Church of the psychic pastor

On the morning we went to see the psychic pastor, Happy’s sister Neema slipped me a handwritten prayer to give him. I had been ironing my dress on the foot of her bed while she sat curled up at the head, writing.

She had heard the same stories I had from my friend Edith about the pastor. One woman had asked him to pray for her brother, and in the midst of his prayer, he understood the brother was near death, which turned out to be true. Another woman asked him to pray for her husband, and in the midst of calling on God the Father, the pastor knew the woman had threatened to leave her husband. While these stories piqued my curiosity, they spurred Neema to see if the pastor could use his divine influence on her behalf.

Happy and I took scarves to wrap around our heads before we entered the church of the psychic pastor. Edith had said covering the head was required because women did so in the Old Testament. My scarf was the nearest thing I could find: a flashy yellow and black sarong still damp from being used as a towel an hour ago. When Edith joined us at the bus station, she looked at my necklace and earrings and said no jewelry either.

On the bus toward Arusha, I unfolded my sarong on my lap. It was almost dry when the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. People got off the bus and waited for another. I found a tree on a knoll and answered a call of nature. Another bus arrived. As we mashed ourselves into it, the bus conductor counted us - 26, 27, 28... Happy and I shared half a seat. Edith shared the back row with eight others.

When the bus stopped at a lonely row of shops with two huge boulders by the road, we got off. Across the road was a mirror image of shops without the boulders. Out of the silence, a motorcycle materialized. Edith had told me we’d be riding one to the church.

As she negotiated the fare, two more appeared, rumbling loudly. The three of us stood with our arms across our chests while negotiations were in progress. Happy and Edith wore faraway looks. This was necessary lest the cyclists think we really needed the ride, giving them the upper hand. While the driver of the first motorcycle talked to the back of their heads, Edith and Happy said a few words to each other quietly, and suddenly Happy climbed onto a motorcycle and rode side-saddle. Edith pointed for me to climb onto another motorcycle with a solid foot platform while she took another.

The church itself was a solid brick building, a rectangle with a metal roof. Long open-air windows on two sides of the rectangle provided the only light, but it was plenty. The doorway too provided light since there was no door. When we walked in, the congregation was singing, rocking to the music, hands in the air, swaying and clapping.

When the music ended we searched for places to sit. On the left side of the sanctuary, people sat in plastic lawn chairs. On the right side others sat on back-less benches. Along the sides of the brick wall were rough-hewn logs sliced in half, the flat side resting on rocks piled up. Edith and I sat on one such log next to a row of little boys. We faced the side view of people sitting in benches.

The woman nearest me had eyes sunk in deep sockets. They rested on my face for a solid two or three minutes. I felt somewhere on me was a bull’s eye and somewhere in her eye was a bullet. Her aim moved to my throat, my left arm, my right arm, my chest, my stomach, my legs, my ankles and my toes. And then she repeated the same slow sweep over Edith. Finally, I had the nerve to stare at her face - long and thin with cheek bones protruding like rocks jutting out of a road.

A woman at the front led the singing. Sometimes her singing melted into wailing, and then the congregation knew it was time to stop. After all, it is difficult to follow along with wailing. Later in the service, there was more wailing when the pastor prayed what Lutherans call the Prayer of the Church. In this Pentecostal-type service, the prayers are a loud chanting with the name of God repeated in many ways, many times while we all raise one hand in the air.

As the pastor began the prayer, others whispered their own and soon there was more wailing. One woman on the bench near me began to repeat the same syllable and I’m pretty sure it didn’t mean anything in Kiswahili: “ku-ku-ku-ku-ku.” Then “chi-chi-chi-chi-chi.” She swayed. The woman beside her was overcome with sobbing.

Even though this was the prayer, I opened my eyes and saw from the woman’s mouth a string of drool lengthening. I would have been terrified if either Edith or Happy had started doing the same thing, but both had closed their eyes and seemed as they usually were.

After the service, the pastor gave a general announcement asking us to raise our hands if we wanted him to pray for us individually. Then we rushed to the front of the sanctuary and stood before the chancel, a raised concrete platform with an altar and flower petals scattered on the floor. I had clung to Edith who would translate for me, and I managed to get a front row position with Edith directly behind me and Happy beside me.

Down the row from me, the pastor had started praying over a woman, his hands on her head. Soon other church leaders swarmed around her. She was wailing and the others were shouting loudly over her in angry voices. I turned around and asked Edith if they would do that to me. “Don’t worry,” she said, “she has a demon. They are taking out the demon. You don’t have one.’” I thought, “How does she know?”

Now the woman collapsed, and luckily the church leaders, still shouting, caught her and lay her on the floor. In spite of the less than meditative atmosphere, the pastor began to pray quietly for another woman in my row. She did not have a demon. I took comfort in that. Now the pastor took a bottle of oil from the altar, put a little on his palm and placed it on the woman’s stomach. I asked Edith about that. The woman wanted a baby. Since I didn’t want a baby, I figured the hand on the stomach was one less thing to worry about.

When the pastor stood before me and put his ear next to my face, I asked if he spoke English. He pointed to Happy standing beside me to translate. I handed him the prayers from Neema. Without unfolding the paper, he explained that Neema had a vision to study in America. He prayed that her wish might come true. Then he said she had a problem with her stomach. He prayed over that. I was glad that my own stomach was not the surrogate for Neema’s.

It was late when we arrived back in Moshi. I asked Neema what she had written in her prayer. She said she wanted to get a master’s degree, but that it didn’t matter whether it was in America or Tanzania. I asked about her stomach. She said the pastor was right about the stomach problem.

Only time will tell whether she will get a master’s degree and whether the stomach is healed. If these things happen we will wonder, were the prayers of the psychic pastor so potent, or does God listen to the daily prayers of ordinary mortals?