On the bus with Maradona

The week has past at remarkable speed! Our field director came, Lorance Johnson,
so we had lots of meetings, but we accomplished much. The Badés who are in Benin
but farther north with AFM came down here to make less travel time for Lorance. It was real wonderful to fellowship
with everyone! Also the mission president, the African coordinator for Gospel outreach, Gordon Grey, and our pastor
were here on the weekend, with all the evangelists employed by GO. I have never seen the church so full of people,
it was really nice.
The weekend was also special because of a baptism and a marriage blessing. There were seven people
from village south of Nati, near Djougou, about 75km. They were mostly young people between the ages I'd say about
15 and 20, there was one older lady who had a small baby (no the baby was not baptised, just to help show her age).
Around the world, baptism is always somewhat interesting to see. It is a joyous occasion but it also an unusual one. There
is not much in our realm of experience that is like baptism. Thus people are kind of nervous and you have to
ask whether or not they are happy. Going through the list of doctrines is also a little nerve wracking, what if I do the wrong thing.
But all in all it seemed despite nervousness the candidates were glad to join the Adventist church and proclaim their
allegience to God.
The marriage blessing happened on Sunday morning. Two couples were blessed. In Benin couples do a civil marriage
and once this happens then the Pastor will bless their marriage. I suppose Pastor's are not recognized to do marriages themselves. One couple was from the Nati church, Basile and Lucrece. Basile is our church's papa or old man, he's the oldest
male member (even though he's only 44) and thus is kind of like the unofficial pastor or elder, though he is not ordained
as an elder yet. As is the case in Benin, many couples simply start living together, have children, and many never get officially
married, mostly because the thought of having such a permanent relationship is scary for them. What if the marriage should
crumble if you are officially married you will have to through an official divorce, yikes! And since all the couples of our church
became Adventist after marriage, they started the same. But Basile knew that it was about time to make it all official,
to show his kids at least, of which there are five, a lasting example. We are all very proud of him. The other couple was fromanother village, I had never met them before and do not much about them.
I then also had the privilege to accompany Lorance back to Cotonou. We had a nice trip and it was really superb, because the movies were acceptable! One was on Diego Maradona, a very famous soccer player of whom I had never heard of.
It was just another sad reminder of the waste of a life not commited to God. Maradon was an amazing player, but as fame
became his, he turned to cocaine alot and was dismissed from playing numerous times. He could have an amazing career
if he had not fallen to this temptation. What a lesson for us, one fame does not make happiness, and drugs destroy.
What an amazing privilege it is to know ahead of time the dangers!