First baptism

In the US, we often have baptisms at the Easter Vigil, held Saturday evening. Here, it's done on Easter Monday. Several weeks ago, one of the Master of Divinity students, Stephen Mpozza, asked me to officiate at the baptisms at the churchwhere he serves. I was honored. I asked how many there would be, and he said a few.

When I asked later how many there would be, Stephen said there would be a few, only 20. Oh, OK. No problem. Oh, and I am preaching.

That's fine. And I will need to do the baptisms in Luganda: [name], nkumbatiza mu linya lya kitaffe, n'omwana, n'omowyo, omutukuvu. Amiina. Sure. No problem. Wait - that means the sermon will be translated too, doesn't it? Yes. For me, that means looking for words that would be more easily translated. Stephen told me that people were expecting a nice and long sermon from the visitor, but that just wasn't going to happen.

He also said that my friend Esther would come with me to be sure that I found the church in the village (as Stephen would already be there for Easter weekend), and then she would move to another parish for baptisms: a number of churches are led by lay readers, and I infer that there can be a scramble to get priests to do baptisms. Stephen has been a lay reader in this church for 10 years, and will probably be transferred once he is ordained in December.

So, Esther and I set out with Paul, my driver, at 7:00 am on Monday morning. Stephen had said that the service would begin at 10, and he wanted us to have plenty of time to arrive. What I should have figured out was that he wanted to be sure that we had time to arrive, but also to have breakfast at his house and get settled before the service. It took us about 90 minutes to get to the church, and we only needed to call Stephen twice to confirm directions. I'd say we spent as much time on the back roads as we did on the main road to get there - we were only 9 kilometers from Kampala at the church (so much closer than UCU).

I've put commentary on the service in the pictures in this album; I apologize for not having the internet bandwidth/mental acuity to repost them here.

It was a beautiful, though long, day. Ultimately, there were 32 children for baptism. We were all crowded around the baptismal font, and Stephen called out the names of the ones to come forward so he could keep track of everyone. It was actually a bit of a melee, with photographers jockeying for the best place to be.

After the service, we went outside for more pictures, which seriously made me understand how celebrities feel with paparazzi. I counted five cameras, not counting my own. It was a bit insane.

After, we went to the Wamala Tombs, one of the tombs for the Kabaka (king), which are being renovated. This is the older tomb; the Kasebi Tombs, which were burned a couple years ago, traditionally cannot be rebuilt until this one is completed.

After the tour of the tomb, which mostly consisted of visiting with the caretaker, in which we had roasted coffee beans and pineapple as she shared with us, we went to the home of the parish's treasurer, where we were met with a tremendous lunch (at 4:00pm). We were informed that we were to eat all the food on the table in order to make them happy, and we did our best.

I think we left around 5:00, and reached UCU at almost 7; we were delayed very close to home by a motor rally that had just gotten out, so there was a rather severe jam. In addition to the monetary gift the congregation collected, someone had given me a pineapple. Paul suggested that I cut it in the morning. I agreed, as I was a bit
tired to be handling a big knife!