Email: Kristy Miller

Friends,

For the first time recently I went to a church service that actually felt more like worship than a cultural experience.

I have enjoyed other services and swayed to the loose and lively beat of calloused hands moving swiftly over leather and a chorus of voices raised up to God. But some parts of worship are so different—messages don’t sound of truth and they relate to an unfamiliar culture—that it often feels more like a cultural than a worship experience. Worship was a time to observe an African service rather than join in the worship of God with brothers and sisters.

People dressed in an array of colorful patterns, moving in unfamiliar dances, waving handkerchiefs in their hands. A foreign language sometimes sprinkled with a few English phrases were amplified until the voices were garbled. I loved the few times the power went out on Sunday because I could hear the voice of the preacher the garbled pain of loud speakers. Unfortunately, most churches have generators.

Several churches also have English services that we have attended, though these too reflect a culture I am still largely unfamiliar with and beliefs I don’t always share. I have visited a variety of churches and have found one, a Catholic church that we frequent with our friends, which fits most closely to our calm Western Presbyterian ways and doctrine. They also have an incredible music group.

Don’t let me give you the impression that the Catholic church is the closest to ours. The fact is that within the Catholic church different congregations vary as much from one another as the scattered churches in our own denomination do.

With the volume on the speakers amped up so high that you could only hear your neighbor if they yelled into your ear, and people gathering and jumping and swaying to the beat, the service started like another cultural experience.

However, this one, spoken entirely in English, calmed. Though the speakers blasted at times, they usually spoke in calm clear words that cut to the point and called out the many obstacles that hinder our faith and prayer life. They talked about cultural norms and the show people can put on to say “look at how good a Christian I am.”

They said that if your wife speaks up to clarify something you said, you shouldn’t push her aside, saying “do not speak when men are speaking, I do not need your help.” For God created woman as man’s helper and companion. To push her aside or abuse her is to do the same to God.

These are reassuring words in a culture where gender issues are still very much under debate, and the crowded church responded in with “amen” and “alleluia.

In whatever church or denomination we find ourselves we are made welcome. But so often a discomfort is felt in not knowing what’s going on or what’s coming next. We’re most comfortable with close friends who can translate or talk us through the service.

But after eight months, I have become used to the lively style and general procedures that all the denominations have in common. And an English service that preached doctrine where I heard truth and also felt convicted in its depth and directness was a blessed change and time of worship with Ghanaians.

God has blessed this as Ghanaian family week. Spending time with friends and opening our home to my supervisor, neighbors, and their grandchildren. On spring break, they came over several times to play, calling us their “Aunties.” With just two of us living in the house it was good to have it filled with youthful energy and noise.

It has been a blessing to have another part of the family revealed and opened to me in Africa and to know some of the people and their different yet familiar characteristics and dreams. It was a blessing to see a bigger picture of the culture and not just the rough and civil-war-ravaged Africa often portrayed in media and movies.

It’s a place of hard times and strong people, but they’re “jovial” people who generally look out for one another and for strangers. They’re ready to step in and help, as many often find themselves in need. They don’t walk in straight lines with eyes forward and their mind off in their world. They look out. Though this can backfire and Westerners can find more attention directed at them than we’d like, it is largely a comfort and something I will miss.

Kristy