Make a joyful noise

If you asked any member of our traveling group to share some highlights from our trip, every single one of us would include one particular event in our various short lists: our mid-week visit to a Maasai church to watch their choir rehearse.

We drove from the clinic, which was at the edge Mto wa Mbu, a poor but busy and thriving town, out into the dusty bush. We left the paved highway for a gravel road out into the dry wilderness, and then left that gravel road for a road of pure dust. We passed giant termite mounds, some dry bushes, the occasional dry acacia tree, and Maasai bomas, which are circular homesteads fenced in with thorny branches, containing 8 or 10 circular mud huts. And then, out in the middle of nowhere, with dust at our tires and mountains in the distance, a small church building came into view.

The Maasai are a large tribe who live in Tanzania and Kenya, and who are, historically, herdsmen and nomads. They wear red and blue garments (plaid is the most traditional fabric), wear lots of beaded jewelry, shave their heads, and walk around in sandals made from motorcycle tires. The men carry spears and machetes, and even the youngest boys have herds of goats and cattle to manage.

Maasai Christianity is a fairly new venture - in the last decade or so. Christianity has had an enormous impact on Maasai communities that have chosen to adopt it. In traditional Maasai culture, women are viewed as property and often beaten, polygamy is the norm, young women are married off to men an entire generation older than them. Christianity, however, teaches that everyone - men, women, children, slaves - are all equal in God's eyes. Christianity has offered women the opportunity to have a voice and has helped women gain respect and dignity. Moreover, the Maasai, herdsmen and nomads, feel a special kinship with the Bible, believing that the book must have been written just for them, with all of its references to Jesus as a shepherd and with all of the stories of the wandering Israelites.

As we all sat on one side of the church, watching the choir rehearse, I think that we all felt transported to somewhere entirely new in time and space. The music was ancient, their voices primal. Watching them, wearing the same garb as Maasai men and women have worn for generations, we felt like we were someplace far off in the past. Except that there was an exuberance and a freshness to their faith that made us feel so very much in God's here and now. It was a mix of very old and very new; very primal and very alive; very poor and yet so very rich.

There are so many words that could yet be said about this evening - maybe others from the group will share their thoughts - but I think that I have said plenty, and I need to shut up and let you watch and listen to some of what we experienced!



Peace,
Melissa