Jet setter's wedding

Church Warden Jane and I were much relieved yesterday afternoon when the wedded couple turned up, presented their credentials, and paid up in advance, as required. It was very difficult, knowing so little about a couple, more from social media that from their application form. They had not even shared with us their disappointment that the wedding arranger they thought they'd engaged would not return their calls any more than return ours. As a result there were no flowers for the ceremony in church. Anyway, the groom is a banker and the bride is a conservationist working with an NGO in the upper reaches of the Niger river by the Camerounian border. As this region is home to several global conservation NGOs, the reason for holding a big wedding celebration here is understandable.

Both families are from the elite of Nigerian society, and guests attending the ceremony came from two different Gulf states, the USA, UK and Switzerland, though I guess two thirds of them flew in from Lagos for the occasion. There were 120 people in church., and we ran on 'African time' as Jane called in. The groom was 15 minutes late and the bride 45 minutes late, and I started the celebration a hour behind schedule. At least it gave me a chance to rehearse the congregation in singing Amen and an Alleluia response to the Psalm. This went down well, people sang with great enthusiasm and apparently, we heard today, continued to sing them at the reception. I wasn't invited, but it gave me great pleasure, knowing that the songs of worship learned spilled over into the wedding feast. For a brief moment, life and worship have continuity between them.

We were twenty people and three dogs in church for today's Sung Eucharist, laf and half choir and congregation. Choirmaster Peter is off sick with pneumonia, but Geoff his predecessor took charge and all went as normal. Clare had a lunch rendezvous with former colleague at Le Contretemps in the port. I ate alone and got ready for the trip to Aiglon Chapel in Villars for an Evening Eucharist. Jane met me from the train at Aigle again. Pain from my troubled rear end was worse than usual so I had to stand for the train journey and wedge myself awkwardly into the car seat for the ascent to avoid pressure. Fortunately by over use of medication it calmed down sufficiently for me to take the service, for just five people plus Jane. A dozen regulars are away on this final weekend before term starts at Aiglon College. 

The elderly couple to whom I took Communion at home, just after New Year were among the few. He broke his leg back then, and still walks with a stick, his recovery being slow, but he's walking, that's what counts. For reasons unknown, the lady accompanying hymns on the piano repeated the first hymn at the end. It wasn't a liturgical catastrophe, however, as it was 'Soldiers of Christ arise' a great Charles Wesley hymn summarising the message of the Ephesians 6:10-20 which I'd preached about.

Today has been quite a struggle to functional normally against the background of discomfort from inflammation. Tomorrow, I'm chasing a medical appointment.