Baptism, Uganda-style

Carol Asiimwe (Blessing) Dennison on the way to church with her mom and sister

The first baptizee (?) Ann-Grace--her godmother told me that she was hoping to drink the water!

A lit candle as part of baptism; a bit dicey with young children!

Mark giving Carol's name to the Bishop as he proceeds to baptize

Cake cutting after the service, an essential part of Ugandan functions

Speeches also essential (and must-have photographer on left)

Small cubes of cake delivered to the gathered invitees

At the end of the day; we realized that we had not taken a picture with Carol, our new goddaughter

A couple general thoughts about church, functions, community, etc....

1. For more liturgical folks, the Anglican church in Uganda is very low-church.  Many American anglicans come and are surprised (sometimes disappointed) at the practice of Ugandan anglicans. I won't go into it all now, but I felt the godparent vows would have definitely seemed less sacramental than many anglican liturgies in the US. 

2. For non-liturgical folks, the church does have more order, more hiearchy, more set prayers than most evangelical churches in America.  In these pictures, the bishop is the former bishop of Mukono and not shown is another former bishop who gave the sermon.  The hiearchy of the church and the colonizers tended to mesh with a generally hiearchical society in Uganda.  That said, I meant to include a  picture of some of the female clergy.  I don't know the origins of "gender balance" in Uganda but despite the patriarchal pattern, women are leaders in the church and in the government (that said, I don't think they can hold the highest positions)

3. For Western-society folks, there is a liturgy of "functions/events" in Ugandan culture (and my sister who is an ESL teacher says it is true for many traditional cultures).  There is food, cake, soda, music, speeches, and generally speaking "being together" for all of life's big moments.  If anyone wants to know the key to cross-cultural success, just be present at all events that you are invited to.  This may mean you are busy many weekends of the year! I won't elaborate, but needless to say this is not as easy as it may sound for task-oriented, intentionality-based relationships, efficiency driven schedules, individuality-based members of Western culture.   

4. Community: We teach a book where the author compares "I think therefore I am" to "I participate, therefore I am".   This is a pretty seriously different orientation on life and self-consciousness--one that plays out in relationships and religion.