Churches are preparing for a return to Sunday service after a five-week hiatus brought on by the coronavirus (COVID-19) state of emergency.

The Vaimoso Methodist Church was among those, whose congregation members were hard at work with the cleaning as well as decoration of the halls, and were led by Rev. Auro Teve and his wife, Faimafili Teve.

Among them was 15-year-old Faafili Ponifasio, who told Samoa Observer that she has been hard at work ensuring everything was ready for Sunday.

“I feel happy. I swept the Church and wiped down the windows and the pews. Everything is clean,” she said, while she sat down for a break with her friends.

“At home I will be helping my mom with the cooking and cleaning the house to get it ready for the people who will come over for [Sunday] toonai.”

Eleven-year-old Ray Alailima was also feeling happy to be going back to Church today.

“I wiped the windows and the pews. I feel happy,” he said.

Fuimaono Ruby Fuimaono, a member of the congregation who was in charge of the decorating and clean-up team of some 20 people this weekend.

“In our women’s fellowship, we call it ‘au uso fealofani,’ we take part every Sunday so it’s our turn now given the state of emergency has opened and it just happens to fall on the Sunday we are assigned to decorate the church," Fuimaono said.

“So it’s our turn now to clean up and decorate the church. It feels awesome coming back to church. It’s about time for us to come back and have things back to normal, even though we have only one service on Sunday.”

There are usually two Sunday services at the Vaimoso Methodist, but one service “is what we can do to adhere to the policies,” added Fuimaono, a mother of two and lifetime member of the Methodist Church.

“It’s back to normal and back to reality now. I am happy to do this work for the Lord. Every Sunday, a mother is tasked with cleaning and decorating the church. It's our turn now so here we are.”

Her crew wiped the dust off the pews, the walls and the windows, swept and mopped the floor and prettied up the pulpit and tables with gleaming white satin for their post-SOE Church service.

“This is all for our Sunday church service. In the evening we will bring in our fresh flower bouquets and then we rest and get ready for our Sunday morning service at 9am. I am happy, totally happy.”