LONG PRAYERS NOT APPRECIATED
I was raised by American missionaries in northern Haiti and this incident happened at a nearby Baptist mission.

I was attending a missionary kid activity that involved Haitian Bible school students. The Bible school cafeteria meals were all Haitian food; rice and black beans, boiled plantain bananas, red sauce, but no meat.

It would go right through us since we were used to eating meat, and we felt "starved" by the next meal.

One Bible student, to impress the white visitors, went off on a lengthy, flowery prayer before the meal that tortured us for about five minutes.

After the prayer, the Haitian Bible school students boo'd, threw bits of vegetable at him, and never let him "say grace" again. Furthermore, they gave him a new nickname..a derogatory term for "long winded."

The next person to pray before a meal said a two-sentence prayer, and was cheered.