As Christmas comes near, plans for Christmas here are hotting up. Christmas is celebrated here, but apparently its nowhere near as popular as new year. From what I gather, the church here is going to celebrate by having a big all-day party, with a large sheep or goat on a spit roast, a drama of the nativity (which I’ve had to write) presents for each other and a lot of singing!!

New year here is a much celebrated event, and it involves fireworks – lots of them!! Apparently its like a war zone here on new years, so I’ll be with camera at the ready, and I’ll try and get some pictures. The best fireworks display I’ve been to was for the July 6th Independence day celebrations at San Francisco harbour, with the Golden Gate bridge as a backdrop… These fireworks had better be good to beat them!! :o)

I preached on Sunday… It was a sermon on sex before marriage! It was quite a difficult topic to raise with the younger generation, especially when a lot of their parents were there too! My translator did very well too, as I said some very rude words in church, which she translated, despite originally refusing to translate them!! Next Sunday, I am going to preach another one on sex within marriage, and how that is a blessing which is blessed by God.

Cuke on Saturday was rather entertaining. I was the only older guy there, and the women asked me to look after the children just outside the room where they were sitting, so that they could have a bit of a ‘womans chat’ with some of the cuke women. So I took the guitar outside and sang some songs. Most of the kids songs here have actions. One in particular has evolved into pushing and shoving during one part of the song…. This could only result in injuries! Thankfully they’re tough kids, but they were practically jumping on top of each other during the song…. I’ve now banned the song. Until next week.

Yesterday, I visited the local High School. On arriving, we walked into one of the worst smells in the world!! Someone had let off a stink bomb, and it was dee-sgusting. It reminded me of my school in Cardiff though!! I have been told that they do not have Internet there, and they have asked me to install the internet, and distribute the connection around the 20 or so computers (HP I might add – thought it could be worth a publicity shot perhaps?) in the computer room. The cables are all plumbed in, and all I will need to do is configure the ADSL, configure the network and most importantly – restrict the website access!! Its probably the first thing these cheeky kids would do!!

Keep your messages coming in. Its really good to hear from you all. I will try and write some more before Christmas, but its going to be hectic here up until then.