International Women's Day at Kiruani TAG Church

It is Sunday morning in Kiruani TAG church, and I walk up to the church building to several kids exploding forth from their Sunday School area to greet me with a chittering chant of “Steve, Steve, Steve…”  I give each of them a hug or fist bump in greeting while trying to remember everyone’s name as I greet them back.  Today is a little different as Pastor Stephano also comes out of the kid’s area to greet and walk with me into church.  As usual we have business to talk about as much as our friendly greetings before church.  We agree to instead deal with school business after church and head in. 

I look around for an open chair about mid-way down the left side.  The left side is predominately the adults in the church with some younger kids attached to their mothers in some way.  I like the middle because I can easily keep track of things without appearing to be hiding in the back.  This is a church of my community and despite the fact I rarely know what is being said, I need to participate.  This is both because I need to worship God on Sunday even if I don’t know the meaning of the songs I sing, I can sing them with a belief and faith in my heart.  I also need to participate because many of the parents for our students are here as well as our students who need to know I worship just like they do so they feel one more connection to me.

I got to watch after one of the women's child why she participated in the service.

I have had a good and productive week at the school and at my house as well as my personal life, so I really want to praise God today.  I know he gives me the strength for those days when it does not all go so well just like he did when I was an engineer back home.  So, when things are going well, I need to give Him credit and thank Him for the blessings I have.

Just as I sit down, Pastor Stephano is walking towards me and leans in to tell me today is a special day.  Not being connected to the internet, I don’t always keep up with special days.  The only one I knew about was Pi day on March 14, but I don’t know anybody here who knows about that.  There are probably some, I just don’t know they get it.  But no, today is their celebration of International Women’s Day which happened this week.  He is trying to explain it to me, I just let him know we do similar things in the USA depending on the church and pastor.

I am excited now more than before, because roughly 55% of the church is female and 35% is children leaving 10% of the church population as male.  These statistics hold for most churches I have attended in Tanzania.  The first real sign of this being a special day for Women is as I notice those that normally wear western style clothing to church are instead in their absolute best tribal wear.  Even if they have western style clothing on, they have a tribal cloth draped across it.  They are coming down the center aisle dancing themselves in with what I assume must be a flourish of color and beauty.  I say assume more for the color since I am color blind and their beauty, presence and strength are all easy to see.  From the oldest to the youngest, they are proud, strong, capable women which is beautiful to see.

They sang and danced and led the worship for almost an hour.  I took pictures and captured a short video of them singing and dancing during the collection.  The collection in most Tanzania churches consists of putting a box in front of the singers (which you can see in the video) and everyone comes down to the box to put in their donation.  So, I waited until everyone had put in their donations before collecting a short video of the end of their song.

There was another song they sang I had wanted to collect video of because it was acoustic for the most part (they still used microphones) but they turned off the beat box on the keyboard and just let the women’s voices fill the church.  However, young Furahini had asked to take some pictures with my phone and she took the video fully zoomed in on one ladies’ knee.  I did strip off the audio but could not find a way to add just audio to this blog.  I hope to make a video of this week and then I can upload it.

I wished I could have understood all the songs and the sermon delivered by one of the ladies I rarely see participate with the “upfront group” (the group that seats themselves at the front of the congregation on stage facing everyone).  She delivered her message with confidence and poise so I cannot help but believe she did a great job and told her so with my limited Maasai and Swhaili. 

So, the women of Kiruani did an excellent job between singing, dancing, delivering the sermon and even a skit at the end with representing International Women’s Day.  To them I say Ashe (Maasai for thank you) for letting me be present to enjoy it.