Jan 1, '07 journal entry

Journaling this one since the new hotel doesn’t have network connections. Found out the hotel has wireless – *edit* walked right past 2 WAP’s last night in my tired stupor and didn’t notice them. They’re bright blue! *edit*

Today was interesting. We were told to be ready by 9:30AM to depart for Volta Redonda. Our bus apparently showed up at 7, but left again, and came back again at 10:30. Argh. It was alright though, the bus was awesome and very comfortable and we still had plenty of time to get to the small town we were headed to before Volta.

If you’ve ever been to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, you’ll know the kind of view and heights I’m talking about – if not, go there and find out. Either way, just picture looking out over an incredible vista mixed with fog and clouds, rivers and waterfalls, from thousands of feet above the valley floor. That’s where we were today, in a small town that had it’s own hydroelectric plant.

I got some pictures of this beautiful mission-style church, which overlooked the central courtyard of the town. Our stage was set up just below the steps of the church overlooking the courtyard. Really just a pretty setting for a worship concert. One of the local churches was providing sound (Oh Lord help us – but they were clueless!) which was nice, with some interesting complications. Besides the sound issues we had only one problem – it was raining cats and dogs.

We prayed against the rain for about 30 minutes, and we also felt that there was a strong presence in the courtyard working against us and our purpose there which we also prayed against. Feeling that we had achieved what we wanted, we went and got something to eat at a local family’s home. They provided some awesome food – the local cuisine is not as bad as I’d feared with exception that it’s rather bland. Fortunately the family had some hot pepper oil which several of us used rather liberally on our food. It was very much like chili made with sausage, habichuelas rojos, chicken, and chunks of beef served over rice. Good, but still bland until we added the oil. MmmmmMmmmm good.

By the time we got back to the stage, the rain was pretty well stopped – certainly not the downpour we had earlier in the day. By the time we started to play it had slowed to a near non-existent drizzle.

God showed up…again. *grin* We held an altar call towards the end of the concert and quite a few people came forward. We hadn’t done one before, but since this was in a public area and there were people watching from nearby windows and doorways I guess God wanted to call up those who were on the verge. Awesome night once again.

Now we’re at our latest hotel, and if you’ve ever seen Steven King’s, “The Shining”, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s a little spooky. Long white hallways with windows at the end. Really reminiscent of the Stanley Hotel. We pulled in here just before midnight and I took a shower and now I’m prepping for bed.

Anyway, I’ll post this as soon as I can, but I wanted to get it all down while it was fresh.