Solomon's Wedding

No, this post is not about King Solomon's wedding, but about our former student named Solomon.  We had the privilege of attending his wedding in Amuria this past Saturday.  It was to be a day of surprises.  The wedding invitation said it began at 9:00am, but our friend who was going to guide us there said we should not leave Soroti until 9:00 thus getting there at around 10:30.  Well, it turned out that we were not only driving our friend, but also the groom's brother and all the suits and gowns for the wedding party, and three other of our students.  We then also stopped in Amuria town to pick up our friends the Bishop and the pastor of Amuria town church.  It was a full vehicle.  We didn't get there until 11:00 and only about ten people were around and things were not yet fully set up.  Here is a photo of Solomon.  No, he doesn't have two brides!  Another surprise was that it was a double wedding.  Two couples were getting married at once, (which is a great way to share the expenses).  

When we arrived we found out that the preaching pastor had just called saying he could not make it, though the officiating pastor made it.  Although there were other pastors there with me, they asked me to give the message.  It's the first time I've ever preached without any notes (and without preparation).  I should have tried this years ago because it turned out to not really be that difficult.  The concepts I wanted to share, and the passages we read, were already in my heart and familiar so it was easy to preach.  I did get about one hour in the midst of waiting for the wedding to start to look over some passages and think about what to say.  The wedding did not start until 1:00, but it was a packed place by that time so there were many people outside the tent as well looking in.  Below you see local flowers and toilet paper for decoration.  Pretty inexpensive and still beautiful.

The music was excellent, especially this local band:

It is always really funny in Ugandan weddings to see how the best men take care of the grooms (and the bridesmaids for the brides).  They are constantly wiping sweat (though I didn't see any actual sweat) from the groom's faces.  It is so awkward and funny to watch.  Here is a video:

I preached about how God uses marriage to not only make us happy, but to make us holy.  I talked about how God can use trials in marriage, and the conflicts, to make us more like Jesus and shape our character.  And then I talked about serving one another in marriage following the example of Jesus serving us.  It was fun and an honor to preach at the wedding of our student Solomon.  Here is a photo of me and other pastors present.

And me preaching.

And the pastors praying for the couples.



Lifting the veils was another interesting part of the ceremony and quite funny.  The pastor mentioned how in the Bible there was a certain wedding in which the character (Jacob) married the wrong woman.  So the pastor said, "now open the veil and make sure this is really the woman you want to marry."

The last surprise of the day was that when we finally got home a neighbor was outside of our gate with a tiny hedgehog to give us.  He had heard that we keep them.   Unfortunately it died soon after.  It was probably too young or sick.  More pictures of it in another post, but here are some more interesting photos from the wedding.

Notice the unfortunate kid caught nose picking in an otherwise great photo below :)

These two guys (the one in the middle and the one with the green shirt) were also our students at PTC and were helping out with the wedding.  It was great to see them again too!