Homesick For Some Culture

Yesterday, I went to a traditional African celebration - a bembe. Of course, I love it every time. But it made me homesick for life in South Florida. It made me about me think about my little church in Ft. Lauderdale and all the people there. When I was growing up down there, I didn't appreciate the cultural mix of Ft. Lauderdale - until I moved away for college and saw that life in South Florida was another world in and of itself. And my church down there (even though it was a traditional Pentecostal Church of God in Christ) was as diverse as they come. Our minister, Bishop Ellis, was a South Carolinian with an accent that made everyone assume he was an "Islander." He wasn't - he was a country boy from Sout' Cahlina (as he said). He couldn't preach for five minutes without having someone "warm up the drums and piano 'cause he was 'bout to tell it today." The assistant pastor, an East Indian from Trinidad, sure could jump up and down and shout with the best of 'em. When he was really fired up, he'd run around the church and preach right in your face. "Nuk tek a country boy like me fi tell yuh 'ow fi praise God, Eh EH!" he'd shout. Oftentimes, he'd grab someone's hand and make them run with him. To the older people in the church who lived here long before the influx of Caribbean migrants, his accent sometimes became indecipherable. After church, they'd whisper to each other "Did y'all understand Minister Madho today?" And the answer "I sho couldn't, but he sure gave us some good church today! Boy, that man know he can run!"
A man named George, a white man who was in a wheelchair, sat in the front row every Sunday. He had cerebral palsy, but he shouted "Amen!" the loudest every Sunday and would move his wheelchair back and forth to "dance." He had salt and pepper hair. No one knew how old he was. He didn't look young or old. The little kids liked for him to put them in his lap and zoom around the parking lot after church with them, before the bus from the group home where he lived came to pick him up.
When the church had dinners, everyone always looked forward to the Trinadadian curry and roti dishes, Jamaican jerk  and brown stew chicken, Bahamian conch dishes and Southern fried chicken and collard greens. And George would bring dishes from around the world - but he seemed to love the Mediterranean. The West Indians in the congregation teased Bishop Ellis about his accent. "Sure you're not (insert Carribean island/South American country here)?" they'd tease, then nudge each other. "He say he not (insert Caribbean island/South American country here), but I know better." Or they'd pay him the highest compliment of all (to them) - Bwoy, dem Yankee dem really know ow fi have church.In spite of the varying cultures there, on Sunday, cultural differences didn't matter. We'd still wash each other's feet and anoint everyone's forehead with oil (literally). No one separated themselves off by culture/nationality. Of course, birds of a feather flock together. Yet and still, we all talked with each other to find out more about them and ourselves. And that makes me homesick. Hopefully, I'll return down there one day soon.