The evangelistic meetings in Lai finished last week Friday, and there were 5 people who stood up to be baptized! Praise the Lord! I know some of you were praying that the people would be quiet while he spoke, and it happened. Slowly over the days the people who were making the most noise left. In the end we were left with 70-80 people, and they were listening. Even though there were only 5 people that stood up to be baptized, there is a seed that was planted in the peoples' hearts and God will continue working. The hardest topic for the people to understand was the Sabbath. I guess that in their culture and language the 7th day is Sunday, and the calenders were messed up for the uneducated people some years back, so the calender shows that Sunday is the 7th day, and they have never read these verses before...well, many of them can't read, but they have never heard this before. But I do know that many were listening, and that God will continue to work in their hearts. Thank you so much for your prayers in that, and continue to pray as Matthew will be doing Bible studies down there once a week or so, so continue learning with the people down there.
I have been learning a lot while going to and from these meetings, and one thing I learned is that God is ALWAYS protecting us, and we are not indestructible! The moto rides there and back have been teaching me a lot! On the way back one night, I was riding behind a man named Piere, and he was really a bad driving! We hit every bump in the road, and I still have bruises on my butt from that ride. But once we hit the sand I was sure that we were going to fall, and he still persisted on going pretty fast even though we were weaving all over the road. On another night, Matthew and I were traveling back home when I truck was coming towards us with it's brights on. We couldn't see a thing, and I was getting all upset at how rude they could be and that we couldn't see a thing! Well, we ended up stopping cause we couldn't see, and right when the truck had passed us, there was a HUGE hole a ft in front of the moto! It was the size of the moto and it dropped down this 10ft little cliff thing. I know it wasn't super big, but we could've gotten hurt, and we were alone on this big road! God protects us in the little things, and the big, so continue to praise Him for the life that we have been blessed with today.
I have a lot to praise Him for, like the fact that there is an American family here that has taken Matthew and me in, and we spend a lot of time with them on Sabbath afternoons. Well, last night they made us pizza!!! It was the best thing that I have ever eaten!!! Everything was local, and man, it tasted amazing!!! So now I'm pretty excited to see what we all bring for our Thanksgiving meal! Wow, it's almost Thanksgiving, and almost my birthday! I'm gonna be 20 in Tchad! I can't say that I'm super excited about that, cause I would kinda rather be 20 in America, but I guess I'll just have to get ice cream when I get back to celebrate!
Speaking of celebrations....two Sabbaths ago I was in Lai again, and we got back home kinda late. I was really tired and couldn't wait to go to sleep! Well, driving through the village, we passed some houses that were singing and dancing and playing drums (ok, so the people in the houses), and I told Matthew that I thought it would be cool to go to one of those sometime. They were celebrating something with the Evangelical church...or something like that. Anyways, so we passed 2 or 3 houses like that, and it was kind of exciting to see for a second. Well, we finally made the turn towards my hut, and I could feel the excitement of being able to sleep and finally get some rest! Well, we pulled into my compound and that's when I saw it; over 50 people BY MY HUT playing drums, singing (it's really chanting, but that's how they sing here), and dancing. I kinda laughed because when I said I wanted to go to one sometime, I didn't mean that night when I was super tired, but oh well, they can't do this all night right? WRONG! My brother came up and greeted me, and then told me that they were going to be doing this all night! Ok, so some of the dances and drum beats were pretty cool, but not cool enough to do all night long! I tried a couple of the dances in the background where I couldn't be seen, but then headed to bed. All of the beats basically sound the same, so it put me to sleep after a while, and they did finally take a sleep break at 3am...but then they started it up again at 5am. The church was packed with dancing Tchadians that Sunday, and then after hours of that, they all returned to the houses to dance again! It finally ended Sunday evening. That experience made me grateful that I am SDA and that we don't dance for 2 days straight!!! hahaha
Life here really is good though. I am alive, I have a bit of a cold, but it's my own fault that I'm not better. I got my first package this week...actually first 5 packages this week! One of them contained oreos...I would like the emphasize that fact that it contained and no longer does, so I still have a bit of a cold! lol But God is teaching me a lot through the Bible, Great Controversy, the locals, the missionaries, and through nature. I praise the Lord that when I arrived it was the rainy season! Everything was green and beautiful...it's not now, but it was then. Everything is browning nicely now, and the people are burning their fields (I'm not sure why they are, but they are), and things are getting hot during the day. But on the good side, there is salad materials for the next few months!!! I'm super excited about that! Oh, and talking about fresh stuff, remember how I said that I ate a grasshopper the other day? Well, I guess that with the dry season comes the grasshopper/locust season. The other night, my mom (local mom whose name is Monique) reached into her fanny pack and pulled out a handful of live grasshoppers, and her son reached in his pant pocket and did the same. They all had their wings and back legs torn off, but they were still squirming. They just thew em in a pot and ate em like that...it's been a regular thing this week and every time I get a little less disgusted...I still feel bad for them though.
So part of this blog I wrote last week, and didn't have enough battery to send it, so here's the rest. Today is Thanksgiving for me, and night time for everyone who will read this on Thanksgiving day! We've been doing this survivor thing here with all the SM's, and the loser of last week's challenge had to come at 8 this morning to cook pancakes for everyone's breakfast...my team lost so I was here at 8. After breakfast we all started cooking for our BIG thanksgiving meal. I made sweet potato fries in this super awesome batter, and made a ketchup type dipping sauce (not even close to ketchup, but it got the job done), and lime aid (since limes are in season now). There were at least 6 pumpkin pies (since pumpkins are in season now), and there were mashed potatoes (which the potatoes had to be imported from a big city since we don't have normal potatoes here), and stuffing (which everything had to be made from scratch), and we killed our own 3 chickens this afternoon (which are abundant at all times...and when I say we, I really mean other people, cause I actually didn't help in the unnecessary slaughter of these poop animals), and salads, and man there was so much food!!! We were having a blast preparing everything, and dancing to music, and singing and....ok right now none of of can sing, because there's this cold going around Tchad that everyone's getting and we are all losing our voices. I can't believe that we're in Tchad and we have colds...some tropical disease would be a much better story, but oh well...next time. Anyways, the point of that super long sentence about food was to say that we had some amazing food!!!! One of the guys gained 4lbs!! We all sat on the ground around these grass fence things that were cut to make tables for us, and we bought some material from the market to decorate...it basically looked like America...except in Tchad! There were 30 white people...30 of us! It was super weird, but super fun...we even had some locals come and join us. There is so much that I have been blessed with and I want to share some of those things with those of you who actually read this far! I am thankful for family and friends in the states that send packages...and prayers, and families that have taken me in here. I am thankful for food, even when it has rocks in it, because there really are a lot of kids in Africa starving right now. I am thankful I haven't gotten malaria yet (and I hope I never do), oh, and did I mention that I am thankful for packages with things from the states (hahahaha)...it helps keep me going sometimes knowing that people are thinking of me...but prayers are much more needed! I am so glad that God has given us His word to keep us going. It's there to strengthen us, encourage us, rebuke us, and love us...which is what God is there for too. I hope that all of you beautiful people in America, or Canada or wherever remember all the things that God has blessed you with, and continue to praise Him. Happy thanksgiving USA!!!!
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