Ray walked into church Sunday morning smelling like the beach. She wore a flowery halter top sundress that barely covered her deep green cloth diaper and her shoulders still glistened from where we had applied the sunscreen. Every day she comes closer to appreciating nature, and since nature is inside church each Sunday she is coming closer to appreciating church. The pews are narrow wooden planks, varying in size and stability. The floor is gravel and dirt and the bamboo walls only reach my waist. When it rains outside, it rains inside too. Often I’ll find myself staring at the ceiling beams watching large, brilliantly colored lizards lazily wander from one side of the church to the other. Dogs occasionally run up the aisle and out a hole in the wall at the front followed closely by some person or other hissing at them (these are Ray’s favorite distractions). There is no velvety, maroon carpet with matching cushions on the ornate pews. There is no projector or choir loft or stage or microphones. Well, occasionally there are microphones attached to an old speaker, but those are ear-piercing-I-rather-wish-I’d-stayed-at-home days. The baptistry is the small creek gurgling by outside. The musical instruments are one or two or three guitars played by whoever happened to bring a guitar that day; I’ve learned that harmony, and sometimes playing the same song, is a cultural construct. Service has no start or end time, and the heat can become unbearable during the final announcements that seem interminable.

Ray meandered alone up the aisle to our designated pew, shaking hands with anyone she passed as she went. That is one similarity between her church experience and my own: people have pews. It’s an unspoken, universal rule of church. As I settled onto the narrow wooden plank, trying to position myself with the least amount of pressure on my legs, Ray began exploring. In front of us sat an older mother with her young child. Ray cautiously approached the child and they had one of those stand-offs where they stare at each other with no hint of civility. Suddenly Ray spun on her heel and came back to me smiling. Maybe she won their secret game, I’m not sure. For the next hour of the service, she went back and forth between climbing on top of the wooden plank to sit next to me where she could swing her feet for a few seconds and popping back down to stare at our neighbor. Only once did she topple off the back, and I was prepared for that eventuality.

Her feet have toughened over the weeks. The dirt and gravel floor used to irritate her soft skin to the point where she refused to stand on the ground without shoes, and as a general rule dirt of all manner is offensive to her (she is my child). But on Sunday she barely noticed the prickly rocks or the fine dust collecting on her feet as she played in front of me. Somehow, I’m still not sure how, a piece of cheap mint chocolate was passed to her from somewhere behind me. Rejecting all new food as something to be eaten, she played with the chocolate until it was a gross, hot blob in her grubby hand. It matched the rest of the dark splotches on her legs and arms where dirt and sweat mixed in streaks. 

This is not our church, but it’s similar. This church is found in the Lower Ramu area.

When I was growing up and daydreaming about the future, this is not the image I conjured up of my own family going to church. Regardless, I love that this is Ray’s experience of church, Ray’s home church. She is learning to worship here even before she starts to remember lessons about God. She watches all the men and women intently and is starting to behave accordingly. What I did imagine in those daydreams was a child that knew God. And she does. I watched her clap in time to the singing and raise her hands as she mimicked the lady worshipping in front of us. She danced next to me, in her jerky swaying manner, and looked around for the affirmation toddlers often look for when they are trying to emanate the adults around them. I don’t know what goes on between God and a child’s heart, but I know she is being surrounded by people who have a deep love for Him and that they will be part of the “village” raising her to know Him. It gives me overwhelming peace to know that these are the adults she’s trying desperately to be. She is certainly a dirtier, less polished version of what she would be if she were heading to church in the States, but she still shines in His presence and in the fellowship around her. And, really, I’m fairly certain our animal loving girl wouldn’t trade the opportunity to see dogs flying up the aisle with a temperature controlled room for all the sweat-free Sundays in the world!