September 13th-15th: Sunday-Tuesday
Sunday morning at church I felt much more comfortable and at home. I knew all but one of the songs and I got into it and had a really good time singing and praising. Another mzungu showed up. His name is johny I think. He left right afterward so I didn’t get the chance to talk to him. Mrs. Johnson preached (Morris Johnson’s wife). Honestly I agree with almost nothing that her and her husband believe and preach. They preach a health and wealth gospel that promises no more sickness and success in all our undertakings. She said that in order to be spiritually fir you must fast at least once a week. Frankly they downplay the sinful depravity of man and by doing so lessen Christ’s power and sacrifice.
That night I watched The Pianist which is one of the movies on the DVD I got in Moshi on Saturday. I’ve never seen the movie before. It was really good though especially because I had just read Mila 18 which is also about the Warsaw Jews in WWII. Unfortunately I didn’t watch it with subtitles so I will need to rewatch it sometime.
Monday and Tuesday Unity thought that some people might show up for an English lesson led by yours truly in the morning but it seems that no one is interested because no one showed up. Which is a bummer because I was really looking forward to getting to do that.
The last two days have been really rough running. Both days I just felt exhausted almost as soon as I started. I seem to have no energy at all. Tuesday I ran the long route, clock tower to west side, and did 100 lunges in 5 sets of 20. I’m going to feel that tomorrow. Ugh.
Monday around 10:30 I went with a bunch of the kids from the church into a church in town where Morris Johnson preached. He arrived nearly an hour late so for nearly two hours we sang songs which would have been alright but for the blunt fact that Africans have no idea about sound systems. They can set them up fine but they always seem to get an unbearable amount of static through the system. Their response seems to be to crank the volume up all the way. Then in order to further deafen the audience the speakers seem to be under the impression that the proper use of the microphone is to hold it very close to their mouths and yell/sing at the top of their lungs. It reminds me of that scene in the third Harry Potter book when Ron Weasley calls Harry on the telephone and is screaming into the phone. Well after a couple hours of that I had a headache. Luckily the kids where just as bored and they ran of into the lobby to play. Well someone needed to watch over them so I graciously went and played tag for two hours while Morris did some faith healings and caste out a few demons.
Tuesday I watched another one of the movies on the DVD. This one os called The Man Who Loved Women. Its about this eccentric Casanova kind of guy who sleeps with an amazing amount of women and his life. The dispription on the back calls it a romantic comedy but I think it’s a tragedy. This guy wants to be loved and he worships women but he never loves one of them. Despite his many affairs and mistresses he is always alone. He dies alone, never having loved. It reminds me of that bible verse, “If I speak in the tongues of mean and of angels, but have not loved love, I am only the resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysterious and all knowladfe, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all my possessions to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Co 13:1-3)
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