At an Angolan Wedding

One of the events that our JESUS Film mission team was fortunate to attend was a wedding in N'dalatando on Saturday, July 7.  Our film showings had been delayed a bit because of transportation, and we were anxious to show the film wherever we could.  We showed it the previous day in the city of Lucala, but because of the festivities that Saturday, we weren't going to be able to show the film that day--our host church was hosting the wedding.

This was a pretty important wedding at the IEBA church in N'dalatando because it was only the fourth wedding in three years.  This church is trying to find new life in this community and in Kwanza Norte, and the JESUS Film was one part that was aiding this process.  Obviously a community event like this wedding was paramount to revitalizing the church and was an important mile marker for them.

Decorating of the church was done the same day as the wedding in white and lilac.  The wedding party were to sit at the front of the church in designated chairs for the majority of the ceremony.  The stage was well decorated as well.  At stage right there was a decorated table.

Domingos shows how the church was decorated for the wedding.

The ceremony was full of music.  The bride's processional was "Wedding March," a song normally reserved for the recessional.

The Wedding Party (Photo by Adam)

The most prominent and ear-splitting musical part was the flute band.  When the various musical groups or special parts of the service were about to occur, the flute band would play with drums.  People would march to the front for the next part of the service.  As well, the flute band played a couple numbers themselves.  The flute band was terribly out of tune.  I suspect that part of it was due to cheap flutes, and also because there wasn't a lot of finesse.  I also had the misfortune of being in the room next to them the previous night while they practiced.  (The walls were paper-thin, so I suppose it wouldn't have mattered where I was in the church.)  Regardless, they played their hearts out.

Other musical elements included the men's choir, the ladies' choir, and the youth choir.  Parts were divided into the melody, the fifth harmony, and bass.  Most of the songs were sung in Kikongo, a native African language.  (In general I would say that most people could speak at least two languages, if not three or four.)  Some of the music featured a form of symbology in light of the matrimonial celebration.  Our translator for the event said that some of the dancing "sealed" what was sung in the lyrics.  I really enjoyed listening to the different musical combinations.  Below is a sample of the choral groups.

There were also many places in which people spoke.  Momma Suzanna was both a choral director and gave an opening prayer.  Though I don't speak Portuguese, her prayer made me feel like I was in a charismatic or Pentecostal church because of the forcefulness in which she prayed.  Baptist churches outside the United States seem to be different than what we see here!

A little child watches the wedding from the entrance.  (Photo by Adam)

One young man performed what appeared to be Spoken Word in Portuguese for the bride and groom.  I don't know what he said for the majority of it, but our translator said simply that he was giving poetry.  There was recorded music during this recital, and the orator was very emphatic to the couple.

There were two sermons during the affair.  By the way, pastorship at the churches we were exposed to tended to be plural.  There were several pastors of a church, but one head pastor.  The first minister spoke regarding Genesis 1-3, the first married couple in the world, and also gave some exhortations from Ephesians.

The second pastor had some interesting things to say.  From the journal I wrote at the time:

This second pastor gave exhortations to everyone in the church, generally in groups, in practical Christianity regarding the new couple. He told the congregation not to envy because one day it would be their turn. He told them not to gossip about the couple. The translator said "gossip" was more literally translated "smoke" (I presume a figure of speech). Also he told the congregation to thank God for bringing this couple and themselves to this point in life, and to also thank the ancestors (literally "the fathers").

He told the groom not to throw her out since she could no longer go to her parents' house. The pastor didn't want him to throw her out of the house if she couldn’t perform some tasks, for example. "If she cannot cook, teach her to cook." He told the groom not to abuse her and told him to make her happy.

The minister told the bride that if the groom doesn't please her, i.e. because he gets old and fat, not to look for other men.

He told the parents and godparents of the bride and groom to stay out of the newly wedded couple's business since the groom is now king of his home and the bride must follow him. After the couple signed the marriage certificate, the minister made fun of it, calling it "this small piece of paper" in light of the weight of their promises to each other and the community.

As you can see, the societal issues in Angola have some similarities, but are quite different and are dealt with differently from the United States.

