Memphis Jan 1

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Today we get up early and head back to Memphis. Since it is the first and know very little will be open I had read about a very lively Church service to go to in Memphis. The service starts at 11:30 and since it is a 3.5 hour drive we need to get up fairly early. We get to Church on time, I had imagined a huge church with a huge congregation but this was nothing like that. We arrived at around 11:20 and went in to only about 20 people in the congregation. Shortly after 11:30 a guy came out to play the piano and open the service, and I immediately knew this was going to be like nothing we had ever been to before. Imagine every stereotype black congregation in the south, and we were there! Wow, this guy playing the piano was fantastic. He had people getting up and out of the pews, hallelujah, Amen, clapping, and moving around. I think I clapped more in the first 2 opening hymns than I have in the last 20 years of church services I have been to. But, we knew we were in trouble when there were no hymn books in the pews, pretty sure we would have never heard any of these gospel hymns and we were right. As the service went along more and more people kept coming in, at the end there were probably 100 in the congregation, about 10 of us white. The locals still come to Church in their Sunday best, some in hats and gloves. Today there was no choir, and the service was cut short because of this and the fact that the Bishop was tired. He had a service last night from 10-12PM, bed at 2, Sunday school this morning, and then this service at 11:30. A couple of women in the congregation got up to sing, they brought the house down. Funniest part of the service was just before the offering the Bishop asked someone to wake up the woman wearing the hat in the front row because it was time for the offering. So, with the no choir, a tired Bishop a short service was 2 hours and 40 minutes!!!! Yep, Andre was a very happy man. That is no Sunday school, just the service! I really did enjoy it, it is interesting to see the differences in worship traditions, everyone gets up here and takes their own offering up, very strange that some of the envelopes were opened right there at the front of the Church. We also had communion right at the end of the service, again everyone went up and were served at the front by the deacons, and with real wine! I kind of thought we may be asked to buy a CD, shirt, poster, or give something, but they had nothing for sale, they just want to share LOVE. Andre and I have tried to discuss the message from our nearly 3 hour service, but we`re still not exactly sure what that was. We came away both smiling, feeling good, and tapping our toes, though a little hungry.

 

So next stop is to our hotel and find some food. Tonight we were booked near the airport because we fly out tomorrow. When we arrive at the hotel the shuttle driver is very chatty with us, asks us where we have been, what we like to eat etc, and tells us he will take us to the best BBQ place in town. We get checked in, look up where the BBQ place is, and decide we will go there on our own. The shuttle driver tells us he grew up in this area, it is not the safest, but he also tells us we are cool because of the service we just came from, not sure what that means...Anyway we make it to the restaurant, it definitely is not the nicest part of town, but it is day time, worst part is it is closed because of the holiday. By now we are really hungry, have forgotten about how lucky we are and how good we felt when we left Church earlier, and just need some food. We decide to head down to Beale street downtown as something is sure to be open there. We go into the first restaurant on the corner and have what has been the best ribs so far. I don't think it is simply we were so hungry they really were amazing. After lunch wander around some more, take a drive to the small Victorian part of the city, then cross the Mississippi River into Arkansas just to say we have been there. Tomorrow we may cross to Mississippi, we'll see how the day goes. Back to our hotel, we are beat, won't need supper tonight. We're just finished watching the movie The Whistle-blower, and will call it a night very soon. No real plans for tomorrow, may try to go to the BBQ place we missed out on today, and maybe cross into Mississippi State, we'll see how it pans out. Until tomorrow...