la iglesia

well... i went to church today, it was five and a half hours long. :) I met up with one of the day workers at 7:30 at the bottom of the ship (bienvenue- that's his name, althou i think it means welcome..) and guess what? i rode a motorcycle for the first time in my life... that was exciting! i was attempting to modestly ride on this thing, but it was near impossible. anyways, we got to church and there were about 25 people there, I was the only one from the ship visiting this church, ( prob because everone else already knew this one was five and a half hours long. ha) so i felt a little out of place at first. I have to keep reminding myself that life isn't about comfort. It would be so so easy for me to just stay on this ship, to stay comfortable. I have to keep reminding myself that it's good for me to get out of my comfort zone, it's good for me.. i'm just repeating that to myself. anyways, also-- I'm going to church to be with God, and to be with his people. It's really cool to be with his people on the other side of the world. to worship the same God that we worship on the top of lookout mountain in cotonue benin, in a warehouse. The church was more of a shack i would say-- let me rephrase that, the building was more of a shack. The church was full of passionate believers, of lovely lovely people that wanted to live for the Lord. There is some intense spiritual warfare very present in cotonue. Voodooism is a big thing here, actually we aren't allowed to take pictures of people because they believe that when you take their picture you are taking their soul... I've been hexed a few times while i've been here-- just walking down the street.. some really intense people think that we are the evil ones, we aren't really helping... that we are actually hurting their people. Most people don't think that, but the ones that are hexing me do. Anyways, in church we sang and danced.. i didn't know the songs, and i didn't know french. so i just hummed along with the piano chords. Let me just say, the music was the most out of tune, off beat, most beautiful thing i have ever heard. everyone was practicaly screaming and dancing around, the drummer didn't quite know how to play just yet-- they had been donated a drum set, so he basicaly just sat down and started playing, but he played very passionately.. worshipping with all his off-beat might. the voices were not in harmony, rather off key most of the time.. but right then, in the middle of my lovely judgement. i realized that this noise, this terrible beautiful noise was our offering, our praise, our worship to the creator, and to him it was like incense. He was smiling on our ridiculous musical efforts, being lifted up for all the city of cotonue to stop and stare and wonder to who this racket is going.. ha. i'm not laughing because i think it's funny, I'm laughing because i don't know what else to do with that joyful realization. We sang, prayed, and listened for five and a half hours. Then bienvenue took me back to the ship. That was my sunday, i hope yours was equally as blessed. God bless you all..