Sunday 23rd November

Sunday morning was the big day for the Diocese of Freetown, it was the ordination service. 10 candidates were due to be ordained deacon and 8 priests. After attending the rehearsal the night before – which took two hours – we were well aware that it was going to be a long service! How right we were in total we were in the church five hours fifty three minutes. There must have been over 2500 people for the service at St Georges Cathedral and in this culture the people aren’t happy if they can’t come up to the alter to receive so communion last an hour, 9 communion hymns were sung and 3 psalms chanted. It was officially the longest service either of us had ever attended!!!!! After church we had a quick chat with Canon Coker and his wife Lucy about the trip to Bonthe, and then the Bishop said we were to tell Pa to follow his car, he was taking us to a secret location for ‘something’. With the Bishop being a Grand Commander of the Order of Rokel (a Mason to those of us on the outside) we could have been going anywhere, fortunately it was to a tiny little pub (if we told you where we would have to kill you) to meet with some of his friends for a beer or two. It is the type of secret location we both rather happy with. Finally we had an appointment at 7 to meet with Canon Coker we thought to talk about the trip further but how wrong we were, his curate had just been ordained and it was to attend her party. More beer, Good times! We finally departed at 11pm with a beer in hand to get some good rest.