Thanksgiving in the Church and Gospel Singers

On the 29th of October the choir Gospel Singers had a concert in one of the churches in town. They are so good! Erling, Kristian, Sara-Jeanette and I were assigned to be cameramen or just to be there as audience. (There is a tradition that just some of the youths joining the choir sing at the different concerts they have.)

Gospel Singers at the concert at the Bethlehem Church

Next Sunday we are going to sing together with them in another church, and I am really excited!
A friend from the choir came to teach Sara-Jeanette and me to sing the songs correctly, and to dance the dances they have for the different songs. I am looking forward to sing with them. I'm not sure how well the dancing will turn out to be, but it's going to be fun, even though I will look totally ridiculous beside the Cameroonians!

Synchronised dancing and singing

And here.. I am doomed do be terrible at this..

Last Sunday was a special day at the Millennium Church here in Ngaoundéré. We had a Thanksgiving sermon (Høsttakkefest). This is a big and important event in the churches here in Cameroon. And more than half of the annual income in the church is collected during this event! 

Different groups enter the church while dancing and presenting the amount of money they have collected for several weeks.
Many Cameroonians save half of their salary for months and give this to the church! That is an enormous amount of money for someone who already has so little to get by on. Think about how it would be to have six or ten children who you have to provide for; with food, medicines and school and even then give away as much as half of what you earn for months!
The fact that we have so much and give so little in Norway (and other places in the western part of the world) is astonishing. We really have something to learn from the generous and joyful people here in Cameroon!

The children giving their thanks

Fammes Pour Christ, the women organisation in the church here, is the group which gives the highest amount of money to the church at these events. Other groups are for example the College Protestant and other schools that are connected to EELC (the Evangelical-Lutheran Church here in Cameroon). 
The gifts were given to the pastor, on nice plates with flower decorations on them in all kinds of colours. The children from the schools also came in bringing flowers that they handed to the pastor. This was a really fun experience and everybody was so joyful, singing and clapping!

The missionaries are in a group for themselves at the Thanksgiving event, and the other Norwegians at the station were included in this group. And because we were in a group, we were as well obliged to enter the church while dancing (!). This was much to the amusement for the Cameroonians I would expect... as none of us are as good as they are at dancing to the rhythm. But we tried at least! 

Gospel Singers entering the church

Gospel Singers were also a group that joined in with giving thanks to God for all the good he has done. And we got a chance to sing with them too! It was fun and we danced in like all the other groups. 
Runar filmed and took some nice pictures with my camera :) Thank you Runar :)




"When we can thank God for the food we have gotten, we need to think of those who do not have it as good as we do. When we receive Gods gifts we also receive the responsibility for other people's lives."

Johanne Teresie