A Religious Experience

I love talking to my interviewers about religion and religious practices -- partly because I get to see the surprise on their faces when I explain how different (generally and personally speaking) such practices are in America. They just can't believe, for example, that I'd only spend 1 hour a week in church (I didn't have the heart to tell them that I don't always even go). And I told them yesterday that I'm part of an interfaith marriage -- they looked at me and said, "well, who will change?" I replied, "nobody - we will both keep our practices", and continued on with the conversation.... only to find that about 5 minutes later they said again, "Sarah, so you will change and become a Hindu?"

I'm lucky (or cursed) that half of my boys are 7th Day Adventists - which means they attend church on Saturdays and can work on Sundays! (Cursed in that it means no rest for the weary -- i.e. me -- on Sundays.) Anyways, they showed up and I inquired how church had gone yesterday. They of course sung praises. (yeah, poor choice of words by me there, sorry.) And they proceeded to invite Crystal and I to join them next weekend. After hemming and hawing (sort of) over the prospect of 4 hours of Swahili preaching, I asked, "well, do you all sing a lot in church??" (Side Note: I adore gospel music sung by black people. I find it so incredibly moving. I don't know why the African / African-American genes seem to include one for amazing pitch and rhythm, but they do. My mom will remember our 1997 trip down to NC for me to visit Duke University when we tried our hardest to hunt down a black Baptist church to attend on Sunday! So therein lies the underlying motive for my question to the boys.)

They of course responded that they sing frequently at church... and then proceeded to ask if we wanted to hear a song! Crystal and I were like, "uh, YEAH. For real? YEAH we do." So they proceed to huddle up and ASSIGN PARTS. Like bass, tenor, soprano, whatever. And Okoth (singing bass, for your information) starts snapping his fingers, and the 7 of them break out into this gorgeous song. US collegiate a capella -- eat your hearts out. These guys would've taken you down in about three bars. I don't even know what they SAID, but it was amazing. It's probably one of the most moving Sunday mornings I have had in awhile -- standing out by a beautiful field, under the bright sun, listening to these Kenyans just belt it out. (Side Note: Alok would probably remind me here that I often miss Sunday morning altogether, so that's not entirely a strong statement. Oh well!)