African Children’s Choir performs here

Every pew at Bethel Baptist Church here, and then all the rows of impromptu seating in the aisles, were filled Friday night to welcome the African Children’s Choir.
About 400 people crammed into the church to listen to the travelling choir of 23 children sing an African version of Gospel music. The show was called “Walking in the Light.”
“It’s kids, it’s something to see,” Pastor Tony Geense said just before the concert. “I’ve already heard them practising. They’re amazing, they really are.”
The singers, aged five to 11, originally are from Ghana and Nigeria. They left Africa for Ireland in mid-March, where they started practising singing and dancing, and many of them got their first English lessons.
From there, they flew to Calgary in mid-May and bused from there out to British Columbia. Then they headed back east, stopping in major cities like Calgary, Regina, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg, as well as other small towns long the way.
After a night here, they carried on to Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sudbury before going to the rest of Ontario and into Quebec for two months. They’ll spend the remaining nine months of their year-long tour in the U.S.
Marie-Louise Kama, from Ghana, joined the choir about four months ago.
“I like the snow, the moon, the lakes [in Canada],” the nine-year-old girl said. “I’m happy to travel, and I’m happy singing for the Lord.”
The choir started in 1984 as part of “Friends in the West,” a charity organization that raises money for the children of war-torn Africa. So far, they’ve helped children in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ghana, and the Sudan.
“I’m [volunteering] because I believe in the cause,” said Liana Smallwood, 22, who’s devoting a year to Friends in the West. “I can already see the fruit, the results of the first choirs.”
She’s referring to an estimated 6,000 children who have been helped by the group over the past 16 years.
Singers depend on local families to offer up their home for a night while they’re on tour. This time, four children, the tour leader, and another volunteer stayed with Pastor Geense–making his breakfast table swell from the usual six (including his wife and four children) to 11.
“They call us Auntie and Uncle,” Pastor Geense said. “The next morning, I made porridge for breakfast and a kid came in and put her arm around me and said, ‘Good morning, Uncle.’”
He said it was interesting to see how the children react to food here. One young girl refused chocolate because she didn’t know what it was while a boy lit up when he saw a mango and ate it–rind and all.
“But you have to watch their diet because every kid will go back and you don’t want them too accustomed to North American food,” Pastor Geense said.
The young singers also have to be careful not to fall ill but on tour they’re exposed to foreign illnesses. One girl was sick with pneumonia, while another child is coming down with chicken pox for the first time.
Many of those on hand for Friday night’s show also took the opportunity to learn about the problems in Africa. Lorna Smith of Devlin brought her two children, Shelby, six, and Reed, four, to show them what’s happening in the Sudan.
“They’ve never even seen a black person,” noted Smith. “I had to explain to them that they’re in a country where it’s sunny all the time. They want to find out more about the Sudan.”
“It’s taught me so much,” said Smallwood, referring to the time she’s spent with the choir. “[The singers’] joy and faith is phenomenal.
“I can see the result in their lives, and in the lives of thousands of other children in Africa,” she enthused.