Is the Holy Spirit living in Africa?

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The town of Nkamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo has an unusual resident - the Holy Spirit. Pilgrims travel many miles to the Kimbanguist Church in the west of the country to meet him. William Edmundson joined them.

You need to be persistent to reach Nkamba. Leaving the capital Kinshasa, it's tarmac for the first two hours - so far so good. But this is the only tarmac road of any length. And that, as we keep getting reminded, is in a country the size of Western Europe.

But then you're on a dirt or mud track for three hours. I'd have turned back at the first obstacle but Alphonse our driver takes it in his stride, singing along to a relentless sequence of hymns and brass band music on the car stereo.

He, like my fellow passengers, is a Kimbanguist - a follower of Papa Simon Kimbangu. If you don't know the name you should. In the 1920s he dared to suggest that the black Congolese, not white Belgian colonisers, should rule this country.

For that he he was sentenced to death, later changed to life imprisonment. He spent longer in jail than Nelson Mandela. That was in internal exile, at the other end of the country - and this, remember, in a nation the size of Western Europe.

Today Simon Kimbangu is buried in Nkamba. As he died, a grandson with the same name was born. The grandson, they say, is a reincarnation. He's also the Holy Spirit. Other Christians, I'm told, have been unclear about what the Holy Spirit is - but the Kimbanguists know it's him. They believe in the Bible but they're also waiting for a second book to complete it.

And if you read Ezekiel, Chapter 40, Verses 1-12, you'll see, they say, that Ezekiel's description of a future temple at Jerusalem matches that of Nkamba, where a huge green and white church now stands.

On arrival I'm taken to see the Holy Spirit. Old and young, men and women, kneel before him as he stands in a plain suit. Some have travelled from across the country. Dozens of their tents stand around the church. As I kneel on one knee - a compromise for a non-believer - he welcomes me with a few kind words.

At 05:50 sharp the following morning we are in the huge green church. The service begins with a song that I recognise - it had been on the car stereo the previous day. Then from the other end of the church, in perfect time and beautiful harmony, another choir echoes and responds. When they finish, a third choir behind me starts up. By the end of the service I count at least eight. As my head swivels to listen and watch, the congregation sits still, lulled into peaceful sleep or contemplation.

I'm starting to drop off myself when the 30-piece brass band that I've somehow missed starts up, and I'm asked to stand up so that the congregation can identify their visitor.

Like the 19th Century explorer Henry Morton Stanley I am a journalist, the preacher says, a second journalist come to Congo. Now you could say Stanley was tough, resourceful, persistent, a good self publicist. But I'm not happy with the comparison. He'd made it from East to West Africa, revealed that the upper stretches of the Congo didn't flow to the Nile, but west to the Atlantic. But to do that he'd also been ruthless. Hundreds of villagers had died along the way, as had most of his companions.

John, my guide, understands my uneasiness and later tries to explain: "You have to see that Dr Livingstone," who Stanley famously found on an earlier expedition, "was here in Africa for another reason."

He gives me a sideways knowing look. "It's like the Belgian king. He wanted this land for another reason," he says.

"Really?" I ask. "What was it?" John just looks at me as if it was obvious. "They were also looking for Jerusalem - Nkamba."

My hosts have been generous and welcoming but it's time to leave. The road is long. Once again the Kimbanguist hymns rotate through their sequence in an endless cycle on the car stereo. Our driver Alphonse is singing along. So is Papa Mario, the head of evangelisation. Danny in the back - just there to deal with breakdowns and road tolls - is whistling. Somehow the trip's become a Sunday school singalong.

And somehow, while I'm typing these words, trying to anticipate the holes in the road, two bystanders have hitched a ride with us. They're standing on the rear bumper. I can see their legs through the back window. "Their jeep broke down," Alphonse says, "so they need to get a spare part."

I have to admit that the fourth or fifth time around, the polyphonic madrigals and brass band anthems are starting to get to me. But as I look out at the road, a muddy red gash in the green of the forest, I find I'm singing along.

Congo's Jerusalem was broadcast on Heart and Soul on BBC World Service.

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