April 10th, 2018 by Daniel Boron-Brenner

Yesterday, I went to church. Here at Macha church functions like an orienting force (or perhaps THE orienting force) for life in the community. The hospital sits on mission land and although the church’s reach is gentle, it can be felt everywhere. Handwritten exhortations of love and healing, underscored by Biblical authority, pepper the walls of the hospital. Hospital staff will casually mention where they go to church, or turn to you and mention how they saw you there the other day. For a non-religious person like myself, the effect was initially surprising. I am used to a religious presence in the hospital–the institution I rotated through for third and fourth year was a Catholic hospital replete with nuns walking the halls–but this type of religiosity is not common in the United States. However, after a few days it fades into the background and, as long as you observe the golden rule, even non-believers like myself get a pass.

Church itself was an experience though. For one thing, it was long. The service clocked in around three hours, only the last hour of which actually featured any type of preaching. For another, the service was packed. Singing, full-throated and with the entire congregation often joining in, was woven throughout the service. As were moments of prayer, exhortations to donate, a biblical quiz (more like jeopardy, it featured two teams and took between a half hour and 45 minutes to compete), and a short, one-act play by a troop of local children.

At one point, they asked for any new guests to the church to stand up in front of the entire congregation and introduce themselves. I had been warned about this but I stood up quickly, thinking there would be other people joining me. There were not. Nonetheless, I was treated to a lovely “Welcome” song and a short round of applause when I mentioned my name and that I was working at the hospital. Then I sat down and the deacon and a Tonga translator took turns reading off church announcements about the effort to fund a new bus.

I wasn’t raised in a religious household so for me experiences like these are refracted through an outsider’s lens. I have a hard time differentiating between what is sacred and what is quotidian, doubly so in a country (and language) that is not my own. Even so, I could feel something, the throb of collective belief maybe, while I sat in the pews. It was a little like holding your hand over a running stream and feeling the push of the water as it races past your hand. I didn’t feel like getting wet (and I don’t think I ever will) but I could appreciate it for what it was.