babies that weren’t theirs, and kids would drape their arms around each others’ shoulders or fall asleep in each others’ laps. It is something I have noticed before, and though I’m not entirely sure of its quality as a sociological observation, it stands out to me. It makes me wish I was more like that.

The order of the service followed fairly closely to how it went last summer when I visited. Lonnie wrote down in a notebook some of the translations of the songs that were being sung, and for the most part the words were simple, repetitive, and focused on the power of Christ to do anything and everything for His servants. There was the part of the service where a few older men danced in the front, pulled money out of their wallets, and threw it on the ground in the front of the congregation, but this shocked me quite a bit less than it had the first time I ever saw it. In some ways, I think it is a strong expression of the way they perceive the power of God as such that little pieces of paper are ultimately meaningless. The gesture seems to say, “There’s always more where this came from.” In a context like Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, that’s quite a statement of faith.

The pastor, Mister Gwedeza, is a fascinating personality to me. The first two-thirds of the service are run by other leaders in the congregation, and in fact I don’t think Gwedeza was even present during that time. In that first portion of the service, no one goes onto the actual stage, but all the activity takes place on the floor immediately in front of it. The pastor’s address is indicated in so many ways to be the culmination of the service; and once he enters, he alone goes to the pulpit on the stage to speak to the people. They even bring out a smaller, wooden pulpit for everyone else that stays on the floor in front of the stage. Before he began his address today, a woman from the congregation came up, stood in front of the stage, and did a brief call-and-response with the congregation in order to get them excited. When she was done, she turned and looked at the pastor, then bowed. This gesture was so full of respect, as was just about every visible interaction between the congregation and the pastor. All of this leads the observer to expect someone whose personality is big, overpowering, and unapproachable. Yet when Gwedeza gets up and begins, something quite different happens. He begins with a very subdued, conversational style; it feels like he is chatting with a group of people in the street. He steps down from the pulpit periodically, walking down the aisle; he even seems to avoid eye contact with people directly. He is anything but in-your-face, at the beginning. Yet after he gets going—which, to fully culminate, takes over an hour—he is speaking and then praying so forcefully, so passionately, that with each word his body seems to spring into the air and his face convulses. At his peak, he is stern, strong, overwhelming, and decisive. It would be difficult to doubt anything he said was true (though I, this time around, had very little idea of what he was saying). The service then takes about another 45 minutes of standing group prayer and slow singing to recover from this peak. Suddenly, just when I starting to stop caring that my right thigh was falling off the edge of the crowded bench and my throat was dry and thirsty, the service was over and everyone was reaching to shake my hand.

After the service, I approached pastor Gwedeza to ask him about the possibility of a meeting or an interview. He was unassuming, even shy. I had assumed that he would speak English well, being probably highly-educated, and yet he seemed to react as if he didn’t understand some of the things that I was saying and it was, basically, just like chatting with any other rural, uneducated, older Malawian man. We did set up an appointment, however, and I’m looking forward to it. He is such an odd mixture of completely unassuming and yet highly-paternalistic and respected by his congregation. Does he in fact receive this adoration and reverence only out of obligation, when at heart he is just a simple man who really loves God and really cares for His people? Or is he for the most part the instigator of the many rituals of respect and a highly-talented, charismatic chameleon?"