While we were in our "urban" African training, we attended church with Trey's translator and then ate lunch with his family. We've been to what we would consider "urban" churches and village churches in our home country. This church, even being in a city, had more of a village feel. It's a church plant in a neighborhood and pretty small. We walk into the compound and see a small office "building" on the right, and in front of us 3 walls with a tin roof for the church building and plastic chairs for seating. We've been to "urban" churches here before, but this was nice since it was a new church. We enjoyed the time there. We had some worship with just our voices, a drum set, & a djembe. During the worship time, the children from the surrounding community came into the compound and had a good 'ole time dancing & singing. They told us later they had been able to form a children's ministry through this. Next, we had a time of testimony where Trey shared his testimony, and others shared about how the Lord is working in their lives. During the testimony time, we also enjoyed a song from a lady in the church - not necessarily on key, but the was definitely joy in her worship. And it ended with 2 songs by the children - maybe one of these days our internet will be decent enough to upload the video :) We then had a short sermon and closed out the service.
After the service, we walked to Trey's translator's house for lunch with him & his family. The food we ate was good - traditional African food. We had seasoned rice, spinach, and meat that's a little too tough to chew. We also had some delicious lime juice & bissap juice (google it, maybe there's an American version). So, you know we all have things that are scary and intimidating when doing something new. I was a little afraid I wouldn't like the food and would have a hard time pretending like I did. I didn't have that problem, however, I did encounter another problem.
Remember how I said that meat was a little too tough to chew?? Well, it's also a little too tough to cut, especially when the only utensil we had was a spoon. I was doing pretty good getting small enough bites and chew long enough to eventually swallow it. And then I had a problem... I got a piece that was a little too big and a little too tough. I had been chewing on this piece for what seemed like forever, tried to swallow, and it didn't go in my favor. I begin to choke on the meat as it's stuck in my throat. Trey is trying to talk to me to help me and then jumps up and gets ready to preform the heimlich maneuver. The wife of the household jumps up to get a bowl to help me and next thing I know, I'm beginning to throw up! Oh, what a nightmare! The bowl came at the perfect time, and I was completely fine. This was one of those moments when I was thankful that I could blame things on my pregnancy and she would understand, since she's had three kids. I was soooo embarrassed and felt absolutely horrible. After that, I tried to not stop complimenting how delicious the food was. They were really nice and understanding. And of course, after it was all over and I was ok, Trey was excited to have a good story to share :) He definitely has a funny version of the experience, sound effects and all. My lesson learned, no more big bites with tough meat.
