Flashback

This morning we went to the lovely church we have finally all agreed upon - this has been a long story... - and in the middle of the service I was suddenly back in Uganda, transported by a song.

We normally sing up-to-the-minute songs at our church, songs I have mostly never heard before since our Uganda fare was so South Africa based, or else traditional hymns. But today we had a baptism and so a couple of better-known songs had been chosen. The band started us off on "Oh Lord My God, when I in awesome wonder...." and suddenly I was back in Uganda, in Nkoyoyo Hall, standing in a long row of Ugandan students, lecturers and my family - usually with the Fountains somewhere nearby - if I looked to the back past hundreds of singing swaying students I would see Brian Dennison and the kids up in the higher rows at the back - usually a smattering of American USP students somewhere - often a few other muzungu visitors - but mostly hundreds of African students, staff, nurses, children, Mukono people, singing at the tops of their voices, some arms up in the air, some eyes closed, a group up on the stage in long lines smiling and dancing, making dust rise from the floor with their shifting feet, one student singing over-loud, enthusiastically and pretty often off-key into the mike... The overall emotions evident all around were love for Jesus, love of singing, love of movement, and love of being together. My own mind would enjoy those feelings and enter into them, I was almost always glad I was there, but I would also be aware of the heat, aware that we were singing for a very long time, and knowing that a long sermon was to come...

Church in Uganda was one place where I could feel homesick for my familiar church in Exeter, where we had comfortable seats and carpet, sang songs once or twice through only, had tweny-five minute, orderly, exegetical sermons, and where you knew the service wouldn't suddenly extend to two and a half hours for some function or extra special number... But church in Uganda was also where I sometimes specially felt excited to be living in Africa, when the students rushed onto the stage to dance with abandon to a song from their part of Uganda, or when students did hilarious sketches acted brilliantly (not always...), and when John Senyonyi or Fred Baalwa preached so brilliantly it made me proud to be there hearing them.

I haven't often time-warped back to Mukono so it caught me unawares this morning, but I liked it!

Happy St Bartholomew's Day, by the way.