Ok, I know. I'm pretty much the worst blogger to ever be allowed into the blogosphere. 2009 it's almost half-way over and I haven't posted anything since 2008. Oops. My bad. Time flies. I don't have regular internet access. I was too busy working. Alright! I'm a lazy bum who never enjoyed writing even when I was in school. I'd much rather be problem-solving or painting or sketching or something more up my alley. But anyways. Hi guys, I'm back. I figured you'd all held your breath long enough, hehehe. So since it's been SO UNBELIEVABLY long since I wrote, my blog doesn't have even a semblance of a sequence anymore. Therefore I can write about any event that happened since I've been in Angola as it strikes my fancy and today, my fancy seems to have been stricken with inspiration to write about church.

Oh church. What can I say about it... There are so many (and I mean SO MANY... and the list seems to be growing as time goes on....) flaws in the church here. I really don't like to focus on them though, because I know that's a tool el enemigo uses to discourage us. There's also a lot of wonderful things about it. What's wrong with it, you might wonder? Well coming from an environment full of young ppl that are excited about the Word of God, it was quite shocking to me to encounter a church that lacked that much enthusiasm for all things sacred. For example, there's a lot of vanity, pride, selfishness amongst the members in the church. I could tell you anecdote after anecdote of shady things that ppl do that makes you think 'He/She's a Christian??' People are also really caught up on being on the spotlight that the message gets lost among the ppl scuttling for the stage. Musicians, preachers, treasurers, you name it, everyone is trying to be the head honcho around here because they act as if it's a popularity contest insted of the Lord's work. I just shake my head in amazement, but I try to remind myself that it's my first time living in an environment that's not mostly SDA, so maybe that's just how it is in the big bad world (:S)
The good things about it, though: the music. Oh man, music here reaches the soul. I think it has to do with the fact that music has always brought consolation to the suffering masses, because there's just something about the way the congregation here sings that just makes the Holy Spirit that much more tangible.
The divine worship music is so cool... my favorite part is after the pause between SS and Culto. The church goes silent as they wait for the next thing on the program... just as the silence starts to become almost awkward (awkward is an awkward word to spell, don'tcha think?) you hear in the distance a beautifully harmonized hymn that barely reaches your ears. As the seconds pass the music gets louder and louder... and you turn around to behold the church choir, in its robed glory, marching to the beat of the hymn from the entrance of the church. It marches, marches, marches, rhythmically swaying from side to side as it slowly advances up the center aisle and towards the stage. At the very front are the sopranos, so as they pass they're the loudest near me and they almost stifle the other voices... but not quite. You can still hear them harmonizing. Then come the altos, and at this point the sopranos are already reaching the stage so their sound is being projected and reverbrating through the whole building, meanwhile the rich sound of the altos become the backbone of the song. Then come the tenors, which mingle beautifully as well with the sweet sounds coming from the front. Then come the bases. Oh man, it's awesome. By the time the rest of the choir is onstage and the bases have reached me I've already learned the song that they've been singing since they entered the sanctuary, and it's all a perfect blend of sounds comparable only to the blend of a perfect amount of sweet and tangy on your tastebuds (if that's your thing. If not, then think of other flavor combinations that mean absolute bliss to you :D). I hum along and sway along and sing along and basically try to make the moment last as long as possible, because it'll be a long week before I get to this point again.

The first time it happened, I was totally amazed because I didn't expect it. But now that I know, and eagerly look forward to it from the moment I step into the church early Sabbath morning, I'm amazed at how captivating it still is to me. There's just nothing like it.

I started out attending the Central church, the biggest church in Luanda, and possibly the country. I think it has like 4000 or 5000 members. It's so big it's actually split up into 3 churches: Children Church, Youth Church, and the regular church service. The church is a 3 story building reminiscent of an office building, because it's just big and square as if it was built purely for function, not for beauty.

I attended there for 3 months and became involved in music as soon as I got the chance. I was placed into the regular rotations for pianists and often played special music at Sabbath School, AY, and week of prayers (we have A LOT of those. Another good thing :D) Special music during divine worship is reserved for the church choir only. It was nice, and I enjoyed it, but the church was just so big! I still don't know most of the ppls names I met there. And I consider myself pretty good at remembering names!

