We woke and prepared ourselves for the trip into shore again. On the schedule was supposed to be a 10 am breakfast/meal at the SDA mwaneaba. We arrived shortly after 9am at the shore and no one was there to pick us up as scheduled. A local man, who spoke fluent english, offered to take us to Utiropa where the farewell meal will be held in the mwaneaba. We were treated as guest and everyones appreciation was spoken through the food and hospitality. I was one of 3 people that gave a speech to the people at the church.

As one of the parting gifts, I had planned to give them a set of guitar strings for one of their guitars but learned that they didn't yet have a guitar at. I was moved to depart with my Fender acoustic guitar that I had brought from the states. I knew it would go a long way in helping the church members praise and worship efforts. It was well received. Soon after we announced the giving of the guitar a man presented to us a beautiful sea shell that was a little bigger than an adult fist. The sea shells are used to announce the beginning of a meeting at a local villages mwaneaba. The food was served and we ate till satisfied. The Tarawa Adventist Singing group set up their equipment and performed 4-5 songs. I was amazed at the talent they had, individually and as a group. They could really sing! I only wish I could have heard more and been able to be with the team throughout their entire efforts in the islands for this campaigne.

The pastor announced that there would be one more performance on the shore just before they departed from N Tabiteuea. After the performance emotions were running high for some of the youth. They were now saying their good-byes, leaving and going back to Tarawa knowing that they had made a real impact with the local people via their singing talents. Leaving is always harder than arriving.

With the efforts of this last campaigne on N Tabiteuea the church can't accommodate all of it's new members. Pastor Peter was on schedule to baptize many new members during the following weekend. He estimated that the attendance is going to double with the addition of the new members. The current church is to small and they will have to hold the services in the adjacent mwaneaba. There are so many financial needs here in the islands. The mwaneaba they currently use has been there for over 30 years since the church was started there on N Tabiteuea. It's in need of much repair and basically needs to be rebuilt.

We had to anchor the boat a couple miles from shore which made for long and wet rides back to the sailboat. After 6-7 trips we had the boat loaded with all the youth and their equipment. The sun was setting just as we arrived with the last group to board Caelestis. Everyone was hungry so we ate a meal and pulled anchor at around 10pm. Upon reaching deeper water we raised the sails and set our destination for Tarawa. We learned that one of the youth gets very sea sick. She was not well the minute she stepped on the boat. She was heaving for most of the first day and finally started to sleep around noon the next day.

It is now 1 am while I'm writting this blog. Our arrival time in Tarawa should be around 3pm in the afternoon. We had contemplated stopping in Abemama to have the sea sick youth get off the boat but the timing was not good with the daylight and we would have lost much time getting back to Tarawa. So, we elected not to stop in Abemama on the way back.

Only a handful of the youth, 3-4 of them, actually attempt to strike up conversation with us in english. We have gotten to know Anna and Diana fairly well and Anna has help in the galley with the cleaning at times. All of them understnad and speak english but it is the same everywhere we go. People are embarassed to speak english for fear that they will be made fun of. I don't fully understand this embarrasment but we have been encouraging them to speak in english. It is such an asset to be able to speak english and they don't know what they really have.