A Hindi "Vacation Bible School Program"

This past Saturday evening, while Nan stayed home and graded papers, Mark and ANU Chancellor Jerry Lambert accepted an invitation from a professor at the University of Nairobi to attend his temple's annual Duwali Festival--Christmas and New Year's wrapped up in one for the Hindu community. As it turned out, the evening was very interesting but also very moving. The temple itself looked like a modern secondary school with a gym and a nice park-like lawn in the back.

Mark and Jerry arrived 40 minutes early and could see that a worship  service was going on in a room on the second floor at the back of gym. As 

people saw them, they made motions to join

them in the worship room. As Mark and Jerry took off their shoes and entered the room, they were hit by a wave of heat from perhaps 10 gallon-sized pots with foot-tall flames of incense burning above them. Since most of the program participants were going to be children, it was

 mainly children in a variety of regional Indian traditional clothing

 gathered around each incense pot with adults in chairs around the outer edge of the room. The part of the

 service we witnessed included an explanation of Duwali, a prayer by a child and some singing by 

an eldery priest who accompanied himself on a "harmonium", a portable, hand-pumped organ with room for a hymnal on top.

Jerry and Mark stopped for awhile on a balcony after the service, so most of the seats in the front of the gym were taken, but a very determined, elderly Indian lady met them at the door (does your church have a

 greeter so determined to welcome visitors?) and, in spite of their protests that they could sit anywhere, ushered them down to the FRONT ROW. As it turned out, the determined woman was the wife of the temple chairman, kind of like the "chairman of the board of trustees", who was a distinguished and kindly-looking professor of mathematics at a respected government university. 

As the program began, the fact that he was a teacher became even clearer. He would lean over to Mark and whisper part of what the

speaker was saying or the singer was singing: "When the sun goes down, a little candle gives great light." "The greatest success is the greatest humility." "Nobility of spirit is God's wish for his people." Not everything was serious. There was a Hindi comedian telling corny and familiar jokes: a man who said his newborn twins should be named "Pete" and "Repeat." A man advised to have his daughter eat an apple daily to avoid the advances of an undesirable doctor because "Everyone knows an apple 

a day keeps the doctor away." Mark and Jerry silently cheered for a little girl in full, elaborately embroidered Hindi costume who was clearly terrified but began to smile as she concentrated on the dance she had

 practiced. Same for a 10-year od who had been asked at the last minute to play the "tabla", a set of Indian drums for the adult traditional singers.

Parts of the program felt alot like a Hindu version of a "vacation Bible school" program: : A lady MC who kept forgetting that the microphone stayed on even when she went behind the curtain. A "rap" by some teen boys in sunglasses that the older people pretended to enjoy to affirm their slightly rowdy boys. After the service and program, we stayed for a great vegetarian Indian meal and fireworks! Great, great evening with good folks. 

What's the moving part? The songs reminded us that there are some common yearnings of the human heart, put there by God: love of family, a yearning for something more than money or earthly success, a desire for virtue and, for want of a better word, "wholesomeness."  Jerry and Mark were not tempted to join the temple, but they were reminded that in the strangest setting, with people who seem very different than ourselves, there are pathways to conversation about the living God and His son Jesus. We'd ask you to pray that God would give us the right time and the right words.