Every day of my visit to Toronto is full of surprises and wonders. Every moment is a moment of observation and comparisons with life in the warm heart of Africa, Malawi, where I come from. As a journalist who also happens to be a church minister, I am advantaged in the way that I am able to look at life from different perspectives. Again, being the first week of my visit puts me at an advantage to look at things the way they are.
This morning I was privileged to travel to downtown Toronto to visit St. Andrew’s Church. Just like any other person I had my own perception of what I was going to visit. Moreover one of my workmates who helped to give me direction to St. Andrew’s had shared with me that St. Andrew’s was one of the oldest churches in downtown Toronto. This might have influenced my thinking. I was a bit confused on which way to take in order to get from the subway station to Simcoe Street where the church building lies, but some good guys showed me the direction and quickly the sight of the magnificent Roy Thomson Hall caught my eyes; hence I knew I was not far from my final destination.
“You are Joshua,” were the words I heard from the associate minister, Rev. Dr. Bob Faris. Bob was expecting me and the moment I arrived he left all he was doing and took on the task of showing me around the building, which has so many rooms. Some of the rooms are used as church offices or classes for Sunday school and some rooms are rented out as a way of generating income for the church. Being a Tuesday, the church is busy—not with worshippers—it is a day when the church provides free breakfast to over 120 homeless people. Bob told me that this has been happening for the past 22 years. Inside me I felt this is more than preaching in the pulpit on Sundays. Apart from breakfast they also serve supper on Monday nights to more than 200 people, but this only happens in winter (from November to April).
I wondered how this was possible, but Bob cleared my mind when he told me that all the workers I was seeing in the kitchen were volunteers. Another surprise is that they were not necessarily church members as one would expect, but were volunteers from the community. I struggled in my mind how this service can be introduced in my home church back in Malawi where the majority of people live below the poverty line. I felt that services like this one would not only help to fill the people’s stomachs and improve their health, but will also make the people see Christ at work and be won to Christ. I wondered how such services would be introduced in my home church; would it require prayer and fasting for this to happen? I am sorry, I have to wipe my tears.
The other thing which made me sob was when we entered a room full of assorted clothes that are meant to be given to those in need. Though my body was with Bob in the room my mind was back in Malawi villages where men, women and children move around almost naked. I came back to my senses and thought how these can be ferried to the needy in rural Malawian villages.
I later learned that the church started in 1830 and that the present structures were put in place around 1870s. Over the time structures have been tremendously improved. The church has a seating capacity of about 1,200 people; I thought it is the type of the church that would accommodate almost all Christians in my rural congregation where I come from. But at St. Andrew’s Church, according to Bob, the attendance is usually 200 people against the membership of 300. However, these figures are so encouraging compared to the church I went to last Sunday where the attendance was not more than 50. Bob lamented about the steep decline in most churches in Canada. In my rural church, the numbers of people attending church services keep increasing every day, despite the people having to worship in the shade of trees as they do not have church structures. Sometimes services are disrupted by rains. What a difference.
The other surprising thing Bob told me is about the paid choir which sings every Sunday during services. I did not believe my ears when the soft-spoken minister said this. Back home in the warm heart of Africa, it would be a taboo if you came up with such a suggestion. Bob told me that this has been a tradition from time immemorial.
Each day is full of surprises. There are many more to come.
Photograph by Steve Harris from Toronto, Canada (St. Andrew’s Church Uploaded by Skeezix1000) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
