Why Moz Church Is Better Than Yours ;)

On my third Sunday of homestay, I went with my mãe and host-sister Teresa to the Igreja Evangelica Assembleia de Deus, aka Assembly of God Evangelical Church in Namaacha.

At the evangelical church in Namaacha. SO MANY PRETTY CLOTHES

I'd been wanting to go to a church service here, to see what it was like. And it was FREAKING AWESOME.

So in the States, I've been to plenty of standard Lutheran church services, where everybody sits and listens and reads in monotone and there's some singing, but nobody gets too excited. We're Scandinavian, after all. And I know from other volunteers in my group that there's churches like that in Mozambique too. But not THIS church.

The vast majority of the Sunday service at the Igreja Evangelica consisted of singing, short enthusiastic sermons, followed by MORE AWESOME SINGING. And dancing. The service I went to was mostly in the local language of Changana, but some announcements were in (really fast) Portuguese. The video below sums up the general vibe:

*Fun fact: The lady with the big green headwrap facing the congregation in front of the window is my host-great-aunt, and also my seamstress who I get my local capulana clothes made from.

There were also several groups or choirs who would stand at the back of the room and perform songs on their own. Sorry these next videos aren't as long, because it was SUPER AWKWARD to be filming these since everyone else in the room stayed facing forward and I was the only one peaking back to look at the singers.

At one point, there were announcements, followed by introductions where visitors could stand up and introduce ourselves. There were about four other Peace Corps volunteers in attendance with their host families as well, and we each stood up, said our names and the host families we belong to, and that we're here as volunteers for the Peace Corps. Turns out that going to church here is a really good social move, because since then I've had several random people and street vendors greet me because they remembered me from when I introduced myself at that one church service.  

Then came the time for the offering, which at the churches I've been to in the U.S., they usually just pass back a tray that people drop their money into. But here, they kept the tray up front, and the people had to walk up to drop their donation in, forming a line down the aisles. But the people in line didn't just walk, of course. During the entire offering time, the whole congregation was singing, and the people in line danced and sashayed their way to the front. Here I tried to catch on video some of the wonderfully jolly people bouncing down the aisle on my left:

But this didn't go down just once! After the first round of donations were given and the singing died down, one guy hopped back down onto the floor and started up the singing and dancing all over again, and again everybody got up to give more money. And this whole process repeated itself at least another four times, for nearly an hour, of people getting up, boogying on down to the front to drop in their money, boogying back to their seats, then doing it all over again. Later, I found out that the church is currently raising money to finish the construction of their building, so maybe the donation process doesn't always go on that long, but I don't know. 

The last forty-five minutes or so of the service dialed back the energy a bit and it was a bit more boring, with just a single guy giving a long sermon. By that point the service had already gone on for three-and-a-half hours so it was pretty tiring, but luckily I could spend that time admiring the adorable baby that some mães were passing back and forth in the row in front of me, and of course all the gloriously chique clothes everyone had on. Like seriously, most Mozambicans already dress up way more than we do on regular days, so when Sunday comes around they pull out all the stops, with custom-made capulana (the name for various forms of colorful fabric here) clothing galore. SO MANY COLORS. Although some, like my host family, choose to wear plain white to church, which is also very pretty. You won't catch me doing that though- WAY to much trouble when everything here is hand-washed.

Teresa, me (in a capulana dress), and mãe back home after church

Overall, it was pretty awesome and a good way to see more of the community. A Igreja Evangelica Assembleia de Deus Namaacha knows how to party!