It all began on Christmas Eve.  Papa Jim was invited to show a Christian movie at Romeo's church.  Mama Alice was not with him.  Actually my health broke from exhaustion and stupidity the end of November.  (I think that's the correct medical term for a 72 year old Grandmother who was trying to act like a 21 year old young lady, though I might have that wrong...at my age I get things confused!)  Here we are in early February and Mama Alice is still not back to 100%, but day by day I'm visibly stronger than the day before.  And trying to be  wiser, too, which is the hard part.  Some of us don't age with grace and ease.

But I've gone waaaay off the rails on this story, so let's get back to it.  Can't remember which of our collection of excellent Christian movies that Papa Jim showed, but it was well received.  Romeo has told us several times how bless his church was with what Papa Jim did for them.   

Then two and a half weeks ago Romeo asked if his choir could come and sing to us as their way of saying "Thank You".  They selected today, Sunday, February 3rd, after church as the time they would come.  We were surprised and delighted that they would want to bless us like this.  We all pitched in to make this a special time for them.  Doris (with the "help" of five years old Prince Angle) baked cookies on Saturday.  Dorothy swept and mopped the library.  When he got back from his church, Theirry carried a tray full of glasses, cold water, peanuts, napkins, and a large platter full of cookies up to the library.   And Papa Jim and Mama Alice looked decorative.  (Age has it's privileges.)

At one p.m. Romeo phoned to tell us that his choir would be arriving at 2 p.m.  Silly us, even after all these years we assumed that was "white man's time" but of course, the choir was running on "Cameroonian time".  So it was nearly three when they arrived.  The lugged in all their sound equipment, keyboard, microphones, etc. along with a large sports bag which contained their lovely choir robes.  Papa Jim, Mama Alice, Dorothy, and Theirry waited patiently while they got everything set up and put on their robes.   

Eventually the concert began.  And we were blown away by their amazing thank you gift!  We had assumed that they would sing three or four numbers and then enjoy the cookies and go home.  But they had prepared a full blown concern for us.  The hours of preparation that went into this performance!  It was breathtaking!  They not only blessed us to pieces, but all of our near neighbors as well!  

Six children came along with the choir, so we became the "church nursery".  We held fussy babies, and rocked them to sleep.  We gave water to thirsty little tykes, and then handed them back to their mothers to be nursed. We let the two older ones snuggle up next to us and whisper things to us that we couldn't hear over the concert music.  But we could smile at them and hug them and they were happy.   

And afterwards we all filed downstairs and back outside for a lengthy picture taking session.  Everyone had to have their picture taken with the Americans.  We kept hearing them talk about posting their pictures on Facebook, so I suppose we are famous by now!  (Cameroon has changed so much over the twenty eight years we have lived out here.)  

Eventually Romeo pulled Mama Alice back into the house for a private conversation. It turns out that the choir had planned every part of this lovely concert except the "how are we going to get back home" part.  They had hired two taxis to bring them to Shiloh, and Romeo had made numerous trips on his motorcycle, too.  But nobody had thought about how they were going to pay for taxis for the return trip.  Mama Alice was being appealed to for help.  So of course we provided the 6.000 F that they needed (that's about $12) and soon there was the round of "good-byes" as they all filed out the gate with their heavy equipment, leaving us with our wonderful memories of an incredible concert.