How Does a Wedding Affect a Community?

 
It has been super busy week. Praise the Lord for 3 weddings in 3 very different regions. 
Monday’s wedding was the first wedding in our church in that village. But there have recently been other weddings in that village in other churches and these weddings were convicting to the youth in our church and encouraged him to wait until he could have a wedding rather than to start living with his wife, which means you are married here.  So many family members and friends came to celebrate and I think this wedding included more gifts than I have ever seen.   
 
  Thursday’s wedding was a pastor’s son.  He returned to his home village for the ceremony so that all his extended family could join in the celebration.  Marriages are not just two young people in love, but an agreement and relationship between two families.  Many members of the groom’s family will pitch in funds and flour and garden hoes or axes and cloths to help meet the “bride-price”.  Many of the members of the bride’s family will receive some of these gifts symbolically showing that the families are joined together.  They all join to celebrate together in dancing and singing and drinking special celebratory juices and eating together.  They gather choirs to help sing and musicians to play music as people dance their gifts forward.  Several area pastors come to encourage and help the event.  And then there is me, I also travel sometimes hundreds of kilometers to celebrate with them in a ceremony.  Sometimes I am the first white person that has been to that village which makes me feel like a  spectacle.  
   You can  see that when these young people just start living together they have really disrespected an entire community.  Their families will only hold a very small celebration with dancing and singing but gifts are limited and the church and many family members are not involved. Then the bride-price has to be quickly found in part because there is a debt to be paid rather than an agreement between two families which culminates in a celebration. 
    Saturday’s wedding was back in  the Rukwa Valley. We were there a few weeks ago for the first wedding in that village and once again we celebrated together. It was special to see a newly wed couple be their escorts. The bride is from one of the founding families of the church there and a camper.  The groom’s father has passed away which makes it much harder to get a “bride-price” together.  But he and his older brother and mother and relatives worked together to make this agreement.  They didn’t have the cash to meet one of the qualifications which is a thank you to the mother of the bride and a very important part. So they gave several goats to meet this cost.  The bride’s father agreed that if they met a certain amount the rest of it could be paid off over the years.  Being a Christian he wanted to encourage the wedding.  At the point that the groom met that amount, many unsaved family members told him to “take his wife” but he said he would wait until he could have a wedding before God and everyone.  That is a testimony!
Congratulations to Robert and Rucy, Davis and Aulea, and Richard and Sala.  Please pray for their new lives.

The Trickle Effect of the First Wedding

     While there on Saturday we were told an amazing story about the trickle effect from the first wedding there.  We had already heard that a backslidden women came back to church because we used her living room to help the bride get dressed near the church.  The very  next day she asked to be returned to fellowship.  Just because the bride got dressed in her home! God works in mysterious ways.
    There were many people watching the ceremony in awe. They were just passing by or curious villagers.  One man came to church the next day.  Everyone was a bit shocked to see him in church since he is one of the local “medicine men”.   He is the last person you would expect to enter a church!  After the service he spoke with the pastors and asked how he could be saved.  The pastors led him to the Lord that day. They counseled him a bit and over the next few weeks they have continued to meet with him and to explain what this new faith means.  They did talk to him the first day about what he should do when someone comes to him for “medicine” because it will take a while for the word to get out to everyone that he is done with that lifestyle.  They encouraged him to speak graciously and lead them to the true power, God, and to encourage anyone to talk to the pastor for more information. 
     A few days later a women came to him for “medicine” he heeded the pastor’s advice and led her to the church.  She is from the Wasukuma tribe who are very traditional in that area both in dress and lifestyle and beliefs.  This woman accepted Christ because her “medicine man” led her to the church where the pastors led her to the Lord.  Because of her tribal background they were worried that her husband would not let her worship. But she was sure it would be okay and brought her husband to talk with the pastor so that he would understand her new lifestyle.  He had many questions and wants to learn more.  The woman asked if she could sing with the choir and they agreed. So at Saturday’s wedding she was up front singing with her brother’s and sister’s in Christ. That is amazing since at the first wedding in this village only a few weeks ago, she had nothing to do with God or the church!  But because that medicine man attended that first wedding this woman is saved and her husband may be soon. Hallelujah!
    This “medicine man” has his work cut out for him.  There are many things he will need to leave behind. In only the first week of his faith, he quit drinking and smoking and said he had never slept so well.  He realized those things were controlling him and  going to kill him.  He will slowly be discipled by the local pastor and elders. One day soon he will have them help him discern which things in his home are part of his former lifestyle and he will take them all out into his yard and burn them!  Just like the Ephesian church in Acts 19:19.
     Praise the Lord for how He is working in the lives of so many. Praise the Lord for how He is using weddings to affect so many. Pray for these young Christians as they take stands in their communities and families.  It will be a rough road ahead for them to stand firm in their faith.