Day 32: I Always Suspected I Was Nearly Perfect... Thanks For Clearing That Up.

Churches here start a little later than my normal Sunday service so Adrie and I got up for some breakfast and took our time getting ready for the day. Biana had to attend to some scholarship business at the Clinic so Jon and Kristen invited us to check out the church they have been attending here in Jos. After a short walk down the street we found ourselves at Latter Glory Church where two speakers were blaring the praise from the inside out onto the street. We showed up an hour late, just before 10, because their time of praise usually lasts a couple of hours before the pastor gets up. There was a whole lot of singing and dancing in this Pentecostal congregation--Kristen was even pulled on stage to show off her oyibo dance moves! Once things got quiet one of the supporting pastors got up to give his message for the morning. I can honestly say I have never found it so difficult to follow a sermon in my life. He was reading through the end of Genesis with the curses put on Jacob’s sons, Dinah getting raped, Jacob’s wives fighting over his affection (in that order) and somehow relating it to our own cursed lives. He ended with proclaiming that if you throw off the curse that has been placed on you God will turn your life around and give you more money than you could hope for. Needless to say it was very bizarre on top of taking stories completely out of context. Jon and Kristen assured us that today was not a normal service, but I’m glad we went on a day that seemed so out of line!

 

            Adrie and I enjoyed leftovers for lunch (We remind Baba that the Bible speaks of a day of rest) and started watching Sense and Sensibility to enjoy a lazy afternoon. Jon and Kristen promised Blessing and her two young boys, Henry and Charles, to teach them how to swim at a local swimming pool. Adrie and I decided not to go to the pool because she doesn’t like unclean public swimming venues and I have a great fear of being around people who can’t swim who think they can. The boys were very sweet quiet kids. Adrie asked Henry, the youngest, if he would like a glass of water and the child took the entire thing in one continuous gulp. He totally would have killed all the Timber counselors at a water-chugging contest! The five of them took off so Adrie and I enjoyed a quiet afternoon of reading and chatting. I even got a pretty good bucket bath in since NEPA was being kind and not turning off the electricity.

 

            BIana makes the best leftover soup this side of the Atlantic so we enjoyed a good dinner waiting for Team D to return (that’s right, the Draskovics have their own crime-fighting nickname). They walked in the door just before dark and told us of their eventful afternoon. I was not there to experience any of this but I’ll do my best to keep it in their words: It cost 500 naira per person (around $4.75) to walk through the gate to the pool but despite the high cost the place was packed. They got their stuff together and Jon jumped in to find a good spot to do swimming lessons when Kristen started yelling to get his attention. She pointed near him and he noticed a child at the bottom of the pool. That child was Charles. Thank the Lord Jon had been a lifeguard for many summers and was able to quickly get down and pull him to safety. Apparently Blessing believed her son was a strong swimmer and pushed him into the deep end to get things started. Jon waited until everyone calmed down a little and found a good spot in the shallow end to start his swim lessons. Apparently Nigerians don’t do very well in the water so it took a while for Blessing to feel good about moving forward in the water. Kristen in the meantime got out of the pool after about ten minutes. She told me that it looked like one giant tub of drowning people--everyone thrashing their arms around, jumping on top of one another, swimming into others--it freaked her out. It was a long tiring afternoon for our swim instructor and cheerleader but they said they felt good about Blessing, Henry, and Charles accomplishments. I thanked God out loud that I decided not to go, I would have cried hysterically before hyperventilating into a faint. No Nigerian pools for me.

 

            We chatted a little bit after dinner about slang; what should come back and what should leave forever. They made fun of our Californianisms and we tried our best to figure out how “Pscyhe!” could be brought back into normal daily conversation. Word. Adrie and I finished our movie afterwards with some of our Tamarash chocolate and it was off to bed. Chocolate does wonders when it comes to thinking back over a crazy day...