One we missed out from 14th September

Sunday 14th September
St Philips Church, Patton Street
We were collected by Mr Mansaray at 9.15am sharp so we could get to Church on time for a 10 o’clock service. We made it by quarter too and were guided straight round the back of church by one of the very smartly dressed sides men. We met Canon Julius Coker at the door and his three curates (yes you read it right three curates) and he then escorted us straight through to the front pew of Church. Our first experience of an African service! It was a lovely traditional Holy Communion service with lots of singing and praising, it lasted just over two and a half hours. The service was dedicated to the elderly of the parish and those who have died within the last year. It really was a joy and a privilege to join them. The final part of the service was notices and as a tradition here in Sierra Leone we had to stand up and introduce ourselves and what we were hoping to achieve during our visit. Good times.
Parish Lunch
Straight after the service we were taken through to the newly built parish hall and sat at the only table in the room, with all the other seats facing us. They fed us a wonderful feast, with beer I might add (take note England). We then were welcomed by Canon Coker again and shown the school upstairs. We will be back when it is full of students!
Lumley Beach
Loz made a fantastic suggestion that when we got back to YMCA that we would change and go straight off to the beach. When we arrived we were amazed, a glorious beach was in front of us and we couldn’t wait to get in the sea. The waves were strong and we came out like we had done 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. Honestly this really is hard work!
Finally the Evening
We had decided that we would eat in, so on the way to the beach we had stopped for some stocks. We had cooked ham and beef salami with bread avocado and tomato. We then dealt out the cards. Uno of course, after a while Duncan went off to get some beer and we decided to fix him up (he will only learn this when he reads the blog!!), since Mark was sat next to him we put all the +4 and +2 cards in Marks hand. The game finished with Duncan having 23 cards, he did well really only having 164 points. Sucker!!!!! We then moved on to try Whisk, unfortunately we didn’t have real cards so used the Uno ones. Mark couldn’t handle that the picture cards were all different and that 1 was the ace. Amazingly through, with huge luck he kept throwing cards away only to discover that he had laid a good card and won most of the time.