This second pastor did the ring exchange and the vows.  The vows weren't terribly different from a traditional wedding here except that the bride did promise to obey her husband.  After the ring exchange and the vows, they signed the marriage certificate in front of everyone with the witnesses.  It was at that point that the pastor made the remark about the "small piece of paper."

During the whole ceremony both the new husband and wife were very solemn.  The groom seemed to have an especially resolute expression.

Introduction to My Mission Trip to Angola

Click here to read all my posts about my Angola mission trip!

I have so many stories to tell about my trip to Angola!  Because I want to be able to link smaller stories to the larger picture, I've decided to give a general overview of where I was going at this junction, then give a few major events, and then summarize the entire trip.  Please bear with me as I chronicle my adventure over the next few days!

I went on a mission trip with the JESUS Film Project with four people from various parts of the United States to the country of Angola between July 2-16.  We showed JESUS in the Kimbundu language to about 1,400 people in 5 cities on 6 different occasions in the province of Kwanza Norte while we were there.  We estimated that about 250 people came to know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior during our mission.  This was the premier of the Kimbundu language for the Project, and I'm sure that many people who contributed to its translation have been eagerly expecting this event.

The Nation of Angola

Angola is a nation in Africa south of the equator.  As of July 13, Angola has a population of about 19,618,400 people.  Luanda, it's capital city, has more than 5,000,000 people inhabiting it.  The primary language in Angola is Portuguese, though many other languages are also spoken.  It is arguably one of the poorer nations in Africa.

Angola is 481,354 square miles in size, making it about twice the size of Texas.  The nation's neighbors are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Namibia.  It is covered mostly by savanna and jungle and has a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean.  Since it is on the south side of the equator, their winter is between June and September, and their summer is between December and March.  They have two main seasons: a dry season that starts about May 15 and ends on September 15, and a rainy season that begins on September 15 and ends on May 15.

Angola's history is contained mostly in the past 400 years.  It's mostly inhabited by Bantu tribes, accounting for much of the culture and languages.  The first Portuguese settlement was established in 1575.  The export of slaves was banned by 1836.  Portugal enacted the Colonial Act of 1930, binding Angola's economy to Portugal with protective tariffs and effectively modernizing their economy.  In 1961, there was a major revolt against Portugal, being succeeded by a guerrilla-style war.  In 1975, Portugal released its hold on Angola, giving the nation it's independence.

Because of its many factions before the war trying to liberate the nation, these groups based on political idealism quickly united against each other for control of the nation.  The dominating groups were the MPLA (Popular Liberation Movement of Angola), backed most notably by the Soviet Union, and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), backed by the United States.  This was a very obvious playground for the cold war with sides defending the outward similitude of communism and capitalism, though cold-war issues on these matters were far-removed from the actual political issues of Angola.  The war was costly, killing more than 500,000 people and ruining its economy.  At long last, on March 22, 2002, the MPLA was the winner of the Civil War with US approval after years of false starts (See Angola - country history and economic development).

The nation is still recovering from the civil war that lasted 27 years.

Angolan Problems

Many of the people in the areas we visited have been displaced because of this war.  Many of them fled to Congo (where French is the primary language, and thus accounting for the number of people who spoke French), as well as Luanda.  I was told by Domingos, our host while we were there, that Luanda was only built for 50,000 people, but because Luanda was safe during the civil war, people went there, making the city's population explode.

Poverty is a huge concern in this nation.  Infrastructure is base, but is improving with foreign aid from China and the United States.  Education is wanton, but the people consider themselves to be very knowledgeable.  Malnutrition follows poverty; I never saw a baby that didn't have a swollen stomach.  Trash was littered everywhere, a common occurrence in many nations that don't have a large tourism industry.  Smog is overwhelming in Luanda, but much better outside the city.

