Church

The next request from the request line (my father) is to talk about my church experience in Cape Town. Before I talk about church here, I will first highlight my home church. I am a member of Park Avenue United Methodist Church which is a multicultural church, but leans more towards the black American culture. I love gospel music very much and was looking forward to hearing more of it when I arrived in Cape Town, seeing that whites are the racial minority here. So far this is not the case. I have visited many churches during my stay here, and I realized that gospel music is ultimately a product of American slavery and is unique to America. For Xhosa churches, most of the music is singing and hand clapping to hold the beat with lots of call and responses. Colored churches are interesting because the Colored group is a wide mix of people. Some churches sing what I call “white American suburban evangelical” songs that are foreign to me, but are known by my fellow Bethel students. I find it funny that I am in South Africa and singing these songs in a congregation where I am the only white person. Others try to replicate the black American church (mostly Baptist and Pentecostal) with style of dress (very dressy), preaching, and much more. The preaching for the churches I have visited is very similar to the preaching at Park. The word is based off of a verse and applied to the present followed by an alter call. Prayer is something that is verbal, so when the congregation prays, you will hear everyone talking to God and blessing his name. To hear all of these prayers at the same time is a wonderful experience and touches the soul. The makeup of the church congregation depends on the church. Some churches are mostly women and children, no husbands, and a few elderly people while others are complete families with both the young and the old. Overall, not many young people attend church. It has been a wonderful experience attending different churches in Cape Town and participating in their worship experience. Something that I have been learning in my African World Views class is that Africans do not separate the secular and the spiritual, because everything they do has spiritual connections. This is a challenging concept for me to understand as a Westerner who has been taught that church and state are supposed to be separate. Here, there is a general understanding that a person will carry out their beliefs in the workplace and anywhere else they are. I think this is a great challenge for Christians in America.

South Africa does not participate in daylight savings time, so for all those who are reading this and are having a hard time waking up in the morning because of the time change, come to South Africa where you don’t have to worry about it :) Recently our group climbed up Lion’s Head (a small mountain in Cape Town) to watch the sunset over the Indian Ocean and the full moon rise over the mountains and Cape Town. It was very beautiful. After some time we decided to climb down the mountain and used our cell phones as flashlights (there is a light at the top). The wind was quite strong that night, which added to the adventure (there were parts where we were scooting along on our butts). Two days ago, one of my fellow Cornerstone students, one of the Bethel students and I went to Philippi (a black township) to choose a traditional African dress. We took the taxi (I have to say the taxis have to be one of the highlights of Cape Town) and were met by the store owner. We went inside the store, greeted everyone in the store with the Xhosa handshake (hard to explain in writing but you do have to have a limp hand), and sat down to begin the process of choosing an outfit. We looked through a photo album of other designs they have done to choose the design we wanted and then chose the material. I will have to say that it is hard to choose a design when you don’t know how it will look on you. We were then measured and paid our deposit (half of the original price). Hopefully all turns out well (keeping my fingers crossed)! Classes are coming to an end (this is our last week) and the following week is finals. We are off for the week of Easter and then will be leaving for the Eastern Cape on Easter Monday to have a rural South Africa experience. To be honest, I am ready to get out of the classroom (it’s kinda hard to do homework when you are in another country that you want to explore). Looking forward to many more things! ~Shalom