So today was interesting. We went to Avia 2 today. It's a church (named for the area it is in). They are a very large church and I guess they have two services and I think Tim said that 800 people come to it. We saw where they have sunday school and their bookstore. We also saw where there pastor lives; he's the head of the national church, so he assigns churches to pastors and such. It was pretty neat to see. Everyone was really friendly; it would be nice if I could talk to them... 

I'm really excited about getting to go to a service here soon. Meredith said that they've been going to all the different alliance churches that are here. There are a lot of them in Libreville, but I forgot exactly how many...

Paul, Mike and Greg left today. So a lot of the day was going to hardware stores and finding screws and stuff that they're going to work out some plumbing or a water pump or something like that in Lakoni.  The hardware stores are funny, you walk around and when you find something you want you tell the person standing there and they right it down (you do not pick it up and carry it around, that makes them unhappy). Then you go and get the list printed. Then you take the receipt to the cashier at a different counter and then you pay. Then you take that up to another counter at the front of the store where they give you everything you just paid for. They're trying to avoid stealing which is apparently a problem with the customers and workers.

We went to the church after that and then to the Solvig's where we picked up Pauline's checked luggage (so the guys could take it to the train station early to get it checked) and then came back. I felt pretty sick this afternoon. So I just sorta watched everyone get ready so I rested and did some journaling and reading and napping. It was nice. Then we all headed out back to the Solvig's to pick up Pauline. 

The guys all kept picking on me because I wasn't going with them. They think I'm unadventerous (right, that's why I'm in Africa for a year), but I also think they thought I was quiet until we had to debate whether gymnastics was a sport or not and then whether Moby Dick and The Brothers Karamazov wouldn't be better books if they were shorter (which I am wholly against). They think it's funny that I'm an English major who doesn't want to write and doesn't particularly like reading. But it's just as well. Paul decided I should come along though and write a book about the trip. In the end though I stayed behind, mostly because I really want to find out what I'm going to be doing while I'm here and apparently this discussion will take place in the next day or two. Besides, Tim and Pauline said it really wasn't possible to get a ticket for me to go at this point. 

I did get a good chance to talk with Pauline on the way from dinner to the train station about her work. She is making the written language for Te Dengue (I actually have no idea how'd you spell that). She was originally in Congo doing this with Wycliffe, but because of the war she had to leave and they went to where she is now in Lakoni. They went there because they were supposed to be serving Gabon also, but didn't have the staff at the time. They also heard that the languages were similar, but later found that to be completely untrue. Then her group left, but she decided to stay. So she lives without electricity (although she's getting that soon I think), running water (to be changed in part by this team) and without interenet. She's had to learn the language figure out the grammar (it's a tonal language with two tones, and there verbs are insane with something like 20ish conjugations) and then she's creating an alphabet so that the Bible can be translated into this language. She's in need of people to do the translating though, but she wants the local's to do it because it is there language. It sounds like a very difficult task. Pauline said that translating the New testament will take 8-9 years and then if those same translators continue to do the Old Testament and assuming they are faster because of the experience then the OT will take about double that amount of time. She was really neat. 

On the way back from the train station Tim said that it would be really neat to be able to go and that hopefully they'll be able to get me out there for a bit. I hope so. It would be very cool to go, and they're pretty sure she might like the company.

So it's alright that I couldn't go this time. I could deal with some rest anyway. I was up too late talking about gymnastics and books and spiritual warfare all night. It was a lot of fun with the team here, there was always some heated conversation about something like Agriculture, bio-fuels(because Paul is a farmer), law (because Mike just graduated from Law school), or war (because Greg recently finished out several years in the army in Korea, Iraq and Iran). So there were lots of stories and joking around. 

I think the next few days will be much quieter. Tomorrow should be neat though, I get to meet Pastor Jacob (I think that's his name) and his wife and they have a new baby who is named after Tim because he drove the mother to the hospital when she was in labor (and a fire extinguisher went off in the van on the way making the van very dusty, which in turn made my shorts very dusty the other day...)

So, that's about it for today. Thank you for all your prayers!

Jessica