Mountain of Prayers

That was the name of the church we attended yesterday. We were invited
by Sara, who lives down the hall from us. She is originally from
Mauritius but has been living in France in recent years. Man, what a
great time! Most attendees were Congolese and the service was a mixture
of French (usually translated into English) and some other language
which neither I nor Sara recognized. I was pleased to discover how much
French I've actually retained from all those years in the Canadian
school system. My comprehension during the preaching was very high and
production was adequate during my conversations with French-speakers
following the service. The singing part of the worship service was
ultra-loud choral worship, often in call/response style, punctuated with
translated exhortations on worship offered by a man who I presume to be
the worship pastor. He didn't actually lead the singing, he just came up
onto the altar and gave mini-exhortations between songs and, sometimes,
during songs. Among the believers in the seating area, there was much
dancing, syncopated clapping, supplementary percussion (a rattle, a
tambourine) and ululating cries. Those peeps knew how to rejoice!



The service went for a couple of hours and the hanging out in the foyer
and chatting with people lasted another hour or so. We all had a long
lunch at Cici's Pizza and went to our respective homes. I came in the
door, sat on the couch and attempted to have a conversation with Rob but
he sent me off to bed as I had been nodding off during one of his
sentences. I was out for about 2 1/2 hours. I was so groggy when I got
up that we starting suspecting that I was dehydrated ... again. So, we
had smoothies for dinner. Smoothies are the best food. Throw together
pineapple, mango, ice cubes, blueberry juice, black cherry juice,
psyllium ... instant dinner. I felt much better after finishing the
smoothie.