American Food

Today we went to Art Nilsen's church. Art is a retired US Air Force member, who now lives with his family in on Terceira Island. He took over the Baptist Church here when the old minister left. He has also started building a campground for children in the area. He and is family are really nice people, I'm really glad we met them.

In the morning, we went to his church service. This was my first service I would be attending, so I was interested to see how it would go. The congregation is pretty small; mostly Americans who live here, a few Air Force personnel from the base, along with one or two Azoreans...overall about 20 people, if that. The service was pretty good; Art is a great speaker.

Afterwards, we went to a cookout at campground that Art was building. The food was REALLY good...I didn't realize how much I missed AMURICUN food after only two weeks. There was green bean casserole, potatoes, pasta, MAC AND CHEESE. Basically, I was in heaven. After lunch, Art gave us a tour of the campsite.

When Art first purchased the land, it was an overgrown, untended vineyard that was over 200 years old. With the help of volunteers, mission trips, and donations, he leveled the area, planted new grass, built walls, an amphitheater, concrete structures (including bathrooms, laundry rooms, etc), and completely renovated a dilapidated house. Oh, and he did all this in three years. no big deal. He seemed very committed to what he was doing; it was pretty admirable.

We also met other Americans from around the area. It was funny how that little area where we ate felt so much like home, even though we were in a completely different country, with the Atlantic Ocean less than half a mile away. I'm not necessarily ready to go back home yet, but my experiences today made me miss it just a tad.

Ranjan