sunday report

sunday was a lovely day. it started off well enough: i woke up to rain. it was absolutely lovely. and even better than that was that it had cleared away by the time i headed out to church. i greatly enjoyed my walk to the wilberforce barracks, and though i was later than i usually am, i didn’t really miss very much.

the mass itself was really lovely. i’ve struggled in the past, with the language and cultural barriers, to really get spiritual nourishment out of the services at st. luke’s. yesterday, however, there was a visiting priest, on his way to magburkah village outside of makeni town, and he was just the most lovely priest. usually the sunday sermon becomes an opportunity to speak as loudly and as creatively as possible into the microphone. the catholic church much less than other churches, but it still tends to happen. sermons wander from one idea to the other spontaneously flowing out of the preachers’ mouths, but this priest was different. he spoke clearly and succinctly to the heart of the message in today’s gospel. he was reserved yet passionate about what he talked about. the message focused on the gospel of matthew, where jesus says, ‘my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

his main message is that your burdens become lighter when carried with love. he told a hilarious story which illustrated his point. during the war, he was traveling from makeni and came to a river which he had to cross. boats were there, but they wouldn’t pull right into the shore but stay a few feet away in the water. upon arriving, he noticed a couple waiting there as well. it was a small, small man, he said, and a big, fat woman, nearly five times her husband’s size. ‘she mus’ be one hundred an’ feefty kilos.’ the wife was dressed fine, fine from head to foot. she didn’t want to wade out into the water, so her husband offered to carry her out. the priest watched in amazement as he easily picked up his enormous wife ‘as if she were a piece of bread.’ the next week, on his way back to makeni, the priest came across the same man. this time he was traveling alone. the priest was completely amazed, then, to see the man struggling to pick up a fifty kilo bag of rice which he had with him. in fact, in the end, the man had to have another man help him hoist the fifty kilos of rice into the boat. when the priest asked him why he couldn’t carry the rice after he had carried his fat wife easily, the man replied that he didn’t love the rice like he loved his wife. the church was laughing so hard, but i think everyone received the message as well.

on the way out of church, i ran into a father and son who i had met briefly two weeks before. we were walking in the same direction, so we walked together for a bit. he introduced himself as mr. kargbo, and his son is james. he is a corporal in the national army, and his young son has just graduated to class one. they were on their way to mr. kargbo’s mothers home where james stays during the week. mr. kargbo’s wife died in april of this year. she apparently miscarried and proceeded to hemorrhage. they weren’t able to get to the hospital in time. it was really very sad, but then we moved on to talk of his work, my work, the election, and his predictions of the probability of violence. he thinks that it will be, in the end, quite peaceful ‘by the grace of god,’ which was encouraging to hear. it was just so lovely to know that i now know someone in the church, and as we parted ways at mamba point roundabout, we promised to look for each other next week.

upon getting back to the house, i grabbed a quick lunch and then began cooking for dinner. it actually all turned out really well. i had made up an enchilada-type sauce the night before which i mixed into the tinned chicken. making the tortillas really was the largest effort, but they turned out quite well, which made it all worth it. everyone enjoyed it (or so they said), and i thought it was quite good as well, although i personally thought that it was a bit bland for mexican food. but, in the end, i would count it as a success, and i think that stefani was blessed by it, which was the whole point. :)

i crashed around ten, and didn’t wake up until ten to six this morning. now i’m at work, and we’ll just have to see what the day brings!