Dancing in the Aisles in Aizawl

In Aizawl, Mizoram, in northeastern India, life revolves around the church.

Churches open their doors every day at 6 a.m. for a prayer service, and people are already out on the streets heading to work, school, or to pick up groceries for breakfast.

When the sun sets around 5 p.m., people go home for dinner with the family. The shop-owners close the doors, the kids make their way home from school, and the women pack up their produce from a day of selling in the market.

Restaurants and corner stores are even hard to find once it gets dark. There are no nightclubs, bars (Mizoram is a dry state), or movie theaters, and the local Millenium Centre mall closes around 6 p.m.

After dinner, it’s off to church again. Monday night is a youth service, Tuesday night is a women’s service, Wednesday night is for the full congregation, Friday is a men’s service, and Saturday is for prayer. Many people head to bed fairly early.

Sunday is filled with church activities, with three services (morning and evening services attended by the whole congregation, plus an afternoon children’s service) and a traditional Mizo family meal of boiled pork.

“One of my favorite parts about church here is Sunday School,” says Mike Elzinga, who is on a world-wide, story-telling journey on behalf of Christian Reformed World Missions with his wife, Claudia.

They are chronicling the trip on a blog on  their twocamerasonemission website. The latest entry focuses on churches in Mizoram.

Along with blogs, the website contains videos and photographs.

“Before coming to Aizawl, my idea of Sunday School was an optional lesson/get-together between church services in the youth room.  Well, we attended the Sunday School service at Mission Veng Presbyterian Church and this is what we saw,” says Mike Elzinga.

Each section of the numbered pews are set aside for a designated class and teacher for that week. All groups follow the same lesson from a lesson plan people can pick up at church bookstores.

“At the Mission Veng Church, all four floors of the church building and the entire English Secondary School across the street were filled with church members learning their Sunday School lesson — each age group in their own ‘classroom’,” said Mike Elzinga.

Every neighborhood in the city has a church at the center of it, and that really brings the whole community together, he says.

He and his wife were constantly moved by the amount of participation people show in their churches.

During an evening service at Thlangnuam Presbyterian Church, the man in the pew next to Mike Elzinga whispered: “Now the choir will sing for the church’s 100th anniversary… Oh, and that means me, too. I am part of the choir.”

Would you think the church choir would have 500 members? Be 75 percent of the congregation? Would you imagine they’d sound so good? he asks, adding that a video of the choir singing is on the website.

The Elzingas are now on the second leg of a year-long journey that is taking them around the world to visit CRWM missionaries, partners and mission sites.

Before returning from the first part of their trip in June, they visited China, Nepal, the Philippines and Indonesia.

They also traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Eastern Europe and Africa. CRWM missionaries hosted them at most of their stops.

They left recently for the final part of their journey, and began in India.

“We’ve been church-hopping since we arrived, and every church has the same feel. The people are well-dressed, the seats are all full, and the music has everyone dancing in the front of the sanctuary,” writes Claudia Elzinga.

“It’s hard to visit this city without feeling inspired. It’s hard to talk to a missionary here without wanting to hear and do more. It’s hard not to fall in love with the Mizo culture. The people of Mizoram are friendly, passionate, dedicated, and so, so faithful.”