St. Matthew's Lutheran Church

Today we had arranged to visit Pastor Chijoka’s church. He had texted us this week, wanting us to visit his congregation, which is St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in another part of Lusaka called Kumwata. In his texts he had mentioned something about the “youths being excited to meet us” and that he would be “sure to tell the youths we were coming”. We weren’t quite sure what that meant or what to expect. Thankfully, Pastor Sargent was heading that way this morning with the Moyos, Bismark and the four pastors from Nigeria, so we could catch a lift with him. We left here around 8:30am.

We passed through a new part of Lusaka we haven’t seen yet. We also passed the state house where the president lives and all the barracks and compounds where government and army officials live. It was very interesting to see all that! Outside the state house are some guards which very much reminded me of the guards that guard Buckingham Palace. Bismark told us that they don’t talk to anyone, they just stare straight ahead. Pastor Sargent also told us that the president has a giraffe, some impala and zebras within his garden or estate. Crazy! We tried looking for them as we passed but couldn’t see them.

Pastor Sargent dropped us off at St. Matthews with Bismark and the Nigerian pastors and then carried on to a nearby church with Vicar Moyo and his wife and Miriam. St. Matthew’s is where Bismark helps out and is getting some pre-pastor experience. Most of the seminary students have congregations in or near Lusaka that they help out in every Sunday. We got to church quite early since Pastor Sargent had to get to the other church in time for Bible Study which started at 9. St. Matthew’s didn’t start ‘til 10am however, so we had a good hour to wait. We met some members as they slowly started arriving and also got to see the church grounds a bit. Pastor Chijoka’s house is right next to the church and there was also a preschool building, which used to be the old church, and they rent out that building as a preschool. They also use it for Sunday School. We had a nice conversation with Bismark about teaching. We found out that he actually was a teacher for 7 years in the Northwest Province before deciding to become a Pastor. It was very interesting talking about education and teaching and some of the challenges that come along with that.

Church started at around 10:15 and it was such a wonderful service. They have quite a large choir, probably between 25-30 people in it. They have quite “fancy” uniforms, of suits for the guys and skirts and suit tops for the girls. They were absolutely wonderful. The combination of many voices, plus the acoustics of the church, plus just the wonderful harmonies and typically African songs just made me smile and gave me goose bumps the whole time. This was the choir that won the choir competition last week. We could see why—they were so excellent!

They followed a more traditional liturgy, in fact it was our very same Service of the Word and even had a keyboard. The sermon was preached by one of the guest Nigerian pastors today. It turned out that Pastor Chijoka wasn’t even there today because he had to be somewhere else for a meeting or something. The Nigerian pastor did a great job. He is such an enthusiastic preacher and the people loved the sermon. There was participation and laughing and clapping at the things he said. It was wonderful to see! The theme for today was “Jesus is our way to salvation”.

At the end of the service we stood up and introduced ourselves, which is always fun. J

Then after doing the traditional greetings at the end of church the youth director came up to us and introduced us to Bridgette, Jane and Esther who would be our “guides”. At this point we had no idea what was going on. We just played along and smiled and hoped we’d figure this out eventually. J, B, and E were there to tell us a bit about the youth programs or answer any questions we had. We weren’t really expecting this to happen, but we thought of some things to ask them. Then we were lead back into church where the choir was practicing. We listened to their songs for a while and chatted with J, B, and E. Then the youth director said we’d have a little interview session where we could just talk to the youths about what church and life is like in America and they could also answer any questions we had. Remember, youths in Zambia is anyone between the ages of 12-35 so many of the people were our age or in their teens. We had some great questions about what church life is like in America, what activities do our youth groups do, how big are our churches, what are the choirs like, how schools work in the US and some questions about our ministry here in Zambia. It was very interesting. I think they were quite shocked to hear that “youths” in America only go up ‘til maybe 19 or 20, not 35 and how youth choirs aren’t really a popular thing, it’s mainly children’s or adult choir. We also talked about the sad fact that many youths in the States don’t attend church and many churches are realizing the need to start developing more youth outreach programs. It’s just so different than here in Zambia where the youth make up the majority of the congregation and they are so active in the church; almost all of them are in choir, attend choir competitions and have regular sports days on Sunday afternoons where they get together with the youths of neighboring congregations for an afternoon of fellowship and sports. It’s just so wonderful to see; they are wonderful Christian examples of how young people act in the church.

After this unexpected but enjoyable interview session we were informed that we would be having lunch at church as well. So we hung around for a bit longer before lunch was ready. We were expecting to be picked up by Pastor Sargent right at 12, so these unexpected things that came up were quite the adventure. We were also told that Pastor S. wasn’t going to pick us up now and that we’d somehow get another way home. This is the true definition of “go with the flow”. While we were waiting for lunch we got to eat some fruit from the baobob tree. You break open the large pod and there are little white bulbs in there. You pick one out and suck on it ‘til you reach the see. Erika described it as sucking on a little piece of sour cotton. It was actually quite delicious.

We had lunch with Bismark, the 4 Nigerian pastors and the officials of St. Matthew’s congregation. We had a traditional Zambian meal and we were so glad to finally experience true African food in a true African setting. We were surrounded by Zambian and Nigerian men in one of the back rooms of St. Matthew’s. We all washed our hands in a bucket of water that was passed around, then Pastor said a prayer and we began to eat. We had nsima, mincemeat and onion relish, bream (fish—cooked as is by the way, not de-boned, de-scaled or even de-eyeballed J) kale, and cabbage. It was actually all quite delicious. I am not the biggest fan of nsima but dipped in the relish made it quite yummy. We also enjoyed a Fanta at the end. Oh, and Zambians don’t eat with silverware so everything was eaten with our fingers. The whole lunch experience was one of those things that made me take a step back and just think about the situation I was in. To experience a true fellowship meal with people from the States, Nigeria and Zambia was such a wonderful blessing!

We were getting all ready to leave (they were going to get us some taxis to take us back) when we saw Pastor Sargent! He did come back to pick us up. He wasn’t going to originally, but his program ended right about when we were finished with lunch so he thought he’d swing by and see if we were still there. So we got a ride back, no problem. We were at church for about 6 hours total but it didn’t feel like it at all. It just makes me think about how sometimes in the USA if a church service goes even slightly longer than an hour people get antsy. I was guilty of this myself. Being here has been a wake-up call. People dedicate their whole Sunday to church and church activities, and they do it joyfully. I can definitely learn from their example.

When we got home we spent an hour just relaxing. It seemed crazy that it was already almost 3pm. At 4 we headed over to Birners for a taco supper. We played bocce ball at first and then after 6 when everyone arrived we ate. It was Birners, Sargents, Dave and Dee, Prof. Cherney, U. Ernie and A. Margie, Jason Paulzer and the 2 coworkers he brought from WI to have medical meetings and us. Jason used to live here in Zambia and was the one who helped set up the health program that Mr. Banda does now. He was here on this trip more in connection with a health program through the States. I won’t even try to explain what they’re doing because I would never explain it right…it was very interesting though.

Supper was haystacks, which was rice with taco fixings on it. Ground beef, cheese, tomatoes, salsa, lettuce, cashews, raisins, pineapple, and guacamole. Sound like some pretty bizarre toppings for tacos, huh? Trust me they were absolutely delicious!

We spent some time chatting after supper and enjoying dessert of banana pudding bars and peanut butter butterscotch bars. Yummy!

We walked home around 8:45 and figured out some final details for lessons tomorrow, then went to bed.