Reception for "New" Church Members
Our church here in Africa has a tradition of giving a reception to welcome each new member into our church. My director and his wife host these festivities in their home, so during the months they spend out of the country, any pending receptions are postponed. In addition, when parties were forbidden during the pandemic, many joined our congregation, and we’ve had very few receptions since then for various reasons, so we accumulated a backlog of 17 “new” members awaiting their receptions.
Today we held a reception for two of them who have already been members for several years: Stélio (pictured on the left) and Nelson (pictured on the right). After the worship service ended, we made our way across the property to my director’s home. We filled it practically to the bursting point, but through ingenious arrangement of chairs and benches, everyone found a seat. After the opening prayer, we filed through the kitchen to receive plates of buttered bread with jelly and a piece of chocolate or lemon cake. Girls in the hallway served soft drinks.
After we’d eaten, volunteers distributed slips of paper with pens for our trademark game with new members. My director posed twelve questions to Stélio and Nelson, and before hearing their answers, we each wrote our guesses for both of them. The areas probed were name (one point each for first, middle, and last), birthdate (one point each for month, day, and year), birthplace, number of siblings, and favorite hobby, color, food, fruit, school subject, Bible character, Bible book, and hymn. These are the same twelve questions asked of all new members.
Nelson’s wife Hermínia, unsurprisingly, correctly predicted all of his answers, with several of his close friends not far behind. Many in our church know Stélio well, but the ministry and travels we’ve done together in recent years gave me the edge in guessing his responses. After the laughter of the game had died down, Nelson and Stélio each explained the reasons behind their choices of favorite hymn, Bible book, and Bible character, and shared their salvation testimony, hopes for the future, and prayer requests. Then a church leader prayed to dismiss the gathering.
The hearty laughter together with beloved brothers and sisters in Christ (and winning the game!) did me good. Due to all the tasks on my daily agenda in preparation for our pastors’ conference July 23-26, my mind feels saturated and burdened, like an overheating motor — and that affects me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. With my director’s support, I’m seeking to de-stress as much as feasible, rest sufficiently, and regularly divert my brain from work. Please ask God to give me wisdom to find the right balance between forging ahead with fulfilling my responsibilities and heeding signals that my mind needs a break. Thank you.
