Grandes Coisas

Yesterday at church, one of the songs that was sung was “God of this city” in Portuguese. In Portuguese, the song is called “Grandes Coisas.” Being here is making me more and more convinced that every African is a good singer. Every song is sung with such gusto and power. This particular song is very special, of course. I first heard of its origins from my brother, who had spent time in Thailand as part of a YWAM Discipleship Training School. The song, as it turns out, was written by an Irish worship band called Bluetree. This story is sourced from this website. But here is the story behind the song:

God of This City has a complete life of its own, it started in a place called Pattaya, Thailand. We were part of a small missions team within a band called Pattaya Praise. Pattaya is a small coastal town in Thailand which has been built up around the sex industry. There are 30,000 female prostitutes over the age of 18, that doesn't include the children, the men and the little boys. It's a crazy, crazy place. It's physically dark; it's spiritually dark, and when I drove in and saw what was going on, I just couldn't see God there at all.

So, we were doing the usual missions stuff; sweeping streets, playing in prisons and a school. But we wanted to play way more. We asked if there was any chance we could get another gig somewhere, anything, it didn't matter. So, we ended up playing in a bar on Walking Street, which is a quarter-mile long street in the middle of Pattaya where it's the hub of all the prostitution and the craziness. The bar, called the "Climax Bar" was pretty much a brothel. It was just a horrendous place. The deal was we could play there for two hours if we brought 30 Christians with us who would all buy Coca-Cola, because Coke is more expensive than alcohol there, and the bar would make a little more cash. 

We brought 30 of our friends from the conference, and played a two-hour worship set. We did every worship song we knew in the first 20 minutes, and were like, "What do we do now?" So, we went into a time of free worship, and began singing some riffs over the city. It talks in the Bible about the "now" Word of God–that's what those lyrics were–the now Word of God. We started singing, "You're the Lord of this place, You're the King of these people, You're God of this city–and greater things are yet to come and greater things are still to be done here." And that's the truth. In the midst of all that darkness and craziness, all the sex and child abuse–when it's so impossible to see God–He's still God. He's still God of that city. He still longs after every single one of those people, and He still wants relationship with every single one of those kids, every one of those women and every one of those pimps. That's our God. That's the God who is massive, mighty, and amazing. The essence of it is; we didn't have that song when we went into that bar, and when we came out, we did. Everyone has a different take on the whole "prophetic" thing, but that was definitely prophetic.

A song that started in a bar in one of the darkest cities on earth is now sung all over the planet to worship Jesus: from New Minas to Nampula, there is no one like Our God. He is the God of this city, and of every city. Yesterday at church as I listened to that song, sung in a language I barely know, I realized how cool it is that there are people all over the world worshiping God. In thousands of languages, in every time zone and different cultures, people are lifting praises up to the same God. There is never a moment when He is not being praised. We are never silent. And if even if, somehow, we were, God would still be worshiped. It is like when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and his disciples were praising him (Luke 19:38-40):

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

God needs to be worshiped. I am glad I am not the only one doing it, because I never would do Him justice. But I get to be part of an incredible chorus of worship that is never silent and never will be. A great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language.

Things strange in Nova Scotia, but completely normal here: an incomplete list

Walking around downtown Nampula, it struck me that there are many things people do here that would be very strange if this were Nova Scotia, but here nobody bats an eye. So I have compiled a list of such things. These are parts of everyday life here.

• ·         People carrying things on their head: a bucket of water, a bundle of charcoal, a sofa, anything!
• ·         Parking officers carrying rifles
• ·         Live chickens on public transportation
• ·         Young boys carrying dead chickens down the street by their feet
• ·         Heterosexual men holding hands
• ·         Unfenced goats just casually hanging out at the side of the road
• ·         Young children carrying babies on their back
• ·         Women breastfeeding unabashedly in public places
• ·         Men riding on the bumpers of trucks

In Canada, I think people would stare at these things. I wonder what things are normal for me to do but would cause Africans to stare?

I think I could compile some other lists, too, like: things I never thought I would learn to do in Mozambique, which includes a roundhouse kick and making chicken tikka masala. Or: English words that mean very different things in England and Canada, like pants (“On Saturdays we wear pants around the centre”), or jumper (“I’m knitting a jumper for my grandson”). Or: languages I interact with on a daily basis, which include English, Portuguese, French and some Bantu languages.

A photo I took in transit of this typical scene

Making chicken tikka masala: grinding up garlic  with a mortar and pestle, a tool found in every Mozambican home

Cultures collide, and other notes from Nampula

The road to downtown Nampula

Being in Mozambique, and living among ex-pats from various other nations, I am learning about a lot more about culture, Mozambican and otherwise. In some ways, I am surprised to find how globalisation has affected this country. I found Nutella in one shop. A boy wore a shirt that said “Vodka: Connecting People.” Another shop was playing country music in the background: “Baby, you a song, you make me want to roll my windows down, and cruise.” It is clear that Western culture has invaded these folk’s way of life. But that’s just in the city. And even in the city, women wear capulanas, people carry things on their head and speak Makua as well as Portuguese, and suck on sugar cane. But, many Mozambicans, the majority, do not live in the city. They live in rural areas. There are many languages spoken in Mozambique. One of these is Koti. Last week, the Koti translation team came to the SIL Centre to check the book of Exodus with a translation consultant. This team was made up of native Koti-speaking men. Some things they had difficulty translating? First of all, they did not know what to do about snow. Only one or two of the men had heard of it. Some thought they knew what it was but really they were thinking of fog. Additionally, some of the younger men did not know what locusts were. The older men had to explain how there was a plague of locusts in their area, almost 40 years ago. Also, they did not know if they had unleavened bread. They had to ask their wives if such a thing existed in their culture. In Bible translation, knowledge of a people’s culture is a must. Sometimes there is not even a word in the language that describes the thing that is described in Hebrew or Greek. The enduring question of Bible translation is this: how can the Bible be translated so that it is comprehensible to the reader without losing its original meaning? There is a lot of prayer involved.