As one can imagine, disease is rampant.  Because of the Civil War, AIDS and HIV are relatively minor compared to other African nations at about 3.9% of the population (in today's figures, that would be about 765,000 people).  The use of contraceptives in Angola is pretty minimal, evidenced by the large number of children.  I believe that other sexually transmitted diseases were commonplace.  Sewer ditches line just about every city road, so problems with mosquitoes and polio are pretty common.  In order to get a visa for Angola, one must have the yellow fever vaccine.  Our mission group also took an anti-malarial drug during our stay.  I took vaccines for typhoid, hepatitis A and B, polio, and tetanus before going to Angola.  I was pretty glad that I did after seeing the conditions in which the people and animals live.  There is some risk for rabies, but I never encountered any animal I thought was suspect.  There was some danger of getting river blindness too.

Basic medical care was lacking.  I met a doctor, and after a short visit with him, I'd be scared to go under his knife, and I'm generally willing to work with most doctors here in the US.  There were a few children I saw who had hernias at their belly buttons.  No doubt their life span would be shortened once the hernia went septic.  One lady complained of a tooth that hurt for two or three years.  I wouldn't be surprised if she only had a cavity.

Clean water and food really couldn't be found.  Our simple solution to the matter was to either cook everything for at least 15 minutes at boiling temperature (since most of the time we were above sea level) or buy processed foods like bottled water.  We couldn't eat any fruit, vegetable, or nut unless they were cooked or we could peel them.  We could eat peanuts because we could take off the shell, or oranges or bananas, but we couldn't have grapes, fresh cilantro, or apples.  The national newspaper had articles about providing clean water to residents but their definition of clean water is vastly different from ours.  People bathed, swam, and washed clothes in rivers and creeks.

The nation is filled with young people because death occurs at early ages.  While people were watching the JESUS film, they laughed when they saw a woman with wrinkles because they didn't see that in their society very often.  I don't really condone the use of Wikipedia for research, but it did have a good population pyramid that shows the population issue very well.  The majority of people who watched the JESUS film were children.

There are other dangers in Angola.  The police are quite corrupt.  Between Luanda and N'dalatando, our vehicle was pulled over about seven times by national police officers who wanted bribes.  In our case, none of them took any bribes once they realized that we represented a church, but one can imagine the circumstances of those who are not religiously affiliated.  Often these officers would ask individuals for "a small soft drink," the figure of speech used to describe a bribe.  These pull-overs were so common that our hosts didn't think twice about them.  They were so familiar no one got mad at the corruption.

Regularly, identity papers and permits have to be shown to officers looking to find any reason to blame someone.  Even in Angola's national newspaper, one can easily find regular occurrences of individuals who are held "pending identification."  Whether or not those people are truly suspects or merely persons of interest is another matter altogether.  Regardless of other laws, it seems in my opinion that identities and permits were of utmost importance in determining guilt or innocence.

Law enforcement was pretty lax except when it mattered to an officer for whatever reason he used that day.  In most cases, my experience was that laws were more like suggestions unless something bad happened as a result.

I felt that as a group we were shielded from some of the worst elements of society.  I think many illegal and immoral things happened that never saw the light of day, let alone justice.

Traffic is chaotic.  Taxis in Luanda were full of dents everywhere.  Dirt roads weren't maintained in Luanda and often had rubble in them.  Burn piles and cooking fires were commonplace along the city streets.  Motorcycles were used by many teenage guys and young men, most of whom I assumed didn't have licenses to drive seeing as the legal age was 18 (but maybe that is only for a car).

It takes awhile to get used to the passing techniques of the drivers.  People often drove faster than was advisable on the narrow highways with people.  Because many highways were land-mined during the war, it isn't safe to walk off of the road between cities, even to go to the bathroom.  (Officials are still removing mines from suspected zones.)  Many roads were destroyed during the war, so while we were there (during the dry season) there was constant road construction.  I'm sure during the rainy season this is all but impossible.

Kwanza Norte

Kwanza Norte, (also Cuanza Norte) is a province in the northwestern region of Angola.  People speak several languages there, but the primary language is still Portuguese.  As well, French, Kikongo, and Kimbundu were also spoken.  English was only spoken by a few people.  Most of the people we encountered were of the Kongo tribe.  Our base camp was in N'dalatando, the provincial capital.

