Church Crawl - Part 4: The Presbyterian Church

The fourth episode of the church crawl brought us to the Presbyterian Church.

It was not aware to us how the Presbyterians differentiated themselves from any other church, and the topic still remains foggy. But on with the story...

I started the day out with a coffee. It was out of those generic steel cafeteria machines, but it wasn't too bad.

Upon returning to my room, I realized that there was a ton of noise coming from the lounge on this floor. I soon discovered that a few drunk norweigians were playing Duck Hunt. They top off my coffee with gin. It tasted like ass, but I drank it anyways. Breakfast of Champions. Now off to church.

The Presbyterian Church

This church was one of the nicer churches around these parts. It consisted of two levels forming somewhat of a semicircle around the presentation - the easterner likened it to the House of Commons.

Unfortunately, I forgot the digital camera this time around so I had to resort to using my Molson Canadian disposable camera. Apparantely every picture will print with a "Rockstar" border. It was free with a case of beer. Looking forward to getting these things developed. You're just going to have to believe me that the church was pretty cool looking.

The service started in song, which was without any cue that I could discern - everybody just stood up and sang. Lots of things are seem automatic in churches, I was kind of getting used to it. It's still a bit creepy.

After a bit of a chant we all sat down. To start things off the priest talked about recent confusion in town with a Catholic church of the same name. (Turns out a lot of churches use names of saints - go figure) In any case, he found it necessary to state that this was the Presbyterian and not the Catholic church which is about a half block away. Haha. Silly Catholics.

Then we all started singing again. Big Joe Mufferaw complained that the choir sucked. I believe the real reason for poor audio quality was because of our location and the outrageously loud organ. In any case, we managed to not heckle from the balcony, but heckling a church choir might be on my list of things to do before I die. "Heathens! Jesus hates your songs!"

The song ended and the kids in the congregation assembled before the front row of the church. The visiting priest told a funny G-rated story about his travels in Africa. Then the kids ran away to some sort of Sunday School thing.

Then came the PG version of the Africa story. This church is apparantely big on Africa. It was actually a quite interesting story about his mission in Africa and what life was like there. Apparantely the Presbyterian church is the largest protestant church in Malawi. Today Malawi, tomorrow the world!

Insert a bunch more songs, long prayers and collection. As we usually do, (sometimes people INSIST we do not give as we are visitors) we threw in $2. Some guy that didn't recognize us came up and introduced himself. Of all things, we got into a bit of a discussion about the Vietnam War. He then told us there was a lunch happening in the church's gym. Lunch!

Lunch was free for us because we were vistors. Unfortunately I spent too much time chatting and we missed out on some of the really good stuff.

We started talking to the priest and asked him a half a billion questions about the whole Presbyterian deal. He then told a story about how he was actually new to the area and just landed the gig after a long interview process. It seems odd that a priest would have to have an interview, but it is necessary when you think about it.

Then we had a discussion with a retired member of the Canadian Forces (Princess Pat's maybe?) about all things military related. Specifically we discussed the stupid things that happen when the civil service has no idea whats going on or what should be done - Rwanda, etc. Military good. Stupid politics bad.

On our way out we picked up a copy of their annual report. For total liabilities, church funds and equity the church reported one and a quarter million in 2004 and $1,058,592.62 in 2005. For the Organist's salary & benefits, the church paid $23,377 in 2004 and $25,391.12 in 2005. Sort of explains why the organ was so damn loud - they just gave the dude a raise, may as well get their money's worth.

The church's "Christian Blind Mission" was $3 for 2004 and 2005. What they spent those three bucks on is a big mystery, but it was good knowing that we were likely responsible, through our two dollar donation, for two thirds of the Christian Blind Mission 2006 budget. Nobody can say we aren't generous people!

In any case, I still don't know what the hell the Presbyterian church is all about, but it was a nifty looking place with nifty people.