Sunday Gospel Choir

We had been seeing posters all week for an even that looked like it was definitely going to be worth attending, a Gospel Choir concert given by the many Christian choirs at KCMC. It sounded like it would be like a “battle of the bands.” So just before 8 pm on Sunday evening, Don, Halle and Tona headed over to the Haggai Chapel to enjoy the worship. But alas, the chapel was empty and the poster on the nearest post clearly said that the concert was on the 16th which was Friday instead of the 18th which was Sunday. So we had misread the poster, and missed the concert.
But, we found something maybe even better. As we walked across the quad between the nursing school and the nurse’s hostel (dorm), we heard wonderful harmonies drifting out through the night. It turned out that it was from a small group of women who were part of a lay Pentecostal meeting happening in one of the nursing classrooms. They were standing in a circle and singing wonderful songs in Swahili with weaving, intertwining harmonies that just seemed to go on and on without any books or any clear song leader, clapping and swaying with their hands upraised. They sang with their eyes closed and their faces towards heaven.

It was so beautiful to listen to that we sat down on the stoop of the building and just listened. Then a nice woman came by and told us that we were most welcome to go into the room, that it was a Christian service, and would we please come? So we went inside for a while and sat at one of the desks and continued to listen, and the nine women continued to sing and pray. Their voices were powerfully loud and the acoustics of the concrete room were quite good and the sound just washed over us. We stayed for several songs, and then slipped back out and the sound of their voices carried us home.

So we had our gospel concert after all – and this one wasn’t for any audience but God. We had thought how lovely it would have been to capture a bit of the sound, but then when we were walking home we were actually glad that we hadn’t had our camera or digital video with us, because it was obviously so personal and sacred, that it wouldn’t have seemed right to just show up and start recording or filming. It was an ephemeral moment, and we felt very blessed to be in that spot at the right time. It hallowed the end of our Sabbath.