Living and working with missionaries from all over the world—Mozambique, Kenya, England, the US, Germany, and Sweden, to name a few—I am learning how different our cultures are. Our home cultures never seem strange until we see what other people consider to be normal. Today I tried to explain to a Nigerian what poutine is: “It’s French fries [he knew what French fries were], covered with cheese curds…which are like… by-products of making cheese… and then covered in gravy, which is like…a liquid by-product of cooking meat. It’s really unhealthy.” Somehow, I don’t think I accurately conveyed the deliciousness of our signature Canadian dish! Also, here's a question for you: if you were to choose one dish to represent typical Canadian cuisine, what would it be?

An example of cultures colliding within the ex-pat community: two Americans, two Brits and a Canadian eat Mexican food in Mozambique... sounds like the beginning of a joke!

Speaking of poutine… you may be wondering what exactly I am doing. In fact, I am translating some linguistic materials into French. I thought my French days were behind me, but I wrong. I think it is neat how God prepares us in advance. I could never have foreseen how my French classes would help me.  It’s like it says in Ephesians 2:10— “For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” So what are the “good works” God prepared in advance for me to do? Well, there are some notas grammatacais, or grammar notes, written about different Bantu languages. They are booklets of about 40 pages all about the grammar of Bantu languages.[If you read Portuguese, find an example here] They are developed by having workshops with speakers of the languages. These are very useful for orthography, literacy, Bible translation and language learning. Originally, most are in Portuguese, as this is the lingua franca of Mozambique. But there have since been English translations, and now, folks in the Congo want them translated into French so they can publish them about their own languages. So, I get to start the translation process. I say “start” because I am sure it will receive many revisions by native French speakers in the future. But my task is to at least make it understandable to them. Something that Africans are very good at is being flexible. When I came here, I was unsure of what my job would be. I am happy to do what needs to be done, and in this case it is French translation. Please pray that I can do this task well, and that the materials will be useful for Bantu speakers in the Congo and other francophone southern African countries. 

There are 240 million speakers of around 500 Bantu languages in 21 countries

Typical side-of-the-road scene in Nampula

My Mozambican Sunday

It is hard to believe that one week ago, I was just arriving in Nampula, sleepy-eyed from the over thirty hours of travelling. I feel like I have been here a very long time—so much has happened in the past week! 

My bedroom- I pretend I am a princess with a canopy over my bed- but really it's a mosquito net

Yesterday, I went to church with two other young women who arrived here from the U.S. a couple weeks before I did. I think it was a very Mozambican experience. Just getting to church was a new experience for me. We walked down the dusty road to meet the chapa on the main road.  Chapas are the public transportation here. They are vans with five rows of seats. The seats are more like benches, and of course there are no seatbelts. After all, the point seems to be to fit as many people as possible in one chapa!  On the way back from the church, the chapa was very crowded and I was next to the door, which is not always closed when we would start to move. There is nothing really to hold on to, so I was afraid I would fall out! I didn’t though, and we arrived safely to our destination, all for the price of only five metacas (metacas are the currency here; one U.S. dollar is equal to about thirty metacas). While the chapa is not what one would call comfortable, especially on the bumpy roads here, it certainly is affordable!

So, we got to church safely. The church building was not a building, per se. I would call it a shelter. There was a roof made of grass and half walls also made of cement blocks. The floor was dirt. Soon, though, the church will construct a building. They have already built the foundation. The pastor, who also works at the SIL centre in the print shop, seemed really excited about the new building. Everyone in the current church sits on benches, but since we were guests we got to sit in chairs in the front. We were also asked to introduce ourselves. I have never been to a church service in a different language before so that was very exciting for me. Something I liked about it was how much singing there was! There would be various singing groups come to the front of the church, and while each one was getting ready to go up, a member of the congregation would start loudly singing, then everyone would join! No PowerPoint necessaryJ.  

One of the many choirs at the church. The women are wearing capulanas

Another very African thing I noticed about the church was the way they prayed sometimes. Everyone would pray at once. Also, the way folks treated money and giving seemed different than at home. The offering basket was at the front of the church, so giving was a far less discrete thing than it is at our churches in North America. When it came to be the time of the sermon, Pastor Vicente spoke in Portuguese, and another man translated into Makua, the main regional language here. They both had voices so loud that there was no way they would need a microphone. From what I could catch of the sermon, it seemed to encapsulate the entire Bible. It went from the fall of man, to Jonah, to the Prodigal Son, to Philippians. It turns out the book of Jonah is one that Mozambicans particularly like, due to its narrative nature. Story is a really important thing in this culture. So there were many stories and illustrations in the sermon. At the end of the service, I think there must have been an altar call or something. Lots of people came to the front of the church kneeling, and crying and wailing. After the service ended, everyone wanted to shake our hand. Everyone was very friendly. I really loved my experience at church—probably because I love singing so much! None of this just mouthing the words—these people were belting out songs of worship. I loved it and I can’t wait to learn the words to some of the songs so I can join in.

Nampula sunset from my front yard. The sun goes down between 5 and 5:30 each day

The gospel of Mark in Chuabo, a language spoken in Quelimane, which is south of here. Made me think of MarkEast!

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. Psalm 2:8

This is the prayer I have for my time in Mozambique: that in my heart it will become my possession, a place dear to my heart, as dear as the Bay of Fundy or Malagash. I pray that one day I will have a special attachment to mango trees and capulanas as much as to apple trees and parkas.