The Nagire Presbyterian Church in Port Vila, Vanuatu, sends good wishes to Christ Church Anglican Church Swan Hill; I worshipped there this morning. It was a bit hard trying to track down church addresses and times. The Anglican service was at 7.30 in the morning and I couldn’t get an address. Though this one that I attended was supposed to start at 10 am but we were singing choruses for half an hour before the actual service started at 10.30. I took the photo soon after I arrived and the church filled up much more. The band sits at the front and faces the altar. I think there were two or three guitarists. The women sit on the pews on the right side and the men on the left. The service finished about 12.30 so 2 and a half hours on wooden pews without backs was quite a commitment. The women all wore the beautiful colourful traditional dresses, and I wish I had bought one to wear. (I had looked at them but with such a range, it was too hard to decide which one to buy). None of the women wore slacks. The men do usually wear trousers but there is a short sarong option called a sulu.
I felt very much welcomed although I was the only Westerner there.
The sermon was all about seeking first the Kingdom of God. This was a Bislama language service, but the leaders seemed to move back and forward from Bislama to English and I found it easy enough to get the general idea, though I missed out on understanding the jokes.
I was particularly looking forward to the singing and I wasn’t dissapointed. The pronunciation of Bislama follows mostly the same rules as Indonesian, so I was able to sing along.
Here is the Lord’s Prayer in Bislama:
Papa blong mifala, we yu stap long heven,
nem blong yu i tambu.
Mifala i wandem we olgeta man oli ona long yu,
mo we yu yu kam king blong olgeta man,
mo we olgeta man long wol oli mekem olsem we yu yu wandem,
olsem we olgeta long heven oli stap mekem.
Plis yu givim kakae long mifala, i naf blong tede.
Yu fogivim mifala from ol sin blong mifala,
olsem we mifala i stap fogivim ol man
we oli mekem i nogud long mifala.
Yu no letem ol samting oli kam traem mifala tumas,
yu blokem Setan i no kam spolem mifala.
From we yu nomo yu King,
yu nomo yu gat olgeta paoa,
mo ol gudgudfala samting oli blong yu nomo,
gogo i no save finis. Amen