The land is very dusty and dry at this time of year.  Often the dust was thicker than the smog.  It made some very beautiful sunsets though!

In the area we mainly were in, I found that people had much of the same technology and conveniences that we have in the United States like computers and cell phones.  I didn't see any microwaves, but I would occasionally find a dorm-sized refrigerator.  Electricity in N'dalatando was pretty consistent, but in Luanda, there were regular power outages that lasted for hours sometimes.  Internet access was more like a luxury, only found in a few places.

The main difference to our way of living was that their houses and buildings in the places we saw were by and large made of mud bricks and pieces of tin.  Other houses were made with straw and palm leaves.  Children ran barefoot in the streets that were laden with broken glass and plastic, picking "treasures" out of the sewer ditches.  Roofs were made of tin mostly, unless it was an expensive building.  Chickens, goats, dogs, and cats were feral, and usually fell into disdain.  Free-range chickens and goats tended to be well tolerated, but dogs, though friendly, were disease-ridden and unwanted, while cats were ignored.  Older cars plumed black smoke, barely able to function.

The Culture

The culture of the society had many similarities, but also many differences.  Men and women functioned in different roles.  Women cooked, cleaned, and took care of the house and children.  They would carry large baskets on their heads and could start a quick run or make a sudden turn without the basket falling off and without guiding hands.  Men did a lot of physical labor.  Both men and women could be pastors or be in public office.

Religiously, we didn't see that much diversity.  I heard evidence that ancestral worship was dominant.  One of the things Portugal left behind was the Roman Catholic religion which has been intertwined with local customs.  To what extent it has been intertwined I could not say.  We were hosted by a Baptist church, but I could see that Baptist churches in the United States are pretty different from those in Angola.  They definitely tended to be lively, had a lot of musical participation, and I suspected a bit Pentacostal.  I've heard people pray in tongues, and even though these people didn't speak my language, I could tell. ;)  I didn't see many religious relics except at a public market where I saw some masks and other icons.  Though many people don't claim to be Christian, those who appeared to be were devout, and even those who weren't Christian had a certain respect for pastors and missionaries.

Older men and women were revered, and were commonly given the title Mother or Father, as we might say Mister or Missus.  I saw a young man give a short bow to an older lady he was speaking with.

Women dressed in typically bright colors.  Adult women wore dresses with a t-shirt.  If they wore a dress to a special occasion, it was a traditional African dress.  Men wore clothes similar to what we wear in the United States.  Even in such a dirty environment, people always had the appearance of clean clothes.  Younger people liked to wear western society's clothing more than older people.  Not everyone wore shoes, but adults tended to wear them more often.  Laundry was done by hand, and so people would wear clothes for a few days at a time.  Children didn't wear very much clothing.  Sometimes they would wear only a small colored brief.  Many of them were shirtless in the African sun.

Eating in Angola was quite different from the US.  Angolan people had a certain misguided perception of an American diet and considered the American diet to make one fat, and the Angolan diet to be healthy.  While we were there, we ate mackerel, and what I believe to be a kind of tilapia, and a kind of bass.  We also ate chicken, goat, beef, and eggs.  With our main meal we had rice and/or potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava bread, spaghetti noodles, and some kind of cassava meal (like Cream of Wheat or grits).  We had varied vegetables, though I'm not sure what they all were.  I saw that there were some canned tomatoes, and some onions.  We snacked on bananas and peanuts.  We were able to get instant coffee, tea, and milk.

Public urination was commonplace and an accepted part of living.  There were a few film showings in which I had to just find a place to go.  The girls didn't feel very comfortable with the idea and generally avoided it.  There were a few situations that made the girls feel uncomfortable too.

Bathing was often done with a bucket of water.  In Luanda we did get a bathtub with a shower hose, but they didn't have hot running water.

Conclusion

I know it takes a long time to read all this information, but I think it's important to understand the way that we had to live with our hosts, and how our hosts lived themselves even before we got there.

