Village Wedding Trip

In church, the pulpit a metal barrel!

A few weeks ago we were invited to our guard's village because someone in his family was getting married. It happened to fall on a Sunday, so we assumed that the wedding would happen during the church service as we've seen a few times, and then they'd have a celebration with food afterward. We got all geared up to drive the 1.5 hours to be at church at 9 a.m. When we arrived, we stopped at our guard's house and greeted his parents and sat with the extended network for a half an hour. I asked the men where the groom was, and they said they weren't sure, but probably in a village 30 mins away on the main road. Then we went to the small one room church building, about the size of our bedroom in the States. We were surprised to find that the church service was going to consist of us, two uncles of our guard who are both pastors in or around our city, and a bunch of village children. I assumed that this was because of some delay with the wedding preparations, but it was interesting and provided my first attempt at praying out-loud in 'Casa' in church.  We later found out that our guard's father is the only member of the church and the evangelist there was away on a visit.

After church we realized that the wedding was actually going to be a Muslim wedding, as our guard's sister was marrying a man from another village (it wasn't until the next day that we actually pinned down who the bride was either). For this, the groom doesn't actually have to show up, but some of his family will come to pick up the bride later in the evening. So we went an sat on mats at the grandfather/uncle's house with most of our guard's extended family who are Muslim (including his mom), and waited for the meal to be served. Before the meal there was a special prayer time that all the men left their seats to participate in, except the two uncles who are pastors. I was surprised by this since I have been at a few other Muslim wedding or "funeral" prayer times with other Christian locals. So afterward I asked, and was told that some Muslims are offended when non-Muslims come to their prayer times, especially if they take place in a mosque, so the pastors were probably aiming to not offend. 

In the end, we didn't actually stay to eat the meal that was served (I just took the lead of the two pastors again). This time it was because our guard's family had cooked food specially for us. This happened to be the first really hot day of the season, so after the meal we went and sat outside the village underneath a big tree, and tried to let the hot breeze cool us down. The family served us and the uncles while a dozen village children looked on (and were convinced to leave after they each got a handful of rice). Finally, we took our leave, were given a guinea fowl from the flock that had been running around us as a gift, and headed back home with a few extra passengers to drop along the way. A long but rich experience!

-- El Padre