Sunday Mornings at the School

A beautiful sunny Sunday on campus

Sunday mornings start early; the church service for the students held in the dining hall on campus begins at eight.  The area churches generally start at ten, but their services often last for three or four hours, while ours is about an hour and a half, so there are trade-offs.  Ours is so early for several reasons.  For one thing, ours is finished before the church across the street begins, so some of our students go there afterwards to help with teaching a Bible class for the children.  We have an optional Bible class afterwards, so an early start gives plenty of time before lunch, and the students have plenty of time to study in the afternoon.  

All of the students are required to attend the morning worship service, but the Bible class led by Lewis, a leadership class led by Fielden Allison, and attending the service in Swahili at the Ngarash church are all optional, so tend to be the more dedicated or interested students. 

During the service

Several of the students participate in leading worship alongside some of the teachers who are members of the church of Christ; these days, the students do everything except the main sermon (and sometimes do that, too), including the communion meditation, which here in Tanzania is generally nearly as long as the sermon.  Everything is done in English except the singing; we sing in English occasionally, but in Swahili at least eighty per cent of the time.  I've recorded the singing a few times; I'd like to add the recordings to a blog post but the times I've tried the internet hasn't been strong enough to handle uploading a larger file like that.  Sometime when I'm in Arusha on wifi I'll give it a try again.  

I had a very cute helper keeping up with my bag while we waited for Bible class to start.