Day 91 - February 12th

Wow, today was packed full! And there are lots of pictures from today here, even if you are not on facebook.
First, I visited Nkwen Baptist Church, which is walking distance, on the edge of the area where we are staying and doing school. It was a good service, and I got some video of the music. All the choirs were good, but one in particular was phenomenal - clear, bright soprano voices, tight alto harmonies, and rich tenor and bass voices. That particular choir was led by the wife, Florence, of one of the missionaries here in Bamenda, Walter. She is also a dental hygienist for her during the week job.
The message was good, too - talking about the importance of God's word in our lives and the different roles it plays in growing us in our faith and relationship with God.
After snapping a few pictures, and taking a quick nap (I was up at like six something after going to bed late...), we headed to lunch at the restaurant of the International Hotel downtown. If you look at the pics in the album link, you'll see how unassuming the outside of this place is. But it could fool you! Inside it was nice, and had a cool tortoise shell on the wall! And the food was phenomenal. I had shrimp in a bruschetta-like sauce, fried plantains, and green beans. I ate it ALL, and it was soooooooooo good.
Then we took the scenic route back to the resthouse, with Elsie driving, and I got some good pictures of the Nkwen Church and other places (like the hotel where the kids swim for PE each day).
After the Conrods and Sparks got back from Mbingo, the Conrods and I headed over to the home of the Schilinskis, another family involved in our school program. They have lots of flowers, even in dry season, 2 horses, 3 dogs, 2 cats, and 4 kittens just born 2 weeks ago! Love love!
We had a lovely chili and corn bread dinner, and fruit salad with freshly whipped cream.
Then we had some worship time, kind of impromptu, and it was nice to sing some familiar and especially meaningful songs, like Hosanna (Christy Nokels) and others.
Next the kids watched Cars 2, and the adults played or watched Settlers of Katan! For those of you who know that game, we played with an expansion pack where we had boats and islands. I totally lost BADLY. Still learning strategy on that one! The family had borrowed the game from a friend of theirs, and it was very well organized. They mentioned the owner having been described as a joke as "CDO" which is OCD, only all the letters have to be in alphabetical order! I started laughing before they even finished talking about it, as soon as they were trying to remember the "CDO" part, because my friend Vicky and I used to joke at my old job, Kumon, about being "CDO" about some of our organizational work tasks. That memory made me smile. I miss my Kumon coworkers and my kiddos. I keep hearing good news of them passing levels and finishing Kumon, which is great, but that also reminds me of the possibility of not seeing them again, which makes me very sad. But life moves on, and I tried to be aware of my time there, knowing it was limited. And I know great things will come of those Kumon kids. I pray that I have a similar burden in this time, for God to do great things, far beyond what I even have an awareness of.
We had a bit of an adventure at the end of the night. We returned to the resthouse, and as we got out of the truck, I realized with great chagrin that I had left my bag, with my room key, at the Schilinskis' house. Soooooo Nathan and I had to drive back, which thankfully did not take too long, since there isn't much nighttime traffic, even though we saw quite a bit of nightlife! And the taxis park in the lot and under the cover of a local gas station! I never would have guessed! (Gas stations are not apparently 24-hours here.) We drove by some guy with a bugle/trumpet type of horn he was blowing. We could still hear him when we got back to the resthouse. Too funny.
Well, tomorrow we are on for week two of school! The kids will be visiting the radio station here, and we will be talking about the Professional Musician career of Percussionist, and then we will play some percussion instruments! Woo I'm excited! So, as we told Jude, one of the kids, you have to go to sleep so tomorrow can get here (his 3rd birthday is tomorrow). So I am going to go to sleep, too! :-)