Wild at Heart: Grace Kindu Ville Church

This is the second church I've attended since I got over here. First church I went to was a bigger one, it's called "Come and See'. I had to take a taxi there (by bike). That service was in French but I had an interpreter sitting next to me. But today I will write about the second church which is just right outside my house.

Church here is obviously very different from Malaysia BUT we still serve and worship the same God. The service is in Swahili and again thank God for an interpreter, Papa Maxime. He has a BA in English language, hence his fluent English. You can check his out his website here.

Sing & dance

I was asking Papa Maxime, why offering is collected so many times. Even in the previous church, I think offering was collected 5 - 7 times. He then explained to me, offering is just collected once. Those in between 'Praise & Worship' session are 'extras'. The congregation would walk slowly with some dance move towards the offering basket, and back in the same way. It's quite a scene. Haha.

P & W is like a performance here, different groups of people will sing and dance (i.e Men, women, youth, kids, etc). And if you are happy, to encourage them, you can walk to the front of the stage of drop of offering there. He said, you can even personally put the money in his/her pocket. I saw this happen in the previous church, one man walked up to the pastor and place the money on the pulpit. So not use to it. @@

Another performance.

Anyways, service starts from 9.30am to 12.30pm, but when I left the church, it was already 1.30pm. 4hours service, I think it's the longest I've even been in. The problem was the bench, that really made my butt hurts a lot. As you can see, it's quite narrow and only 40% of my butt is being supported but I pressed on. =P

After service, many people walked to me, greet me and started taking photos with me. I felt like a celebrity for a moment. Some wan can speak a little English, said they were glad to see me. Papa Maxime and Ralpha pulled me aside and started explaining some youth programme to me. He said he wants me to train the youth, twice a month, 2 hours each session.

The main entrance of the Church

I don't know why he thinks I am capable of training others or help impact the lives of the youth but I told him I'm willing to help. He mentioned something that caught my attention, he said, "It's really no point asking for money, as it will be exhausted sooner or later. But training the people here will create a more sustainable change."