Days 19 & 20: St. Thomas Church, Akure

I had gone to sleep at 9pm on Friday evening because I had agreed to go to Morning Prayer with Bobo and Michael at 530. It is held at that time every day except Sunday, and there is always a congregation: on Saturday it numbered about 25. The service lasted about half an hour and was without a set liturgy: it was not a standard daily office that any Anglican would have recognised and at least half of it was a sermon. Afterwards Bobo explained to me that most of the congregation is illiterate. After prayers I had a quiet couple of hours to read and catch up on the diary before breakfasting and showering in preparation for the big event of the day – the Thanksgiving Service for the 80th birthday of the lady whose new car Matthew had dedicated the night before.

Chief (Mrs) Dorcas Ajoke Akingbade JP is the Iya Ijo or Mother of the Church at St. Thomas. I have in front of me the lavish programme that was produced to accompany this service, the like of which I have never seen, including 8 pages of photographs, 4 pages of biography and 3 pages of gushing tributes from children and grandchildren. There were seven bishops in attendance including the Archbishop of Ondo Province and of course the Diocesan Bishop Michael, as well as most of the local archdeacons and curates. The church was full if not packed but certainly a good 300 people were there including the usual smattering of chiefs, high chiefs and obas! The service lasted about 2 hours and was fairly straightforward: the Archbishop preached on how to lead a good and long life. It is hard if not impossible to imagine a comparable situation in England; indeed I cannot conceive of a situation where anybody’s 80th birthday (cleric or lay) would attract more than the Diocesan bishop.

After the service there were the usual photo opportunities before all left for a reception in another part of town. It would have been easy to get an invitation to the party but actually I was quite happy to have a free afternoon. The St. Thomas family were not going to the reception anyway as they had been given their own cow which had been dutifully slaughtered the day before and cooked in great cauldrons overnight so our lunch was ready and waiting! (Apparently 5 more beasts had been butchered for the main event.)

I spent a couple of hours at the cyber café and then went for a wander into the neighbouring streets with my camera. Almost immediately I was spotted by Lucy who was on her way home on the back of an okada. I took her photograph then continued my walk. I ended up outside the Oba’s palace where a masquerade was nearing the end of its journey. It is hard to explain what these events are except that they are a traditional part of the local culture. I managed to take a few photographs but not before paying some DASH of 1000 naira (they had tried to charge me 5000!). From there I wandered back to St. Thomas from where I took an okada to a bookshop on the main road. It was my first time on the back of one of these machines and the sight of an OYEEBO on an OKADO brought many comments, cries and laughter! I managed to purchase a couple of local novels and then came back on another okado.

Saturday evening was quiet and I had supper with Matthew and family after which I sang a couple of hymns at the request of the children! Bed by nine.

Sunday morning I was up by 530. It had rained heavily in the night and the air was distinctly fresher. I spent over an hour preparing the sermon I was to preach at the 730 service of Matins. Although I had no robes (almost an ex-communicable offence in the C of N) I was allowed to process: the congregation numbered no more than 25 at 730 though before the service ended two hours later it had grown to more than 200. This was the English language service and the hymns were all old standards. Like Saturday morning there was no prayer book liturgy though this was more recognisable as Matins. I preached on the Psalm for the day 24.1: The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. I was quite pleased with the result though what the congregation thought is impossible to gauge. I basically gave them a theology of creation and stewardship and one gets the impression that they are so unused to hearing a non-evangelistic sermon it probably left them cold. Whatever, I was not lynched and after the service there were more photographs. Tolu had attended which was nice and he joined Matthew and me for a breakfast of yam and eggs for which I was more than ready.

Matthew and I returned to church soon after 10 to join the Yoruba language morning prayer service which was already under way. This time over 400 people (and may be many more: there had been 600 the previous week) were present. I brought a greeting from Manchester and then Matthew took me to the church hall to meet a small minority language congregation who were worshipping in their mother tongue, and to meet two departments of the Sunday School. We came back into the main service about 1130 having missed the sermon to find that the thanksgivings were just about to begin. Basically these are prolonged offerings made to give thanks for specific events, anniversaries, or simply for one’s family. (A big thing was made in both services that this was the last Sunday of the month and therefore how important it was to thank God for sparing you and your family for another month.) In today’s service there were four main offerings AFTER the main Sunday offering, but the second of these (for the local church primary school) had many subsequent offerings within the main one and alone took over half an hour. The whole thanksgiving offering thing took well over an hour: each one is introduced then accompanied by the choir as the whole congregation shimmy up the aisles and drop their 20 or 50 naira note into the offering bowl. That may be only 10p or 20p respectively, but remember you are going to have to do this about ten times this morning! We finally got out of church at 1pm exactly: the service had lasted three hours.

There was not much else to do except lunch and pack: Tolu came for me about 3pm and I made my goodbyes and thanks to Matthew and family. They had been wonderful hosts and made me extremely welcome these last four days.

Tolu and I had a little tour of the town to visit the Christ Apostolic Church where he is a member, another CAC church and the Roman Catholic Cathedral. We then went to visit a friend of his who is a Canon in the Anglican Diocese but who has fallen out with Bishop Michael. I did not get his name and we did not stay long.

We came back home and it was good to see Lucy, Jumoke and Titi again and to be back in my own bedroom. Tomorrow is my last full day in Akure and I realise that I am going to miss them all. We had supper and then I showed them all some of the photos of the last week on Tolu’s laptop. Mr Joseph from next door joined us and there was much laughter. It was a very happy evening. Came to bed just after 9 and read till 10.