Often nations like Angola get put into a big geographical pile we call Africa, and they lose identity because they are just a mass of people we don't know.  We see that there are all these pleas on TV for feeding kids in Africa and get turned off from the real humanity there.  These are real people who live trying to eke out livings for themselves.  People talk about how we are part of a global society, yet we have no idea about the issues people face on the other side of the planet.

From reading this, I hope some of my other experiences I'll write about later will come into better focus.

Continue reading about my mission trip to Angola! 

Scott's, Amanda's, and Josh's Visit

Scott, Amanda, and Josh came to Montana June 24-July 1.  This is the first time that our family has actually met Amanda, Scott's wife, and Scott hasn't been to Montana for about five years himself.  The last time I saw Josh was about seven years ago when Dad and I went to Louisiana on a road trip to see Kevin graduate from Army Basic Training.  They arrived on Sunday, June 24, which was Scott's and Amanda's wedding anniversary.  They've been married for three years now.

That Sunday, they recuperated from their long drive from Alabama.  They stayed at my house here in Gardiner while they were in Montana.  The next day we went to Livingston to see Dad and Bonnie.  Since Dad and Bonnie had just moved, Scott and I were able to show Amanda and Josh the house that we grew up in, now empty.

Honestly, I'm not going to miss that house, and I'm very happy that Dad and Bonnie have this new house.  They've needed a better place to live for awhile.

Tuesday June 26, Scott, Amanda, and Josh went to Bozeman to see Colleen, a family friend.  Together they hiked to Palisade Falls, a short and scenic hike in the Bozeman area.  The video below actually was uploaded to YouTube about three years ago.  I like this plunging falls with the basalt cliffs surrounding it.  It is so characteristic of Montanan beauty.

While they were having fun, I had to get some bookkeeping done on Betty's estate.  I'm still doing a little work on it, even after coming back from Angola, but I got some important stuff finished before the Angola trip, which was an important deadline.

That evening, Scott, Amanda, Josh, Chris, Edie (Chris' girlfriend), Dad, Bonnie, and I met at Montana's Rib & Chop House for a delicious meal.  I had planked salmon, served on a burning plank:

On Wednesday, Josh, Amanda, Scott, and I rafted the Yellowstone River from Gardiner to Corwin Springs, a distance of about eight miles.  This is always a nice treat for our family to do about once a year.  Montana Whitewater did a great job on this guided tour, as do all the companies in the Gardiner area.

Amanda on the bottom right; Josh and I in the top center, and Scott just to the left of Josh

Jean arrived after we were finished with our excursion, so we went to Royal Teton Ranch to sign papers and what-not to go see Forbe's Cabin.  Scott and I went to Forbe's cabin during our childhood when our dad was the caretaker of the property.  I had been in contact with the Ranch during the past week to try to make arrangements, and everything looked good until that day.  At the last minute, Steve, the man in charge of these arrangements, denied it because he was afraid that the catalytic converter in our car would start a wildfire at the beginning of a very dangerous wildfire season and said we didn't give them enough time for these arrangements.  No he didn't check my car, and yes, he was just making an excuse.  He didn't care that other people at the ranch had told me something different.  The place is a vacation rental.  After that fiasco, I can't recommend this vacation rental to anyone under the current management situation.

We didn't let this outcome ruin our day.  We went to Yellowstone National Park for the rest of the afternoon.  After looking a little bit near the Rescue Creek Trail area we then went to Mammoth.  We drove to Undine Falls and Petrified Tree before heading back to Gardiner.  Before we went home though, we explored the Travertine Quarry just above town.  Travertine is virtually unheard of in Alabama, so this was a neat trip for them.

Jean, Josh, Scott, and Amanda try to take a piece of travertine for a collection.

June 28 we all went to Yellowstone Park again.  This time we saw a bit of the North loop.  We saw Swan Lake Flat, Sheepeater Cliff, and Steamboat Geyser in Norris before we went to Canyon.  There, we had a good lunch at their cafeteria before we walked around the waterfalls and the canyon area.  Amanda was feeling a bit sleepy because she took some Dramamine for her motion sickness she was having that day.  Josh went down Uncle Tom's Trail with me, a hike with a 328-step staircase.  Before we went home, we watched the elk graze and the calves drink from their mothers at Mammoth's helipad.  We were tired buy happy that evening.

