The Wedding Feast

Wow. The past week has been totally crazy!
Last Thursday 15 people arrived from Germany for the wedding of Bettina and Pastor Modibale, and their arrival marked the beginning of the festivities. Every day we are over at Bettina's place cooking meals to feed everyone, usually about 30 for lunch and 40 or more for dinner. That makes doing dishes quite exciting when there is no running water! But it is really fun, and I love serving everyone.
In the Bible they talk about Jesus going to a seven day wedding feast. I never really realized that there actually are such things until now. On Tuesday Beate, Bettina's sister, arrived from Boston. On Wednesday we had a big meat roast for the family of Pastor Modibale and all of the visitors and close friends of Bettina. It was really fun, roasting freshly killed goat over a fire...
Then on Thursday there was a Dote (I don't know how to spell that...) the Bride-price ceremony. That was a very traditional ceremony, with the leaders of Pastor Modibale's family presenting gifts to the family and church of Bettina. Beate and I accepted the gifts... we will have to see what customs says when I bring home a tribal hand dagger, normally carried by the chiefs of the tribe and curved specifically for cutting necks... But the ceremony was really amazing.
On Friday the civil wedding took place. I thought it would just be the couple going to see a government official and signing papers. Nope. Their signing of the legal documents was preceded by a ceremony lasting about two hours with at least 300 people watching. Wow.
And Saturday was the wedding. Thousands of people were there. Literally. It was amazing. There was a clearing where they set up bamboo poles and covered them with a canopy of palm leaves to be a covering from the sun. As we drove over there from Bettina's house we had all the bridesmaids in the back of the pickup and Bettina sitting inside. Everyone we passed on the street cheered and cheered for her. We passed all these people on the street carrying their chairs on their heads (that is what you do here, if you are not a VIP there will be no chair for you so you must bring your own)
We stopped a ways away from the alter, just on the edge of the crowd. Then we all piled out and the 8 dancing girls lead the way, followed by Anna and I throwing paper confetti into the air in front of Bettina. Michelle and Julia followed her, holding her veil and dress out of the mud.
Coming from the other direction was the groom. He was surrounded by people of his tribe, the Zande. They were dancing and singing as well.
Then the two groups merged, and Pastor Modibale fell in behind Anna and I, next to Bettina. Then we walked together through the crowed of people to the alter.
The ceremony lasted hours. I don't know how many, maybe four or five, I am not sure. There were prayers, and introduction of all the important people there (lots), and then many choirs sang from all over northern Congo. There was about an hour of preaching, a few more choirs, and then the vows. They were in Lingala, so I didn't fully understand them all, but it was really neat to stand up there. After the vows there was so much cheering my ears rang. Then the couple exchanged rings and sat down. After that different people and tribes came forward to present their gifts to the couple. Then more choirs sang (among them the choir from the music seminar, so I had to sing and dance as well :) ) Then the Germans sang a song and Maaike, Joanna, Sarah and I played a flute and violin quartet.
Then we all loaded up into the pickup again for a parade around Isiro. The parade was led by 50 motorbikes, followed by ten cars (our pickup with the bride and groom of course) and then more motorbikes and bicycles. Everyone was honking their horns and all the people came out of their homes and shops to wave and cheer. (Although there weren't too many people considering most of the town was at the wedding)
Then we returned for the celebration. There was sooo much food. All this wonderful meat and rive and mpondu and beans, as well as songo chips (almost like potato chips) and a special treat... soda. My first soda in 5 weeks, it was strange. We had it only because one of the tribes came with gifts of a few cases of soda.
Then there was tribal dancing led by the Zande people. They had tribal drums and a wooden sort of marimba thing. They also had a Talking Drum, a huge drum that is used to pass messages to other tribes through the jungle.
As I walked by taking a picture Mannu, one of Bettina's sons, pulled me into the circle and made me dance. It was REALLY fin! All the older woman tried to teach me the dance, I laughed so hard. It was really amazing. To me the day was a little picture of what Heaven will look like, with all people of different languages and colors singing and dancing together, praising our great God.