Ubene pasika emnandi   Happy Easter     

 This past weekend we went to Alice which is about four hours away from Jeffrey's Bay for Easter.  We went to visit a pastor we really thought we were just going and visiting a few people going to church Sunday morning then coming home.  We arrived in Alice Saturday afternoon and immediately followed pastor Gundu to a university auditorium.  We all went inside where we found hundreds of people all dressed in their Sunday best, having a church service.  We were ushered to the front and were treated like celebrities.  It was truly an African experience: worship was loud and long and people were dancing and the preacher was yelling.  I don't think I have ever received so many hugs within a five minute period as I did that night.  Everyone was so excited we were there and wanted to talk to us.  We found out that we were attending an
Easter Conference that they have every year.  The entire time we were there I really didn't know what to do. I didn't know any of the songs. I couldn't understand the preachers and wow did I ever feel out of place with our team being the only white people there among the hundreds.  I really felt completely out of my comfort zone.  Once the second session of the day was over and it was dark, we were drove to a random house where we all got our stuff and were separated to go and sleep in different places. We all just had to go with it no one knew what we were doing where we were going to sleep and with whom we were going to be sleeping.  Hilliary and I ended up staying at the main pastor of the conference's house.  It was a nice little house with bright pink walls.  We rolled out our sleeping bags on the ground and got ready for bed while the niece of the pastor was sitting on the plastic covered couch watching the Disney channel (it had been a while since we have seen actual t.v. so we were pretty excited).  While we were getting ready for bed we saw five cockroaches - not a good sign when you're sleeping on the floor of a dark room!  We survived the night and the first thing I saw Easter morning when I woke up was the pastor standing in his boxers ironing his church clothes.  The culture in Africa is so different from that of the U.S.  They were so comfortable with us in their house and they were so welcoming.  We went back to the university and had our Easter service from about nine in the morning to one thirty in the afternoon. Definitely the longest service I have ever been to, but so filled with the Holy sprits it was amazing.   The weekend was for sure interesting and I am so thankful I got to experience it - but also so glad when we loaded up our vans to come home Sunday afternoon!