Scott and Amanda at the brink of Lower Falls

Me and Josh at the bottom of Uncle Tom's Trail in front of Lower Falls (I should take my glasses off more often!)

Sadly, Jean had to go back to work on Friday, June 29, but we took pictures before she left:

That afternoon, Amanda, Josh, Scott, and I headed back to Yellowstone National Park.  We saw Tower Falls, Dunraven Pass, Sulphur Caldron and the Mud Volcano Area, Fishing Bridge, and Yellowstone Lake before getting to Old Faithful.  Everyone got to see Old Faithful erupt, and then we walked around the geyser basin.  We saw that Castle Geyser was due to erupt very shortly, so we decided to stay and wait for it.  We were very glad that we waited.  It erupted for a good 20-30 minutes once it got going, and it was quite an impressive sight.

Amanda got to see Old Faithful go off during sunset and then we got back on the road.  We stopped a short time to see Sapphire Pool in Biscuit Basin.  The sunset was absolutely gorgeous on it:

Saturday, June 30, Scott, Amanda, Josh, and I went to Livingston at Dad's and Bonnie's barbecue.  This was their last time to see Dad and Bonnie before they went back to Alabama, so this was a special time too.

Everything comes to an end, and this was no exception.  Everyone had to leave the next day, and I had only one full day before I had to go to Angola!

The Beginning of My Leave of Absence

So much has happened in the past month!  The time has quickly flown, and I'm unable to grasp that most of the summer is already gone!

For those of you who have been following my posts and photos on Facebook, please bear with me!  I promise to relate my stories from Angola shortly.

Since I have had to prepare for my trip to Angola, I had family coming to Montana, and I have seemingly a million projects to accomplish, I have taken a leave of absence from work for the time being.  I'm still getting things done and haven't gone back to work yet.  I have been working non-stop around here, even after getting back home from the other side of the globe.  I started this leave of absence on June 22, so I guess it's been a little more than a month now!

On the first day of my leave of absence I went to Livingston to have lunch with Grandma.  Livingston Health and Rehabilitation Center was hosting a "Sensational Summer Barbecue" for the residents there.  Paula made some really great meat.  I really liked the quality of this meal.  Grandma seemed to be doing well.  I told her that I was going to Africa on a mission trip and wouldn't be able to see her for a little while.  She didn't say too much about it, so I don't know if she didn't have anything to say or if she was a little disapproving.  Of course my grandpa Lyford spent some time in Africa during World War II, specifically in Algiers, Algeria.  I'm sure my news reminded her of what little Grandpa told her about living in Africa.

While I was in town, I went to Dad's and Bonnie's new house at the south end of Livingston.  Finally they have a big enough yard for the quantity of equipment that they own and enough space in the house to hold their things.  I'm very excited that they have this new home, and I hope the two houses they already own quickly sell.

Dad's and Bonnie's new house

The next day was Saturday, and I took Elena and Kristina, a couple of our foreign workers at the Super 8 in Yellowstone National Park.  Their main goal was to see Grand Prismatic Spring the way that it is shown on the postcards (an aerial view, or one from near the top of a nearby hill).  Mostly they wanted to see the hydrothermal features of the park.  We went to Mammoth for a short stop, then Norris to see Steamboat Geyser, and then we saw a couple bull elk in Elk Park.  Afterwards we went to Artist Paint Pots.  We had a picnic lunch in the woods (since all the picnic areas were jam-packed full of people), and then hiked to see Grand Prismatic Spring.  The girls were super worn out after that short hike, so when we went to Old Faithful to get some ice cream and frozen yogurt, they didn't want to wait another 20 or 30 minutes to see Old Faithful go off.  I suspect the altitude and the heat of the day were the greatest nemeses of the afternoon.

A couple bull elk at Elk Park, Yellowstone National Park

Kristina and Elena at the Gibbon River, Yellowstone National Park