Last night was the monthly get-together all-night Friday service, and it was at Kembujeh for the first time. It's a bit of a trial trying to move 70 people there and back, even if it's only 3 minutes away. We all had to squeeze into our WAM bus and the truck, and people kept jumping off and getting on. It was chaos.
It took a while or us to gain speed (partly becuase my mom was struggling with the decrepit gears and partly because we had a pile of chairs and way too many people in the back) as evidenced by the fact that Simon (the tall one in the white shirt) kept leaping off the truck, slapping the bus in front of us, and then running and jumping into the back with the others just for fun. Simon was already long and lanky before we left, but now he's somehow managed to get even bigger, and he's all limbs.
Simon's brother Celestine and his sister Mary used to go here, but I think that they both graduated because I came back and they weren't here anymore. But they do have a younger brother whose name also happens to be Celestine, so I guess they must really like that name. (This is Celestine):
Then we finally hit the road and I was sitting in the back with Aisha and Garam and we could hear the people behind us start with the singing and the drumming. Aisha turned to me and said, "They will not sleep tonight!" I think she was right. We probably woke up the entire village on the way to the church. Even when we got off, the singing just got louder becuase then the kids on the bus got off and joined in and by this time they weren't just beating on drums but on the cars and with tambourines and whatever else they could find.
6 people spoke at the evening service: Pastor Demba, Sirumbai, Bakary, Alas, Basiru, and Albert. Alas (which is short for Alasana. We used to tease him about being such a pretty boy, but now he's grown up so much and beefed out haha) started a kind of interactive message time where he was talking about how important it is to find good friends because 'bad company corrupts good character.' Before we went to Kembujeh he came to the house and asked my mom for the new hats (there are all these wooly hat things that the kids are obsessed with), and so he got this new hat. He was extremely proud of it and wore it the whole night.
Anyway, as part of his message, he asked the congregation to define thinking.
"What is thinking?"
There was a long pause, an awkward silence (or maybe just a sleepy silence). That is, until Simon piped up with, "Thinking is your thoughts." Everyone laughed.
In between each of the speakers we had different people lead a short time of singing, which I think was relevant to the message at first but then just ended up being more of a tool to keep people awake. Every time that we started singing, Simon would dance up and down the aisles, and jump on anyone who was falling asleep. At one point, Kebba (the MC for the second section of the program) got the entire congregation to jump up and down 3 times just to shake the people awake.
There was this stray dog that kept trying to come in the whole time, and this little bald boy called Edward whose mom was sitting in the back with us. His mom kept taking him back to the house because he kept falling asleep, and he just kept walking back.
The generator also gave up on us about halfway through the first part of the service. We closed our eyes to pray and opened them and it was dark all around. So we spent the rest of the service in darkness until a few hours later someone thought to bring candles in and laid them all around the floor and near the podium. Thanks to the jetlag I didn't feel sleepy the whole time, and it was nice to talk to Aisha (who we've convinced to teach us how to make Kuchaa... very excited). She said that Stephen's coming this Sunday, so I can't wait! Ive heard the child has turned into a brat :).
There were a bunch of little kids that came in with us, but about 30 minutes into the service, they slumped over and just passed out. Them, and my dad.
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