I think this was everyone's first July 4th out if the country. We had a great one. We started the day with one of the Harrells exercises, Bouy and back.
The buoy and Back consists of a ½ mile run followed by a ¼ mile swim and then a ½ mile run back to the house. Most everyone too part with Joseph taking the top spot. A few of didn't do the swim and a group of us turned the ½ mile run back into a ½ mile walk.
After the exercise we packed up for a day on the Dhow. This is a type of sailboat found in Mozambique. We had a great morning of relaxing on the beach and snorkeling. Caleb even got a change to go spear fishing with Andrew (oldest son). Luckily Brian brought fish since they came up empty handed. We had lunch and even a birthday cake for Brian. His birthday is actually the 5th.
After lunch we set sail back to the house and made preparations to go to the church to start the DNOW Conference. Since we were going to be at the church for 3 days we all had to pack our clothes (and snacks) for 2 nights. We arrived at the church around 4:30 and started to register he youth.
The first night included worship lead by the youth and we even taught them the words and the motions to "Oh, Happy Day!" The worship was great and we followed by giving our testimonies. Each of us gave a short testimony of our acceptance of Christ and our life in service to Him.
Saranya is also with us this week. She is from Tennessee and is in Mozambique with the Peace Corps. She teaches computers and in her off time serves as a missionary. Saranya also gave her testimony in Portuguese, but you could feel her story in her face. Later she told is she grew up Hindu and it want until college that she became a Christian from her roommate witnessing to her.
After all of our testimonies, Brian gave a gospel presentation and an invitation. 19 people rises their hands and came forward with a decision. 4 were new believers and the others were recommitting their lives to Christ.
For dinner we ate ham sandwiches and the youth who traveled were prepared a traditional meal of Xema and beans. Below is a picture of the church courtyard with the kitchen in the background.
That concluded the first night of DNOW and we were all ready for "bed". Bed for is the guys involved walking down to the next church and sleeping with the other 55 guys. We came in the church last and had the awkward situation of blowing up our air mattresses in a church where most were going to sleep on bare concrete. Luckily they brought in some straw mats for the other guys and we gained the confidence to run the mini blower to pump up our mats. We still drew the attention of the entire church when we turned on the blower.
The evening was also an experience to write home about. Like most sleepover/lock-ins it takes a while to calm everyone down to go to sleep. Luckily they had a laptop to play a movie. Unfortunately they used that laptop throughout the night to play songs. Needless to say we didn't get a great nights sleep.
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