Sunday Morning in Lagos

I can play “Connect the Dots” with the itchy red bumps that bloom on my skin. No amount of insect repellent would ward off the pesky mosquitoes because they could sense that I was foreign, and thus, new territory to explore.  My skin softened by American soil was no match for their sting, so I should have known that wearing a skirt to church on Sunday was a bad idea. 

....

Sunday morning in Lagos looks like this:

Masses of people file out of their neighborhoods en route to their various places of worship. They fill the clusters of churches on every street corner. There are many different denominations: Cherubim and Seraphim,  Celestials clothed in white gowns and white hats resembling cropped chef hats, all walking barefoot to the church across the street. 

Other churchgoers are dressed in their Sunday best, climbing out of filled-to-capacity mini-buses in floor length dresses. The most daring ones wear high heels. The expressway is crowded, packed with okadas, buses, bold pedestrians, keke napeps, and every other form of locomotion. 

A man is casually walking his goat as it gallops behind him on the pavement because walking your goat is apparently exempt from this day of rest.  The association of handkerchief hawkers will expect to make a large profit on this particular day when people will need to wipe the beads of sweat dripping from their foreheads that they anticipate will come from the intensity of their praise and their demon-slaying. I pluck a white cloth from the stack, which I later discover is not the best choice because my make-up inevitably gives way to the sweat, staining the pristine cloth with splotches of brown.

....

Our church is in Ikeja, about an hour away. We drive past statues, towering office buildings, electric billboards, and shopping malls. 

Covenant Light Church is modern. A young pastor stands at the pulpit with no collar. He is wearing a mustard yellow blazer and skinny black jeans as he preaches from the notes on his IPhone, slinging jokes and stories about his kids. The choir uniform is denim and they sing contemporary worship songs--everything from Hillsong to Nathaniel Bassey. 

CLC, with its colorful lights, intricate logo, modern music, shiny new instruments, and plush chairs, is starkly different from the churches we passed in our Uber.  While some did have dazzling architecture and blaring speakers,  others were built with corrugated iron roofs that sometimes leaked when it rained,  scratchy cement floors, a single opening at the entrance, the name printed in fading letters on the front, and every corner filled with white plastic chairs. Their only instruments: the collective sound of their voices, hands, and feet as they shook off their invisible chains.

....

 Fortunately, God is not confined to a square space.  Otherwise, one could argue that his presence dwelt more in a marble building shielded behind sprawling gates, then in a rickety shack.  

He dwells more in the hearts of his followers than in any man-made construct. 

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. - 2 Corinthians 4:7