Today (Saturday August 6, 2011) we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary! What better way to spend our first wedding anniversary in Africa than attending a wedding! A couple from our host church were the ones getting married so the first thing that happened was that Lisa had the option of getting a blouse and skirt made to match the other ladies from our church who would be attending. The ladies were all excited when Lisa showed up this morning in the skirt, blouse and head piece she had made just this past week. We left our house just before 9 am to walk to the church and we did not get backhome until after 6 pm. We got a ride to the center of the city where the legal ceremony took place then caravanned through the city, stopped for some pictures in front of a new hotel before we came to the church for the actual wedding ceremony. After a 3 hour ceremony we drove just outside the city to a Baptist Bible Institute campus for the reception. Everything was ready but we waited for the bride and groom to arrive before being seated and eventually getting fed. The main food was rice, beans and chicken. But there were other special foods as well including a beautiful wedding cake! There was a lot of food and it seems like everyone got plenty to eat.
Because it was a Christian wedding there were a lot of things done that were similar to our wedding 28 years. The bride and groom were dressed in what would be considered traditional apparel by US standards. There was music, preaching, exchange of vows, a ring ceremony and the groom was told he could kiss the bride. Even the weather corresponded with our wedding in August many years ago with the heat. Of course our ceremony was not done in a mixture of Portuguese and Makhuwa, nor did we have the pastors, wedding party and ourselves dance down the aisle. We are slowly learning that the people here seem to have a song for about any situation and love to break out in singing. There were various groups represented at the wedding including a couple different churches and the families of the bride and groom. The ladies of each of the groups wore clothing made from the same fabric and when it came time to give gifts and greet the newly weds each group formed a line and sang and danced to the front where the couple was, greet them, leave a gift and then dance back. Lisa and I did go down front to leave a gift and greet the couple but we left the dancing to them.
The reception had some similarities to our’s as well. There were tables set up for only a certain number of guests to sit and a head table for the wedding party. The wedding cake was cut by the newlyweds then after they shared a piece it was served to the guests. What made me feel a bit sad though was seeing young kids so excited about getting some left over rice that had been burned on the bottom. You would have thought they had won the lottery.
Although it was a tiring day we could not think of a better way to spend our anniversary. I don’t remember ever having a bigger anniversary celebration than this one. We feel like we were able to cultivate our relationship with our new church family through the extra interaction. We are beginning to put names with faces now.