Contrasting experiences

The son of a church member got married on Friday night and we were kindly invited to attend - a memorable cultural experience. It started with dancing, continued with dancing  and finished with dancing, all accompanied by deafening music. For four and half hours.  This is the wedding season and Kosovans like to party!
After an hour or so a red carpet was hastily unrolled across the dance floor and the couple arrived to exchange rings and lead a dance to an Ed Sheeran number, the only non-Albanian song.
The couple continued to lead the dancing, which seemed to go in an endless clock-wise advancing circle, 3 steps forward, one step back.
People then came forward and stuffed money in some fairly inaccessible places on both bride and groom. Finally, the climax came with the cake.
Cut and then fed to each other...

For those of us of a non-dance persuasion, continuous food and drink were on ready supply. It was fun, even if conversation was impossible.



After the cake was served - at half past midnight - we were free to leave. With ringing in my ears and a very warm night, I struggled to sleep. The team met at 9.30 to pray and then return to the nearby town of Klina and the church plant where I was due to preach at the 11am Saturday morning service. Bit of a contrast from just a few hours previously.
The wonderful news from last week's service is that girl with the evil nightmares has slept well all week. The mother has taken witchcraft items out of their house and burned them, as suggested by pastor Jeton. We're praying she doesn't watch any more horror movies too. If you prayed about this situation, thank you! It was a really encouraging service with great worship and a real sense of God's presence.

(thanks to Diana for extra pictures) 

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