Christmas and Kampant

       Since our last post we have celebrated Christmas and attended a youth camp called Kampant. Christmas was different as it was around 100 degrees and of course the obvious being that we are in Gambia. We began the day early to head over to Gary and Denise's house for a white elephant gift exchange and breakfast casserole. Then Elias, Gary, a friend Hayden that spent Christmas with us and I headed to church which was filled with much singing and dancing.

Our table of 50 Dalasi (roughly $2) gifts

Opening gifts

          After church we had a delicious, yet very expensive meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy. The turkey was about 9 pounds and cost about 19 american dollars! But it was worth it considering Gary and Denise haven't had turkey in five years. Then we finished out the day by skyping home to both families.

          The next day we left for a youth camp called Kampant. I'm not sure how many youth we took from the mennonite fellowships, but we had 34 registered which is a really good number. The camp had about 100-150 youth show up and went from Saturday to Thursday. As you can see, I'm writing this on Wednesday which means we came home early. Elias was sick before we left and since the camp was out in the bush there was an excessive amount of dust and it was starting to take a toll on him so we decided to come home yesterday after breakfast. However, we are very happy that we had the opportunity to go and see what the youth are so excited about. They had wonderful speakers and each night they had a different activity after dinner. Sunday night we had a prayer time, Monday was praise and worship, Tuesday was a debate on 1 and 2 Timothy and Wednesday is a talent show. I am disappointed that we couldn't be there for the debate and talent show, but I'm excited to hear all about it. Gambians love to sing and dance, so even though we sing the same songs over and over they are always sung with passion and praise for the Lord.

Sing and dancing, and yes all of those spots that look like water are dust

Some of the girls that Elias and I will be working with, most of them are from the Pirang youth and it was cold hence the warm clothes, we could see our breath in the morning and I had trouble staying warm at night with a sheet, towel and skirt covering me while I was sleeping in pants and long sleeves!

Playing futbol in the early morning sun before breakfast

The camp looking in from the road

Praises:

-A very different but very special Christmas and the chance to reconnect with home

-We had a wonderful time at Kampant and made new friends

-Elias is feeling better now that we are away from the dust

Prayer requests:

-We are still having difficulties getting a house

-We will finally be beginning language study

-Relationships with the youth of the different fellowships