Visit to Lamontville, September 21, 2008

From our e-mail to Townsend Congregational Church, reporting on our visit to Lamontville Congregational Church, UCCSA: 

Sanibona, the people of Townsend Congregational Church!

We have been in a catch as catch can internet access environment for our few weeks here in KZN, and are so still, while also in the middle of packing up to head back the States in a couple of days’ time, so will keep this relatively brief. We have some pictures, some video, and some audio that we’ll try to put together for you, in due course after we’re back and have gotten reorganized at home.

But we wanted to report that we worshipped at the Lamontville Congregational Church – your church— branch yesterday, Sunday. It was an Amabutho service – led by the khaki-clad members of that organization, preparing for one of their regional conferences in a few weeks’ time. We were afforded the opportunity to bring greetings and some words of witness, and to extend greetings from their brothers and sisters at Townsend.

We delivered the items June Cloutier had sent along, the photo album, the drawings from the Sunday School, the newsletter and info cards. These were given to Flo Madlala (as the main contact point through her regular conversations with June, and also as the branch Secretary); before the end of the service, the photo album was making the rounds of the pews.

And we delivered the six t-shirts, with the image that, we could note, was a close mirror of the image on the Townsend banner that is displayed on the wall behind the lectern.

As we’d discussed in general terms with Flo a few days before, the shirts were displayed, and said that we’d been told that they would hear more about them in time, but were intrigued by what transpired when Flo came up late in the service in her Secretary role: As we could piece together from the odd reference to ‘t-shirts’ and ‘fundraising’ (since those are the words also in isiZulu), there’s a plan to use the t-shirts as a template for reproduction, adding (we think) reference to themselves and you as sister churches, and on the back the phrase – though whether in English or isiZulu or both was unclear to us from the discussion – the legend “Unkulunkulu muhle, zonke izikathi” which, Gail Kendrick will know, is that “God is good, all the time”. This call and the response, “All the time, God is good,” they remember and use, and they remember well Gail’s visit in 2006, which introduced it here. The idea is to use the shirts as a fundraising tool for their latest building extension project. There was a great show of hands for those expressing interest in buying the shirts. Further as to the use of the t-shirts, we’re sure you’ll learn more through June’s conversations with Flo.

At the very end of the service, we were thanked for coming, and charged to take their greetings and expressions of Christian love and brotherhood back to you at Townsend. And so we do, and shall.

This day we were treated to two numbers by a new choral ensemble that the young people have formed, and they were very, very good. The congregational singing of hymns and choruses, as always, was to warm the soul. This music penetrates deep, and strengthens. It is good to have come, if only for a short while, to this other church home.

And so our greetings, and those of your friends at Lamontville, to all at Townsend. We’ll hope to see you soon, sometime in this new season. – Jan and Ruthann.

Ibandla lami linge lakho / My church is your church
Ruthann and Jan Tore Hall