It was a dark, wet morning. It was really storming. I barely got out of bed (I had to get up at 4:00am!), but I did it somehow and headed to the bus. We drove to Capetown to St. George’s Cathedral to attend a Eucharist service with Tutu acting as the priest. Now, I have never attended church services other than Baptist ones, so I was a little nervous. I was not sure if I would be going against any of my own beliefs. But, God is God. There are people who are Baptist that would do me wrong… so, why miss praising God with a man who has risked his life to do God’s work?
I had joked earlier, “Man… for getting up this early, Desmond Tutu better be giving me communion or something!” I was really tired. I would have hated to wake up so early and just see Tutu for five minutes. I was like, “He better shake my hand or something!” Hahaha… Yall know how I am! It was great though.. like… DESMOND TUTU SERIOUSLY GAVE ME COMMUNION! He gave us all communion.
He led us all in prayers and read passages from the Bible. The service was very different from the ones I am used to having at church. I’m used to shouting, singing, clapping, and words seemingly coming from the heart. This service was more scripted. Like, we had to read from this prayer book. Tutu would say his part, and then we would respond. It was a little too mechanical for my taste, but I still felt God’s love. I hate to belittle Tutu, because he’s done so much in his life, but HE’S SO CUTE! He’s really short, old, and hilarious. He was making jokes the entire service. He also gave us all communion. Communion was different than what I’m used to. A lady and a man helped Tutu give out communion. I think he put the wafer in my hand, I put it in my mouth, then stepped to the left to a woman who had a cup of REAL WINE (like.. I got a little tipsy afterwards… you know I’m a light weight.) and I sipped from it. I also had to cross my heart with my hands like the Catholics do. I was a little apprehensive of drinking out of the same cup as strangers, including the ones on my trip (some of them are seriously nasty), but I just thought “God will protect me,” and I drank from the cup anyway.
After the service, we all got a picture with him and a few people sought out their own private pictures and time with Tutu. At the end of the trip, I was so happy that I had gone. When we returned to campus, that racist chick from the “drama” post came up to me and was like, “We need to talk.” I saw it coming from A MILE AWAY.. Literally.. a mile. She was staring at me and my friends the entire service, and she was eyeing me when I got on the bus. I saw her waiting around outside before I got off the bus, and I just knew she was waiting for me. I had expected it. People like her seize opportunities like that; if they’re unhappy, they want you to be too. "Misery loves company" as they say. Anyway, I completely ignored her (and I still am to this day). I was just like, “You should have wanted to talk to me BEFORE you started talking about me to other people. Simple. I don’t care what you said, you shouldn’t have said anything at all.” The sad thing is, I had GREAT day. Like, seriously. It was so cool; I feel like I learned something from Tutu. Like, although you know there is so much wrong and hate going on in the world, you can still laugh and enjoy yourself without feeling guilty at the end of the day about loving your life, yourself, and God. His laughter made me feel so good. Plus, I finally got to go to church. I needed it. But, she was too busy looking at us and probably thinking about how she was going to “confront” me to really take in the experience. And, that is a shame.
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