Day 23 - Sundays and School

Sunday, April 3 - Day 23

We went to church today! Exciting, I know. Emily, Sarah, Zach, and I, along with Marilyn and Claire before their afternoon departure, accompanied the kids to their usual Sunday Christian church held in the Word of Faith school chapel.

The experience began with all the orphanage girls crowding into a trotro designated especially for taking them to church. There were over 30 people in a trotro meant for 15, including seven adults and many small children. Fortunately, the little ones are stackable and fit well on laps. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty bad and vaguely unsafe way to get to church. [Note from the future: This would be a very unsafe way in many countries, but gets ‘vaguely’ due to the slow vehicle speeds, short distance traveled (perhaps 2 miles), and low number of other vehicles en route.] The boys rode (also squished) in a separate trotro. We all arrived safely shortly after nine and the fun began.

Sunday School was first. I went to the KG (kindergarten) room with Marilyn, Claire, and Emily because that’s where the ten or so youngest ones go. I sat next to Ma and enjoyed watching Beauty in one of the closest chairs at the nearer of the two long tables. Her face came just above the child-sized table and she spent about a quarter of the class leaning forward and resting her mouth on the table edge as if biting it. Across the room, Godwyn’s head bobbed up and down, moving in and out of visibility behind the low table. Most of Sunday School involved the four adult women who ran the KG room asking various kids if they had learned a song in their heart then leading all the kids in that song. A low moment was them having all the other kids stand and crowd around Kojo then shout (mostly the adults) “Help him Jesus!” because he didn’t have a song to offer from his heart.

After Sunday School, we all headed to the big hall that functions as a chapel on the opposite side of the school complex (a few separate long buildings around a small main square). We settled into plastic chairs near the back, having been warned against sitting too close to the front as we already stand out and would likely be the only ones without hands raised in the intensity of prayer. This was good advice.

The first hour was singing, with song lyrics projected on the front wall for the benefit of the 200-ish attendees. I was able to sing along here and there; most of the songs repeated themselves quite a bit. I learned for next week never to sit near the single big speaker of the PA system because three of the 20 or so people leading songs had microphones and one held hers very close while singing.