Praise the Lord

As in any many countries religion plays a dominant role in day-to-day life in Nigeria. Last weekend we went to 2 marriage receptions and 1 church service, all on the same day... The church service is really quite beyond what I'm used to when I was 12 years old, sitting quiet in a little corner, listening to Mr. Priest, going through the static traditional model.
We went to Winner's Chapel, a Pentecostal church, leaning towards the Baptist Church. Imagine about a thousand people singing, praying their own prayers out loud simultaneously, in direct contact with the Holy Spirit. We quietly sat down, and let it come at us... . Quite fast a hospitality guy (that's exactly what his name-tag said) came up to us and distributed a form we needed to fill out as new members of the church, name, Cellphone, etc... That's CRM for ya ! Here, people really believe, young and old, and although I maybe didn't understand all of it, most of it was about getting rid of the curses of being poor, of bad things happening to good people, ...
So after that, off to the wedding(s). Probably the shortest party I have ever been to, but very much worthwhile. There where cameras everywhere, and they picked me to do an interview, showing later this week on Nigerian Television. Following questions were raised:
"What do you think about Nigeria ?"
"What house do you wish the freshly married couple should live in ? " So, keeping that cultural adaptability course in mind, I said: "It's not really about the house and the bricks, its about the love it embraces..." Slightly corny, I know, but it did the trick... 5 minutes later I was dancing with the bride and the groom was laughing his pants of with my not-so-very-good simulation of African dancing styles... After 1 hour, on to the next one, beautiful setting close to the Calabar River. A band playing Nigerian music in the background, bridesmaids trying to catch flowers, people dancing and singing, long speeches, food and drinks (not so different after all he...) always with a fantastic setting, combining the beauty of the country with colorfully dressed-up people. Calabar at its best... sun setting behind the clouds... music dies, and all goes quiet...sssst