We’d been planning for the dedication at Ngarama for weeks. Folks from the church passed out 500 invitations to the community. They insisted 500 people would show up. That made me nervous. I couldn’t imagine 500 people crammed onto the land there by the church.
We planned for a simple service: a chance to greet the guests who came, a short message, a baptism, a snack of soda and biscuits, and show the Jesus film in Kinyarwanda. We also planned for it to begin at 10AM. We’d be done before it got too hot.
We forgot to buy the biscuits in town during the week so we left early the morning of the dedication and stopped by Vicky’s (a local wholesaler) to get them. He was already opened when we arrived. We drove up, bought the biscuits and left in about 10 minutes.
We arrived in Ngarama at 9:30AM. A number of men from the church and several from Sangano were putting up poles to make a tarp tent.
Once they’d gotten a few poles into the ground, they started tying up the tarps.
By the time they had four tarps tied to the poles, it was 11AM.
Things don’t always run on the same timetable here that they do in the States. At 11AM no one from the community had arrived except those who were helping prepare and a few people from the churches at Isanja and Sangano.
No sooner had they secured those four tarps but a HUGE gust of wind came up. We could see its approach across the valley. Zizi saw it and said “Look, there it comes. It’s going to hit us.” Then it did. Like a brick wall. The tarps snapped up into the air and then back down hard. Two of the tarps broke loose from their ties. One of those shredded completely down one side. The men rushed to secure them again, but we were losing time.
We switched gears and set up inside the church. We filled it with benches from the front to the very back. Then we began singing hymns. People began to trickle in. The church filled. And filled. And filled.
Pretty soon we ran out of room for the children. They all went outside to sit on benches under the tarps the men had fixed to the posts. One of Zizi’s daughters led them in singing, taught a memory verse and played games with them. My kids helped with crowd control.
Many visitors came from the community. They introduced themselves. James gave a short sermon that included the gospel message.
Then we all went outside for a baptism service.
The first lady to be baptized was named Esperanza. She is 105 years old. She’s never been able to come to our services at Sangano because she can’t make the trip on the truck. There was almost 100 years difference in age between her and the youngest person to be baptized.
The choir from Sangano sang a special. Then we served some refreshments. By this time it was 2PM and getting hot. The steady breeze helped, but barely made a dent inside the packed church. Almost 200 bodies crowded into that space warms up fast whether there is a breeze or not.
The last event for the day was showing the Jesus film.
People seemed to enjoy it but our speaker wasn’t loud enough for those in the back to hear. We got about half through. The combination of the heat and the long day and the speaker not working made people restless. Around 4PM, James decided to stop playing it and release everyone. We’re going to attempt to find a better speaker and set a time to show it where that is the only activity for the day.
Our best estimate for attendance is about 350 people between the adults and children. It wasn’t the 500 they expected but I don’t thing we could have fit any more than the ones who came.
It’s so exciting to see how God is already using the new church building in this community. The old building would never have held this many people, nor would we have been able to even attempt showing the movie. We were able to meet people we never would have before. This is only the beginning of how God is going to work here.
