Worship at Sobantu-Imbali
(Sunday, 27 May 2007)
Text of report letter to West Boylston church:
Sanibona, West Boylston! We've already communicated with Anne and Robin, updating about contacts concerning the prayer connections and Sunday school pen pals, but wanted also to send along a few general notes about our visit to Imbali on Sunday, and (by a separate series of e-mails) a few photos. ... -- Jan and Ruthann.
We had a wonderful re-visit to the Sobantu-Imbali Circuit on Sunday. By prior arrangement we drove up from Durban and found our way reasonably well through the re-named streets of Pietermaritzburg, to the now Jabu Ndlovu Street, formerly (and still, to the locals) Loop Street, to the St. John’s United Church. This originally white settler church, now a joint Presbyterian-UCCSA parish, is well remembered from our workshop activities with the Region's Mission Council in 2001-2. It is the location as well of the Loop Street branch of the “Pietermaritzburg Circuit” – the Sobantu (or Sobantu-Imbali) Circuit of the UCCSA. We were to be met there by Mr. Stanley Mwandla, the elected Secretary (and so, the key lay leader) of the Circuit, who was to lead us out to Imbali.
We had been to Sobantu, and know our way sufficiently around the eastern edge townships of Pietermaritzburg, but we haven’t been to the west side of town in a number of years, and never to the Imbali township area. So we were glad to have Mr. Mwandla and his bakkie (pick-up truck) to follow out through Edendale, past the industrial plants and on into the Imbali township. He took a number of ‘short-cut’ back routes on the way, reminding us that local knowledge is a really good thing in driving through these areas.
On the way, we stopped off at the Ekukhanyeni Special School, at which Mr. Mwandla is a teacher. He needed to pick up his briefcase before church. We later had the chance, while at the church, to ask him about this school and learned that while we'd known that he was an educator, this is a special education school for mentally handicapped kids – his term, we presume the corresponding term at home has moved on. We could tell him that our next-door neighbor in Clinton also teaches special education, for high schoolers in Bedford.
The Imbali township, though a bit hillier, is visually similar to Sobantu, as one would expect. The entry is off an industrial area in the Edendale portion of town, the plants there being probably newer than to the east where it’s mainly grain mills and the like; here there is a BASF chemical plant, for instance. As Mr. Mwandla took us a back way through the housing, we got a close view of various generations of government, and non-government, housing, and eventually we come to the Imbali church. We’d seen a picture of this before, from the snapshots given to West Boylston, but this was our first visit in person. It’s a nice structure, seeming larger inside than the Sobantu church, with a polished concrete floor and corrugated roof, and cinder block walls, all calculated to reverberate with the joyous singing, as they did this day. We followed Mr. Mwandla’s bakkie through the narrow gate in the palisade fencing around the church grounds, and parked next to him under a large tree to block the sun.
There were a few folks already there – we were, in fact, early even for the official starting time for the service, which is rarely relevant for Sunday services in the Zulu churches, more like a ‘not earlier than’ notice. We went around greeting folks we’d met before when visiting Sobantu (and Mrs. and Rev. Sibisi, of course, whom we know from other meetings as well), and meeting new folks, too. Jan could take some pictures and video of the grounds and the area, as well. One admission here, that Jan didn’t actually recognize (well, knew that he knew her, but who was this?) Mrs. Sibisi, but Ruthann rescued him in time.
Of the key contact persons we’d met last year at Sobantu, several were there, but important omissions were Thokozani Ngwadi (Sunday school, Imbali) and Eleanor Ndebele (prayer, Imbali). Ruthann would have to call them later; each have been ill, Thokozani with the flu and Eleanor with a kneecap operation and kidney trouble.
As we were waiting for things to get underway, there was a nice run of choruses. While this was indicated to be a circuit-wide service, and certainly folks were there from Sobantu, the church never did fill up as we’d have anticipated; Eleanor’s absence was later explained as noted, but there was some mention of other folks being away ‘at Groutville’ (it sounded as if it were a conference of some sort, though when Jan spoke later with the Groutville minister on another matter and asked about this, she didn’t know what it might have been, though there was a septuagenarian birthday celebration the day before). Regardless, while the women’s side of the church, in their Isililo uniforms, was pretty full all the way to the back of the church, the men’s side – and the spaces where the youth would generally sit, further back on that side – was quite sparse after the first few rows. It happens.
It was a reasonably brief service (we were done inside two hours!), by arrangement with basic devotional elements, hymns, the sung Lord’s prayer, pastoral prayer, and more hymns, coming first, and then – rather sooner than we’d anticipated – Mr. Mwandla welcomed us, and it was our time to speak. So we brought greetings generally from the Mass Conference churches, and the i3L participating churches, and especially from West Boylston, and spoke of the events in and around the ‘matching’ of Sobantu-Imbali with West Boylston, including some background on the i3L idea for those who might not have been at Sobantu last year or otherwise heard about it over the intervening months. We had along two copies of a Massachusetts map with West Boylston’s location marked (adorned also by photos of the church building’s exterior and interior).
And we had brought with us a number of things from West Boylston, and so delivered items from the annual report, and the church history book, and copies of bulletins and the church’s newsletter [suggesting that the Sobantu-Imbali folks should ask West Boylston to put them (twice?) on the mailing list for the newsletter, so that they could get this news regularly]. There were also the letters from Anne Webb to Eleanor (taken to be given to her) and Barbara (presented to her this day), which gave the opportunity to speak about the hope for a strong prayer connection, and the general letter from Steve Small which was read out and copies given to Rev. Sibisi and Mr. Mwandla. Lastly, there was the poster signed with greetings from the 6-7-8 grade Sunday school, which was very nice indeed.
This was followed by a pep talk about the connection effort, it’s historical roots and present significance, and an exhortation for all to become involved in the direct connections between the churches. All interspersed with the singing of the i3L chorus, and finishing with the hope that on this Pentecost anniversary of the birth of the church, there would be a birth as well of a new vigor of mission by and between the people of the West Boylston and Sobantu-Imbali churches, coming to know and love one another as brothers and sisters of the one church.
Mr. Mwandla gave a summary, with some considerable emphasis on the various groups within the church which should come together in this effort, additionally mentioning Amabutho, the ‘men’s’ (plenty of women members, though) organization, and thanked us for being there that day as West Boylston's representatives.
After that, he gave the circuit announcements, and after another hymn Jan was asked to give the benediction, and with the congregation singing the Amen, the service ended, with mutual greetings within the congregation. Light refreshments, juice, tea or coffee and small sandwiches and muffins, were on offer for those who'd come some distance, and we had a good opportunity to talk further with some of the contact persons for the West Boylston relationship, and with the Sibisis. Mr. Mwandla was quite energized in his interest in forwarding the relationship connection with West Boylston, and Rev. Sibisi spoke of sensing a true spirit for the effort in the congregation. So we hope and pray.
The key text for the day was
Ephesians 2:19: "So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God "
Kwabase-Efesu 2:19: "Ngakho aniseyibo abafokazi nezihambi, kodwa senimbuso munye nabangcwele, ningabendlu kaNkulunkulu"
Indeed, at the very beginning of the service, Rev. Sibisi had greeted us 'not as visitors, but as family,' and we were there that day, and departed, as such. So to, when the West Boylston and Sobantu-Imbali congregants when they speak or write to and with each, it cannot be as strangers, for you and they are of the family of the one church, its 'fellow citizens'.
So, truly, 'ibandla lami linge lakho // ibandla le_nkhosi, ibandla lethu' … 'my church is your church // the church of the Lord is our church'.