Sunday, July 16 - On my own

Despite the best intentions of the Baptist leaders who invited me here, and of the Catholic priests who are responsible for my room and board, I ended up on my own for much of the day today. Matthieu was in another village for the funeral of a Christian woman, and there is no cell phone service there. He had asked Moïse to pick me up and take me to church this morning, but I was in the dark about this arrangement. I texted Matthieu on Saturday evening to ask what was planned for Sunday morning but received no response since he had no cell service where he was. No one showed up at the Catholic center by 8:45 this morning, so I walked to the local church and participated in the service there.

After the service, I came back to my room and waited for lunchtime to roll around. At 12:30—the time we normally eat the midday meal during the week—I went to the dining room, but no one was there. I waited around for a while, but no one showed up. Thinking that the schedule might be different on Sunday, I went back to my room for a while and returned to the dining room around 1:15. Still no one, but I did notice that there were leftovers on the side table that looked like they were intended for our midday meal. I sat and read a book for a while, but when no one had turned up by 2:05, I decided I’d be skipping lunch today. You see, as a guest here, I’ve not been expected—or even allowed—to do a number of things. Among these is the heating up of leftover food. I could have heated up some of the food that was on the side table and eaten it, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, and I didn’t know the “house rules” for heating up leftovers. So I skipped lunch. Well, not completely. I have some snacks in my room, and I dipped into them to hold me over.

The situation began to become clearer around 5:00, when I got a phone call from Matthieu. He had just returned from the funeral and finally got my text message from last evening. It was in that phone call that I learned that Moïse was supposed to have picked me up and taken me with him to church this morning. However, Matthieu also informed me that one of Moïse’s neighbors, an elderly woman, had just died last evening, and that must be the reason that he didn’t come to get me.

A couple of hours later, at the evening meal, I learned that my hosts, the priests, had been invited out to a parishioner’s home for lunch, so I was on my own. That was why no one had shown up to join me. In both cases I was in the dark about what the others had planned for me. It felt rather strange to be so alone here, but I used some of the time in the afternoon to pray and reflect on the sermon I had heard. Plus, I got a lot of rest, so I should be ready to go tomorrow morning.