Attending Church - Ian

Today, I woke up prepared to attend church in Falmouth. The class was split into groups of at least three, and sent off to several different churches. My group, which included Paloma and Megan, attended the William Knibb church. William Knibb was a preacher in Jamaica that was known for being a major contribution to the abolition of slavery in Jamaica. At first, I felt a bit intimidated, since the sermon had already commenced and we were sent to the second row. All of the women and girls wore dresses, and the men wore a long sleeve dress shirt, a tie, and slacks. Boys my age wore a short-sleeved dress shirt that were tucked into their dress pants, held up by belts. I felt slightly underdressed in an untucked polo and casual grey pant, but that feeling eventually faded as I listened to the preacher. He yelled his sermon throughout the fifty minutes we were there, strong and powerful he referenced passages from the bible. He once referenced the tale of a woman that went to Jesus's deciples pleading for help and claiming that her daughter had been possessed by a demon. The deciples ignored her, until Jesus obliged them to help her, and made a point that the real followers of Christ would do good onto others. Rarely would the preacher catch his breath. He would yell and writhe around while he spoke in a rhythmic tone, almost as if he was yelling lyrics to a song. It was a very powerful and overwhelming experience, so powerful in fact, that the people in the rows behind us would periodically cry out in agreement to what the preacher was saying. He would catch his breath while wiping his forehead with a white handkerchief. After the fifty minutes of sermon had passed, we left, quickly glancing at the stone grave of William Knibb himself, placed conveniently on he lawn next to the right-most wall of the church.        

By: Ian Williams