Gloria hallelujah!

Ok, I admit I am truly desperate if I end up going to the local spanish language evangelical church just to hear a few precious words of spoken Spanish this morning because here there are no telenovelas, no AM radio stations, no "Sabado Gigante!", no nothing in Spanish here in north Florida. 

I go and because I look "American" they explain that the English language service was at 8:30.  No, I say, I want the Spanish.  No I don't want a translator.  Yes, I'm understanding ok.  No, don't give me the visitor's packet.  Don't make me stand up and say my name and welcome me as a first time visitor.  Oh no, please don't pray for me! 

Dios mio!  Are "Assemblies of God" Pentecostal?  It doesn't say Pentecostal anywhere but they have a Pentecostal magazine in the lobby.  Are there other women in pants?  Am I the only woman wearing pants?  Oh shit, I just realized my shoes are flip flops!  I only have two pairs of shoes, sneakers for running and flip flops for everything else.  I didn't even think about my shoes.  I sit on my feet.  I think about all the Evangelical churches I had to sit through in Colombia.  I think about opening myself to another culture within my own country.

The man behind me is singing very loudly off key.  I hate singing in church.  There are no hymnals; they project the words on a big screen positioned at the front of the church.  If I don't sing they'll think I don't understand and come over and offer me a translator again.

I sing.

They don't stop singing.  They sing and sing and sing.  True to evangelical form they have a drum set and saxophones.  The cymbals clash around us, drowing out the human voices.  Everything is amplified and the sanctuary is filled with a great cacophony.  I can no longer hear my own voice.  The song never ends.  One song flows without pause right into the next.  All the words are the same: El Senor is worthy of praise.  Praise the Lord.  Holy, holy, holy.

We pass an hour just singing.  When the sermon finally starts I make a note of the time so next week I can come later.  The first thing the preacher says is that they have a worship service in English at 8:30 for any English-speaking visitors.  He repeats this information in English. Then he starts the sermon by having us open our Bibles --oh crap! I forgot to bring a Bible!  I ALWAYS forget to bring a Bible when I go to church!  I am a good medieval Catholic peasant.  I never associate going to church with a particular reading material.  I figure they're gonna just tell me everything.  And they do which is good because there are no Bibles in the little wooden pockets built into the backs of the pews.  I worry someone will come offer to share with me but no one does. 

The pastor reads a passage about Elijah visiting a land suffering from famine and asking a poor widow and her child for food and water.  The widow says she has only a tiny bit of flour and some oil, she was going to prepare a last meal for herself and her son before they die.  Elijah promises that if she feeds him too the tiny bit of flour and oil would not diminish until the rains come again.  The woman accepts.  The pastor spends an hour talking about this virtuous mother who has not let circumstances diminish her morality.  He ends the sermon by asking the women in the congregation what kind of mothers they are compared to this one? 

Even though I am focused on the still miraculous process of listening to the once foreign sounding babble transform itself into meaningful words and the words stringing themselves into coherent, sense-filled sentences, I start looking for the appropriate time to escape.  I'd been there over two hours and that's way past my limit for such things.  Those people over there are leaving, I think.  But the pastor is praying I can't walk out now.  He prays and prays and prays.  I think if one judges my Spanish abilities by how much I understood cliche ridden prayers, it would be a highly misleading assessment.  Ok, as soon as the prayer's over I can leave.  Bendito es El Senor.  Bendito sea su nombre.  The prayer seems to be winding down.  Gracias, Senor!  Gloria, hallelujah!  Bendito es El Senor.  Bendito sea su nombre.  Amen.

I walk out into the flooded daylight and turn my bicycle towards home resolving to myself in Spanish that I WILL go manyana mismo to the Latino student center.  There has to be something else.

Comments

[sA]

God bless you Luck White Girl! How incredibly brave of you to venture into an evangelical church like that...

Seriously, we have got to find you a Spanish-speaking outlet before you do major damage to yourself. You should know better than to wander into evangelical churches like this. I, admittedly, have done the same. I too had to fight off that 'restless-I gotta escape' type of feeling at about the half-way point of my own self-inflicted torture.

A hour of listening to "how to be a dirt-poor but satisfied woman/mother of God. Hmmmm. Perhaps Nietzsche was right about this type of Christianity?

[Haroldomil]

About your visit to this "Asambleas de Dios" church, I will tell it to you: I'm a Hispanic Pentecostal, and that's it's my way... and there is the way of some millions (exactly, 10 millons on the States and 60 millions in Latin America) of Hispanic Pentecostals.

Sorry for your ugly experience... maybe the taste in this church must be so "spicy" for your secular taste.

Oh, I thought that if you only want hear Spanish fluently with a soft flavor, you must go first to a Latino market or to the "Barrio". And if you consider the idea of going to Puerto Rico, beware... there lots of louder and "maniac" Pentecostals like me any where in Puerto Rico... Is impossible stay in a Latino zone avoiding us, hehehehehe...

PD: "Asambleas de Dios" is in Spanish for Assemblies of God, and there it Pentecostals! The first and bigger Pentecostal council on the world!

[Cano]

Hi, I am from El Salvador originally and come from a HIGHLY Christian family. I recently (about a year now) embraced Islam. I believe in One God strictly, he has no father, no mother, no wife, no sons, no daughters or cousins, tias, o tios, ni abuelitos. If you are interested you can go and attend a mosque on Fridays around 1 PM a sermon is given for 30 mins to an hour and a prayer soon follows it. On any other day we pray 5 times a day 7 days a week (with the exception of ones period and or days after giving birth). You can pray at home, on the road, or in the mosque in congregation. Most prayers last from 3 or 5 minutes to 15 minutes, usually the 5 minute is most common depending if you are praying by yourself or in congregation. Like Christianity and Judaism Islam also has many branches you can look in http://www.whyislam.org/877/ for more guidance (Ojalá derived from InshaAllah which means in Arabic "God Willing"). Sorry one more quick lesson the word Allah which means God is perfect because it cannot be made plural like God(s) or Dios(es), it means THE GOD and therefore not easily confused with other religions who call their deities god or with Christians who call their prophet god. I actually converted to Islam in a Catholic college while studying Christianity.
If you find that Islam is not for you or you totally hate the whole day at least you will have one more article for your page. If you would like more info you can email me and I will try to answer it to the best of my ability. I hope you find your answers.

***I apologize if I offended anyone or if I came off as condescending but I am relaying the message I believe is the truth**