evangelical

i went to my first ever evangelical church.

on the way, we passed several catholic churches and i was caught for the first time thinking:

"there is a place i understand. please let these evangelicals change their minds and become catholic right now i dont know what is going to happen here willihavetodrinkpoisonandspeekintonguesohmygod."

i was out of sorts. however, my sisters angel, sarah, and cinderella (in an unbelievable turn of events, she is the niece of my host dad and she has to do all of the work at home. she gets yelled at everyday harder than the other kids. she loves watching hannah montana and laughs quietely the entire time the jonas brothers are on tv. on our way to school she once bought me ice cream because she is unusually kind. i ate it despite my promise to avoid such gastronomic disasters and paid for it later. only a monster would not eat ice cream from cinderella.)seemed to think that everything would be fine.

we arrived a bit late and the kids had to go to sunday school. thus, my peer laura and i entered the upstairs portion of the church to find a non-descript seat. it was very crowded but there were big windows all over the place and a nice dschong breeze. as usual, i couldnt understand what the preacher was saying. however, i saw several other americans in the front of the church. horribly, i knew them. then they stood. everyone clapped. i didnt understand what was happening.

then laura, my peer, told me to stand up while she herself was in the process of exiting our perfectly unobtrusive seating. everyone looked at us.

no.

i stood up because it would have been horrible not to. then, somehow, it was decided that we needed to be seated up front. we walked all the way down and everyone started singing what was, i think, a shockingly wonderful song. many stopped to say bonjour, ca va, etc. then i was in front with the other americans and the preacher was saying something to the effect of "welcome newcomers. this is a church. please do sit down." i sat.

then, as i suppose any evangelical could say, things went very fine. i didnt understand anything the preacher was saying. perhaps he noted that the bible has many stories. he also may have said that it was a nice day and, yes, thats gods doing. hard to say. there were many choirs and they were all better than any church choir i have ever heard. when the service was over, the evangelical preacher shook all of our hands (he was not holding any snakes or poisons as one might expect) and said (in french; not in tongues)thanks for coming. and then in english "thanks for coming"


it went so well that i carried my tiny sisters all the way home.