All right, since I've been beggeded, I'll post

Okay, it's been forever. Well, maybe more like a touch over 2 weeks, but it's about time anyway. First things last. Scribblegirl, do I know you? I was going to try and guess who you were, but I decided I'd find out if I knew you first. For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, check last post's comments.

The final statistics for our trip to Africa. Our 48-man team handed out 36,000 packets to the kids in the public schools, mostly in Praia, Cabo Verde. We saw 78 people saved. 40 from the church at the bible institute where we stayed, and 38 students. We were there a total of 14 days, including the day we got there, and the day we left. When I left, I was quite heartbroken. I really enjoyed my time there, and it feels like home. Africa is where the Lord has called me to Missions, and I felt like... well, I can't describe it, exactly. The old saying, Home is where the heart is, well...my home is in Africa. I didn't ever feel homesick while I was there. But I am making myself homesick just writing about it, so I'll hurry up and get off this point, which is starting to drag. Did you know that if you drag a point, "." you get a line? "____" Pretty cool, huh?

This picture is of Jaqa and his 2 kids. He's not exactly photogenic. I took 5 pictures, and this was the best. On the last night that we were there, Jaqa brought 2 van loads of friends from around the Pedra Bedejo (the town we lived in) to church. We had to have two seperate services. We normally combined both the English and the Portuguese service every night. We'd either have an English or Portuguese speaker, and a translator. So we'd sing songs in English, then songs in Portuguese. But the church only sat 55ish people, so most of the time, some of the TEAM would sit or stand at the back of the chapel. Well, when we had almost 45 Cabo Verdeans come to the last service, we kind of had to split the services up. I went to both. I really liked trying to figure out what the preacher was saying and attempting to follow along. This is a picture of that last service.

I finally got my first chance to really preach at one of the high schools. It was interesting, because I had to use a translator, so I'd say a little bit, then I'd hear what I'd said spoken in Portuguese. Of course, I'd try to listen to hear words that I knew. And I'd get lost about where I was going in my preaching. But the Lord helped me, and I got a fairly good gospel message across, going from how we are sinners, and fall short of God's glory, to how God sent His Son to earth to die for us. How that He was a perfect man, and when He died on the cross, His blood covered our sins, making us presentable to God. Then when Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, after taking the keys of death from Hell, He made it possible for us to also be resurrected into God's Glory. All that we have to do to get to Heaven is to confess Jesus with our mouth, and believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the grave. You might think, what can I give the Lord for what His saving me? To be honest, you can't give Him anything. Nothing you had as a sinner would even come close to being presentable to God. Besides, the gift of eternal life is just that, a gift. It's free. God knew that we didn't have anything to give, so He gave a free gift. But since God saved our heart and soul from eternal damnation in Hell, the least we can do is offer our heart and soul to God to do with as He wills. Jesus stands at the door of our heart, knocking. Wondering if He can come in. He won't force the issue. The decision to open the door is yours. Will you open the door? All right, now that I've worked a mini sermon into my post, I'm happier. :) This picture is of me preaching basically the above sermon to a group of 40 high schoolers. Unfortunately, you can't see the teenagers. Oh well.

One of the High Schools we went to about mobbed us just to get to the literature. Here's a picture of the students around the truck. The truck is in the back of the picture. It's got a green canopy cover on it.

All the roads outside of Praia (the capital) are cobblestone. At least from what I saw. I think some are dirt, and the roads tend to be a bit rough at times. They are extending a paved road out of Praia towards Pedra Bedejo (about 40 miles away) that goes about 2 miles out of Praia. It's getting there, though.

Okay, before I left, I had no idea how to pronounce Cabo Verde (the Portuguese spelling). After going there, I've come to the conclusion that unless you want to call somebody wrong, there are 4 correct pronunciations of the Islands. One is the "European Way." Cap Vert (cap vurt). Vert is pronounced like spurt except with a v. The next is the "American Way." Cape Verde (cape ver-dee). The locals pronounce it two different ways, as far as I can tell. One is Cabo Vurd (cab-o vurd). The other is Cabo Vurde (cab-o vur-day). So there you go. Call it whatever you want. I prefer either of the Portuguese pronunciations.

Meal times were wonderful. It always good to eat. Most days when we were working at the schools, we went out to eat. From 12 PM to 2 PM, everything but the restaurants closes down, including the schools. So we'd go eat somewhere. When you go to a restaurant with 45 people, it takes a while for the meal to be prepared. 90% of the time, we had Fried Chicken, Rice, and French Fries. Good chicken, cooked the way chicken should be. Rice is a staple, and a good addition to any meal. The French Fries were so much better then they are in the States. Not nearly as salty, which is probably better. We'd just hang out and talk at lunchtime, since we had a lot of free time. I said 90% of the time we had chicken, rice and fries. The other 10% was fish and fries. For drinks, we had water, sprite, coke, or fanta (orange, pineapple, or fruit cocktail). I love Orange Fanta. In Portuguese, it's Fanta Laranja (fawn-ta la-ronj). Great stuff.

Okay, maybe I'll post more on Africa later, but I've just spent a solid hour at the computer writing about Africa, and it's making me homesick.

We had the Ice Cream Social for our Homeschool Orchestra tonight. It's like the year-end performance. We had 200+ students this year, so we split the Ice Cream Social up into two different days. Last Friday was the 3 younger classes, and tonight was the 3 upper classes. I went to both, since my two younger sisters are in the younger classes, and I'm in the upper classes. The performance was interesting. I hadn't played with the orchestra for 4 weeks, and I hadn't played my viola for 3 of those weeks. Some of the songs that we played, I'd never played all the way through with the orchestra. And I am the Principal Violist of the chamber orchestra, so I'm supposed to know all the songs and what not. Oh well, extenuating circumstances. I'm so sad. I've seen a lot of the people at orchestra every week for the last 8 or 9 months. My best friends go to orchestra, and I won't see many of them till the start of the next orchestra year. Boohoo. Waahh! I'll get over it.