There are some things I didn’t think were good for one of the daily posts, but I thought would make a nice miscellaneous post.
There have been some rather interesting contracts I have noticed while here.
Let’s just get the first one out of the way.
Contrast: Sight
Me in Africa. Enough said.
Contrast: Sight
The sister with the biggest smile, so happy to praise Jesus sitting there running the projector at the convention. I recognized her tonight in Tamale. At the convention prayer line, in one look I could see her praising Jesus, and see the poor young girls so terribly afflicted by demons. One so alive and joyous in Christ, the others so bound by the sins they have not yet confessed and repented of.
Which one would you rather be? To see a contrast so stark was amazing.
Contrast: Sound
Tonight sitting outside the building so I wouldn’t get too hot, as we’ve done almost every service this trip. It IS helpful to sit outside a bit, every two or three degrees is a big help, and so is a breeze. Sitting there outside hearing the joyous melody of the saints of Tamale. (ok, they really don’t sound great, but they sound HAPPY!) and then in the breaks, being able to hear two, maybe three mosques not too far distant. Many of the mosques have loud speakers, not speakers, but bull horn kind of speakers. If Bro Jack sang through one of those it wouldn’t sound great. So during the day, I don’t know if its specific times or what, you can hear an imam, or somebody, I really don’t know, intoning…praises? through the speaker.
AAAAHhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeemmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnah
I’m not trying to make fun, just describe it.
The saints sounded so joyous to me, the mosque so…bland. So void of feeling. So void of personality. It was just noise that seemed to be produced because it was supposed to be, not because it was really felt.
Anyhow, I found it so interesting. To hear both, almost at the same time. What a contrast.
Contrast: Smell
Another one that I will take is from Ouaga Church and Tamale. I had thought to try and describe the Ouaga church a little bit, so I will do that here, and then at the end I will discuss the contrast.
You may remember I described the street/lane-thingy that we walked down to get to the Ouaga church. It was dark the first time, and I was still a little tense waiting for a Muslim terrorist to jump out and kill me. Ok, maybe not that bad, but still it’s a very unfamiliar place, it’s dark, and you’re walking down a you’re-not-so-sure-about-this road.
The next two evenings we were a little earlier for service and the walk was a little more…uh…pleasant? I realized the next night this was merely a residential street. In some ways not too different than the street that I live on. By the third night I was probably at the church before Bro Jeffrey got halfway. He’s an African man, I’m an American. Whatever is waiting for him will be there, wherever I intend to be, why should I waste time on the journey? What I mean is that I walked fast, not because of fear, but because I was comfortable on my own.
Well, if one could call walking down a dusty, trash ridden, water strewn residential street comfortable. My poor shoes may never come clean.
So coming down this quaint residential lane, children are playing, riding past on their bikes, cars, motor bikes, men sitting in chairs on their….front porches….the occasional Deiu Vous Benice or Bonjour called out and we arrive at the church. The road seems to part around it. The parking lot for the church is on the left side the road continues on the right. There are benches outside in the front and the left side. It is a mud brick building with a tin roof. There is a generator running a short distance away from the building. There are speakers (far too loud) but the audio must reach outside too. It’s hot. It’s dusty. The first night I wiped my face with my handkerchief I was taken aback by how red it was from the dust that had adhered to my face.
Have I mentioned that the Ouaga church meets EVERY night? EVERY NIGHT! Not just because I was there, they have been doing that for quite some time. I won’t digress on the conversations between Bro Gilbert and I over that point, but only to underscore that these people meet every night in a hot dusty tin can where the minister sits outside just for a reprieve from the heat of the building.
It is small too, people are crammed in here along with the speakers. So loud. Sometimes sisters would scream out in excitement during a song. Ouch.
So now that you have the setting, I want to describe the contrast. I want to describe the smell, that I never quite notice going to the service, but ALWAYS noticed leaving the back of the building. Keep in mind after preaching, I’m way too hot, tired, and likely feeling queasy. So I step out of the church, and I notice the smell. It is a mixture of dust, trash, smoke from cook fires cooking meat and other things, and not a dead rotten fish smell, but it was smell of the leftover fish that had been cooked whole, and the bones, skin, etc had been discarded. It is a sickly sweet, but somehow not overpowering smell. It doesn’t reek terribly, but you cannot deny the presence of the smell.
Tonight a brother came to pick us up from the hotel to take us to church. He is driving a Toyota Corolla. It is a clean car. It smells like American car air freshener. I don’t know what scent it is, but it is heavenly, just heavenly. The contrast the smell of that car brought to me was very strong. It had been a week and a half since I smelled something so nice I think.
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