Exorcisms and Playdough

Sunday


We woke up early for church, and when we were ready to go, there was a crowd of people outside the house waiting for a ride to church from Reverend John. There is always room for one more here. Church began with Sunday school at 9:00 am. The passage was II Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is God breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. When Church began at 10:00, the room quickly filled up. The adults were all seated in the right pews, the youths were seated on the left, and the children were in the middle. We started with some praise songs, some of them some old favorites like “Tel God Tanki.” The sermon was on II Corinthians 6:14-15 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what do righteousness and wickedness have in common, or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” Reverend Ezekiel (from Nigeria) talked about how when we become Christians we are different, and others should see that we are different from the way we act. He said, for instance in Kabala, there are known to be “secret societies.” These are groups that are typically associated with native religions that bind you for life. Ezekiel was saying that if you are a member of a society, and you become a Christian, that you have to change your behaviors and associations.

After Church, we went to Choices for lunch (that day they actually had 3 choices- ground nut soup, boiled stew, and fried rice). The cold Coca Cola and Sprite we had were amazing! It was the first cold drink (col trink!) we had in a really long time. After we ate, a friend called John with concerns about her son who had been acting strangely. She feared he was being attacked by demons. He had been having strange dreams ever since he had joined a “society.” Possibly some drugs were involved, and he had shamed his family. At night, he had this urge- as if he were being called- to walk to far off villages. Because of this propensity, they attached his ankle to a log with a metal bar that looked like a giant staple. When John arrived and saw that he was calm, he called for the “staple” to be removed. The local carpenter came and removed it with a sledgehammer… (In the US we tend to explain behaviors with mental disease or rebelliousness, but here they explain them as direct control by demons). Pastor John proceeded to exorcise the demons and pray with him.

After all of the excitement for the day, we went home and rested. One of our favorite things to do at the house is to sit outside on the porch with the radio, and listen to the World Cup and BBC. If we are lucky, we sometimes snack on pineapple :) We also showed Victor, Marvelous, and Gift (Reverend Ezekiel’s children) how to make shapes and figures out of play dough. Overall, it was an eventful day, and we were lucky to have some rain in the evening that made sleeping a little bit easier.