Anyways, by an unexpected turn of events, I ended up moving to another uncle's house during the Christmas holidays which is way outside the city, in a suburb called Viana. Since I don't have a car, if I wanted to keep attending Central church I'd have to catch taxis every Sabbath... and even though here that's a normal part of Adventist culture (many ppl don't have cars and they really want to go to church), I just don't feel right doing it. So I transferred to the Viana church. Turns out, I really like it. It's much smaller (about 500 members) and in the 4 months I've been there I've gotten to be much more involved. First with the music, of course... I was made the official church pianist like my second week here. I replaced an old man that's going blind. He was so happy to find out there was a new pianist he refused to finish playing during service that Sabbath. He made me sit at the piano and pick up were he left off... lol.

Ok. THis post is too long. I shall continue it another time. Soon. Don't worry. OR maybe you should. I'm just tired of typing, lol. But I'm trying to form the habit so no me apedreen!

I left my heart in Texas

So I finally get to post a blog!!! Hopefully I'll be dedicated enough to write at least a couple each week... There's a lot of stuff I could write about, and have been wanting to write about. I don't even know where to start.
I guess I'll start at the beginning and work my way up to the here and now :)
I got to Angola on Sept 10 around 10 a.m. and immediately realized how ineffecient certain things are outside of the U.S. For example, baggage claim was an absolute mess, to put it kindly. Basically I stood around waiting for my bags to make it from the plane to the "Baggage claim" area for about 3 hours. No lie. And they never got there. I had to fill out a missing baggage report and wait 4 days (driving back and forth to the airport all the while) before I finally got them... Fortunately everything got here eventually. Tia Sao picked me up from the airport (shout-out! lol) and my dad's brother, who happened to work at the airport, met me there as well. It was so cool to meet him, but I chose to stay at Tia Sao's house at the time. So off we went.
The day was a blurr: Seeing Luanda for the first time, running around doing errands with Tia, observing the people and the customs. So interesting, so much to take in. If I were to describe my first impression of Luanda, I'd use two words: Chaos and Contrast. It's so chaotic! The traffic is always jammed. And I mean ALWAYS. From morning til night. I don't know what kinda rules of the road there are, but there didn't seem to be any. People do anything they want to do in order to get from point A to point B. The fact that the same one-lane road is used by 18-wheelers, cars, motorcycles, scooters, bycicles, pedestrians, and dogs does NOT help the situation. Oh, and when I say one-lane, that's just depending on who's on the road at the time. Many ppl decide to make it a two or three lane road if it so pleases them. To top it all off, everyone honks and yells at everyone, as if to blame everyone else for the chaos they so readily contribute in creating.
The contrast was also surprising. There are mansions next to huts and Beemers next to beat up old Corollas at any given main road. There are some beautifully paved roads that connect to the most dusty, pot-hole-ridden roads, all in the same neighborhood. Oh, and dust is everywhere. That's just a fact of life here. And I don't mean that light little layer of indoor dust you see on your furniture if you go two weeks without dusting it. I mean the kind that gives you a raspy throat by the end of a long day of driving around. It's crazy.
So since then, I've grown accostumed to those things that shocked me so much that first week. I don't even notice how dusty my shoes get anymore. I don't even notice when we come thisclose to getting in a car crash (it happens at least once a day, but we never actually crash. Somehow, this chaotic system works). I've also gotten used to other random sights that used to puzzle or shock me (people peeing out on the street, disabled people walking with their hands for lack of a wheelchair, little naked children playing in a puddle, emaciated dogs struggling to stay awake while prancing around, etc...)
But there were some good shocks too. For example, I live super close to the beach. So anytime I wanna go, I just grab my towel, my flip flops, and go. I love that! Also, it's summer here. It's so weird to see Christmas lights and decorations lighting up downtown while it's 106 degrees... lol. Yeah, that was the temperature today, and summer is barely starting :S
And the fruits. Oh, I could go on and on about the fruits. They have so many fruits here I had never seen before. And of course, I'm on a quest to try all of them! The ones that I've tried so far, have been absolute bliss :) The mangoes are SOOOO good! The strawberries are super sweet. And of course, juice at the grocery store comes in like 10000 flavors, all natural and organic. Made with locally-grown fruits. Yummy!
Anyway, I think that's enough for one blog... this pretty much covers my first impression of Luanda. Pictures coming soon. Thanks for reading!