Payton’s Blog

Ghanian wedding and church

Dr. Ablorh’s brother, Ebanazeh got married on Saturday and I was lucky enough to be invited to experience this event.  I, however, was very unprepared for a wedding!  I did not bring any nice clothes or shoes, just attire for working; and I forgot my makeup bag of all things!  But I went anyway, sans makeup and in flip-flops :( 

 So I did the best I could to get ready then met Maakporye in front of the church where we boarded a bus full of Manna Mission Church members and headed the 30min drive to Tema for the ceremony.  It was a lively drive; most of the people on the bus were around my age so it was fun to socialize with some peers, and the streets we drove on were busy with shops and vendors so there was plenty to look at.  Near the end of the drive we drove along the ocean; the water was very rough with tall choppy waves and the beach was pretty dirty.  Maakporye told me that there were nicer areas and places to swim where the resorts were a few miles away.

 When we arrived at the wedding it was aroung 1:30, which was when it was scheduled to start, but we were some of the first there.  The ceremony didn’t actually start until almost 2:30, I was informed that this is common practice in Ghana, and have noticed that everyone is always late!  So, I thought Catholic weddings were long but this was the longest wedding ever!  A total of 2 1/2 hours!  It was full of singing, dancing, a sermon, 2 offerings (1 for the chruch, 1 for the couple), traditional Christian vows, and a really beautiful blessing at the end.  I will just give you the highlights.  So there was a lot a singing before the bride even entered, which was different.  Then when the wedding party came down the isle the brides family followed her, there were about 15-20 family members after the bride.  The weirdest, and most annoying, part of the wedding was that people from the crowd would just get up and walk in the middle of the ceremony, or isle, and right in front of everyone to take photos!  I couldn’t even see the exchanging of the vows or the kissing of the bride bc there was literally a crowd of people in the front of the church.  Apparently this is the norm, but I found it very distracting and I couldn’t see a thing.  Another unique thing was the presence of at least 10 pastors.  There were a few from the church where the ceremony was held, about 7 from Manna and Manna’s other locations around Ghana, and a few from the couple’s church in London.   But only one did the ceremony, and other than being introduced individually, the others did nothing but sit on the stage.  At the end the couple kneeled and all of the pastors huddled around them and prayed to bless them and their marriage; I thought this was really cool and powerful and it was a really great moment.   The bride and ceremony were beautiful but after over 3hrs in the church I was ready to go to the reception.

The reception was at a nearby Rotary Club, I didn’t know they were international but obviously they are.  So we sat at a table with one of the pastors from Manna and his wife.  It took forever to get food bc they went table by table to go through the line but we finally got to eat around 7.  It was traditional Ghanian dishes — 2 kinds of rice with spicy sauce, chicken legs, fish (with the skin and bones), noodles (kind of like thai noodles) and vegetable salad.  There was soda in little cans to drink; it is interesting that there is nothing diet here yet not many people are fat, no diet pop or sugar free anything.  Anyway as soon as we sat down to eat the bus arrived so we had to eat quickly and leave.  I was kind of bummed bc I didn’t get to see any dancing or have any cake :(  but all of the people I knew were on the bus so it wasn’t that big of deal.

The next day was church.  The Manna Mission Church is directly across from the hospital, which is probably 300 yards down a dirt road from the Mission house where I am staying.  As soon as I exited the house, I could hear the music from the church!  The church is still being finished, but basically it is a building made of cinder blocks with a 2 tiered roof that is open to the outside between the tiers.  There are plastic chairs set in rows for the congregation and an area for the band at the front left.  The servcice was like any Baptist church service but with more powerful singing and praise than I have ever experienced.  It is really cool how everyone sings at the top of their lungs and gets so excited, it was very loud but so great.  After a few songs, about half in Ga and half in English, there was a sermon by Rev. Dr. Ablorh then more singing, and an offering.  Maakporye had mentioned that Dr. Ablorh usually introduces visiting students and missionaries to the congregation but he never did, so I thought that I had gotten out of it but instead another pastor called me up at the end.  It wasn’t too bad, I just said my name and what it is that I am doing here and took my seat.  Then there was Sunday school, which is actually like school, complete with a test at the end of the year!  It was just like my old Sunday school, with a memory verse and lesson, but all ages were mixed rather than seperating by age.  After Sunday school there is another service but I went with the girls from the office to help set up for the post-wedding brunch.

 We arrived at Dr. Ablorh’s house to set up and got everything ready before all of the guests arrived.  His home was extremely nice, but the party was in the lush backyard.  There were a few huge palm trees in the middle that gave lots of shade and a canopy with some vines growing all over it that gave more shade.  It was a beautiful sunny day, just warm enough with a great breeze.  There was more Ghanian food — rice, chicken, fish, noodles, full-sugar soda.  I really had a lot of fun at the brunch; it was not rushed like the reception.  I got to play with some kids, who were a little scared of the ‘Okiere’ (white person) at first, but then were a blast to play with!  I also got to talk to a few interesting people, a man from London (that is where the couple live) who spent some time in the states, and Maakporye’s pastor who had lots of good advice for us.  The thing that made this different than an American wedding brunch (other than the clothes and the fact that there was only 1 American there) was at the end the extended family of the bride and groom gathered in a circle and introduced themselves and just talked for about an hour.  I don’t really know what they were saying bc it was mostly in Ga but it sounded pretty intense at time, but I think it was all good things.  Anyway it was a pretty cool tradition that really got around all the small talk that dominates the intra-family conversations in the states. 

In the end, religious ceremonies are just similar enough to be familiar, but at the same time are so different.  Maybe I will take some of these practices back with me, but regardless I will always remember them.