Church Potluck

In the world of American Southern Baptists, potlucks and Wednesday night dinners are pretty common. But here in the world of African Baptists -- at least at our church -- it's only done about once a year. It's called an agape.

During an agape, the whole congregation brings food to share, the "pews" (aka wooden benches) are arranged in a circle around the sanctuary, and, as the praise band jams in the background, the women of the church walk around serving the food plate by plate. Since there are only about 30 plates, and 100 or so people, people have to wait their turn as plates are used, washed, and re-used.

We tried to contribute a dish that is sometimes eaten here -- spaghetti -- but the types of spices we use are pretty different than the spices used here. So, while we got some comments of "C'est bon!" there were also a couple more along the lines of "C'est bizarre!" Oh, well, at least we tried ...

Here are a few pictures from the day. Please also check out the prayer requests in the following post.