Hospitality Culture

Sunday was our final showing of the Jesus film at the refugee camp. Kabazana had been waiting to see it for more than a month.

The road to the camp has gotten even worse in the last few days. Benjamin, one of the men who helps us out there, said they’d had heavy rain several days in a row. It’s a good thing for the crops, but a bad thing for the roads. It took us much longer to get out there than we thought it would because we had to drive slow.

The steady drizzle slowed things down even further. Only a few people were even at church when we arrived. The people arrived in a steady stream, in spite of the rain. Soon we had at least 100 people, half of them children, in attendance. There was standing room only in the back.

Every one of our churches has a different…culture, for lack of a better word. At Kabazana, their responses were boisterous. They laughed out loud at the places they found funny. The women wept openly as they watched Jesus’ crucifixion. They laughed again and rejoiced when he was alive. 4 people raised their hands for salvation!

After the service, the ladies of the church served food to church members. It’s difficult accepting food from refugees. But we live in a hospitality culture. If you do something for people, they feel they need to do something for you in return. We’d shown the movie and brought food on other occasions so they wanted to do something for us.

The food they cook is SO GOOD!!! They make this cabbage dish…if a person could get fat on cabbage, I’d want to get fat on the cabbage they make. I’ve tried replicating it but haven’t been successful — yet. I’m determined to figure it out. I’ve asked. They’ve told me what they do. Mine never turns out right. One of these days I’m going to have to watch them cook it. The same with their beans.

But that’s another thing about here — you don’t go in the kitchen unless invited. The cooking area is usually a separate building or at least curtained off from the rest of the house. So I’d have to be rude to even ask for permission to see them cook it. I’ll have to risk it. Their cabbage and beans are too good not to!