Congo life and folklore

by John H. Weeks

What a contrast to Bakula’s little grass school-chapel that had been so ruthlessly destroyed by some of the very people who had laboured to erect this new building! Yet the latter, and all it stood for, was the outcome of the former.

That Sunday was a Communion day--the first sabbath of the month. Mikula, as deacon-pastor, took the service. Native Christians living in the surrounding villages had walked to this centre to take the Communion. The meetings in their own villages had been postponed, and, headed by their teachers, some of them had marched across hills and dales, forded streams and waded swamps to be present at that service.

Many of them had walked from five to nine hours from the more distant parts of their district. They were in earnest, and expecting a blessing they did not return disappointed. The building was not large enough to contain all who attended, so the overflow sat round the windows and doors that they might share in the service.

How heartily they sang! What prayers they offered--not wholly for themselves, but also for their neighbours that they too might be saved. How attentively they listened to Mikula’s teaching, on “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” They were an agricultural people, and knew the truthfulness of the lessons their teacher enforced with eloquent directness, and wealth of illustration taken from their own daily work on the farms.

The first service over, those who were not in Church membership left to make room for those who had come so far to take the Communion. Soon the place was full again, and Mikula, assisted by the teachers, dispensed the bread and the cup. Close upon two hundred that afternoon commemorated the death of their Lord and Saviour.

During the former service the usual collection had been made, and at the close of the Communion Service the teachers from the various towns handed over to the deacons the amounts that had been received at the gatherings during the previous month. Every Church member was expected to give according to his or her ability for the support of the native teachers who prosecuted the local missionary work. And the gifts from the different towns and villages were recorded in the deacons’ books, and the offerings of the Church members were written in the diaries Sunday by Sunday by the teachers in charge.

Apparently, from what I heard, two things have been recognized from the beginning by the white men who founded the work at the various centres: (1) that Congo is too big a land for white men only to evangelize, hence the need for an ever-increasing supply of native teachers and preachers; and (2) that if you want a person to appreciate anything, let them pay for it, for what costs nothing is very soon valued at about the same price--nothing; hence every member of the native Church has been taught to give freely and generously for the propagation of the gospel among the villages. No native Christian is financially bettered by joining the Church; but it costs him or her something every week to be a member. These gifts are the expression of their appreciation of what Christ has done for them.

I would that Bakula could have attended that Communion Service. He would have felt well repaid for all his toil, anxieties, disappointments and death. And who shall say that his spirit was not hovering over and witnessing the wondrous sight? How I should have liked to have asked about Old Plaited-Beard, Satu, Tumbu and many another, but the natives were very reticent in speaking about their dead.

I recognized among the communicants some who had been taught by Bakula in the old school hut. Of course they were grown into young men, and a few of them were married and had children toddling about their knees.

Two or three weeks after the Communion described above, a message was brought to Mikula that an old man, a member of the Church, had just died, and would he go and bury him. Mikula fully recognized that this was one of his duties as a deacon of the Church, and readily promised to conduct the service on the afternoon of the next day.