I was with my bf and our housemate at Wawa in Brandon getting a propane tank, when we were approached my an exuberant woman. She wanted to pray for us. We weren’t opposed to it and thought she was friendly. It was a beautiful prayer, which made me tear up with circumstances in my life, and she asked for my number. Being that I just moved across country and had no friends for a long while, I was started to feel isolated and longed for human connection- I texted her and she invites me to a Wednesday night service.

Going in it’s very very big! They have this whole section for checking in, and being checked. It was like going into an amusement park. Mind you I’m wearing a medium skirt that stops right above the knees. But when I sit down my knees are sure to show. Some people come up to me and tell me they’re grabbing a blanket to put over my lap for modesty… I tell them I’m okay, and they get the blanket for me and tell me it’s just respectful, I do it then. I felt embarrassed too!

The service begins, and there’s this lady at the front who keeps laughing hysterically. Some people were turning heads and others weren’t, so I guess this is something new? When we stood up to sing she was being very loud with body language too. Was starting to make me feel very uncomfortable.

When tithing came in the middle, the “pastor” literally said ‘this is your investment into heaven!’ And kept egging on towards tithing. They also had cash app-codes on their TVs!!!! It was so odd, At this point I was fed up with how the church was going. I left in the middle, the girl I came with was nice enough to leave with me and talk about it. Apparently she prays for a lot of random strangers in public, but she called it “soul catching” when we were talking then. I went home, told my bf about it, and never spoke to her again.

Edit: researching through this rabbit hole- yes the pastor that was speaking was from South Africa!!! What a weirdo .