The Village Church

One Sunday Arnold took all four of us (Jan, Ron, Sharron, Jane) to a village named N'Diaganiao about 2 1/2 hours outside of Dakar to attend the village church service. It was a wonderful experience!
The land was flat with some grass and lots of baobab trees. We passed several very poor looking small towns. Two of the towns were places where two of our readers live.

First are photos of the travel to the village.

Arnold said that he likes to stop at this market place to buy boiled eggs. You can see a man standing at the car window selling the eggs. Arnold and Ron both got eggs to eat. People are eating a meal under a makeshift tent just a few feet from where the mule and goats are tethered.

The church is called the World Radio Village church, because it was begun from one man, Joseph, hearing the broadcast of World Radio. Now there are about 50 in attendance.
Following is a picture of the building that the church rents. It has one main room and a small room at one side in which the preacher and his family lives.The entire grounds had been swept that morning! The car in the photo belongs to Arnold. No church members have cars. In fact, the people are so poor that the Sunday contribution averages about fifty cents! The church in Dakar supports the preacher with a very meager salary.

This building is the restroom. The inside consists of a floor in the middle of which is a hole to the ground!

Next are some photos of inside the church building and of the church service.
Men sit on one side and women on the other. A few children sat with the men, but most sat on the women's side.

The children sat quietly on the hard wooden benches for over two hours! They were a little distracted, however, by a little mouse that kept running across the ceiling and hiding above the beams!

On the left is Joseph, who led the singing. He wanted to attend Arnold's preaching school in Dakar, and that Sunday Arnold went to talk with Joseph's father to get his permission. The man on the right is the preacher. The service was in the native language of Woluf, with a few songs in French.

George, from the church in Dakar, encouraged the group.

After the church service, Arnold and George passed out bags of rice to the adults and bread to the children. The bags were very thin, and several broke, but the women quickly swept up the spilled rice and wrapped it up to take it home---even if it had fallen in the dirt! The children did not waste any time eating their bread.

After church everyone wanted to pose for pictures! They loved seeing themselves in the camera----both children and adults!

Here is a video of the singing at the village church.