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PRESS RELEASE
Mennonite World Conference
September 2, 2003

Jubilant Music Marks Concluding Worship Service

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — For decades after coming to Africa, Brethren in Christ missionaries prohibited dancing in church.

A century later, worshipers at the Mennonite World Conference assembly appeared to have the most fun when they let the music move them.

A certain song — "Hakuna Akaita Sa Jesu" (There is no one like Jesus) — was the one that really got them going. Worship leaders kept bringing it back by popular demand.

And so on Sunday morning, one more time, about 7,000 Anabaptists with smiles on their faces were turning in circles and swinging their arms as they sang in Shona a song that translates as:

There is no one like Jesus.
No one is like him.
We ran and ran everywhere.
We went round and round everywhere.
We searched and searched everywhere.
No one is like him.

Throughout the week, one way to tell that a song had generated special enthusiasm was to listen for a high-pitched cheer — "le-le-le-le-le!" — from African women.

Probably knowing that many non-Africans didn't have the confidence to cheer like that, an African song leader on Sunday urged everyone to "make any sound you can think of" and to wave their Bibles over their heads.

"Our forefathers waved their spears and shields," he said. "We wave our Bibles. That is our weapon."

Adding a Western tradition to the week's concluding service, the congregation sang "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," known to many as "606," its number in a North American Mennonite hymnal.

In the Sunday sermon, Nancy Heisey of Harrisonburg, Va., the new president of MWC, said singing brings diverse people together.

"As we are filled with the Spirit, how do we respond? By singing!" she said.

"Singing is something we do because we're human, but now it is also something we do because we are God's children."

Heisey also encouraged her listeners to practice mutual submission.

It is through mutual submission, she said, that "we will make space for women's gifts, and the energy of our young people, and the forms of witness of those who are poor, and we will truly become the children of God."

Mennonite World Conference release by Paul Schrag for Meetinghouse