Santiago Cape Verde

     There was a faint rainbow visible from the airplane as we approached the Island of Santiago Cape Verde. Rainbow have become a bit of a theme in our travels, one greeted us as we crossed for the first time into Liberia (our future home, God willing), one made a stunning appearance through the clouds as we hunted for the East Limba deep in the Wala Wala mountains of Sierra Leone, we’ve seen one gracing the sky above the drab Conakry skyline. They always seem to be something of a G0d wink, a reminder of His grace and salvation to every nation. Stepping out of the Praia airport into the capital city of Cape Verde, Rita and I were both clothed in our traditional West African garb, complete with Ponya and head wrap. I have not stepped out of the compound gates in the last 6 months without my legs sufficiently covered, usually by a Ponya, and my head cloaked in a head wrap. Pastor Emanuel smiling was waiting for us at baggage claim. Soon we were catching our first glimpses of Praia; I sat in the back of Emanuel’s car with our backpacks beside me staring out into this new world. Cobble Stone streets and gleaming yellow taxis. Where were the goats crossing the road? Where were the overloaded taxis with junk piled three times taller than the actual car on the roof? And are we the only ones in the city wearing a Ponya? I had a sinking feeling that our plane must have gotten confused and landed in Europe or maybe Brazil; we’re not in West Africa any more Todo.

     Cape Verde has its history in the Portuguese slave trade. Before the Portuguese came to Cape Verde in 1500’s the ten islands had been uninhabited, when the Portugal ceded control of Cape Verde in 1975, the Islands were home to a new and diverse people group the Cape Verdeans. It’s hard to describe what a typical Cape Verdean looks like, many are black owing their ancestry to the Africans who were brought to Cape Verde during the slave trade years but many are lighter skinned resembling more of a Brazilian than a West African. Often people claim an ancestry of both Portuguese and African descent, the Portuguese slave traders often took second African wives on the Islands while they were away from Portugal, so they had two families, one in Portugal and one in Cape Verde.

     Excerpt from Wikipedia: “The majority of the population is creole (mixed African and European descent). A genetic study revealed that the ancestry of the population in Cape Verde is 15.9% African and 84.1% European-Middle Eastern in the male line and more than 90% West African in the female line; counted together the percentage is 57% African and 43% European.”

     This mixing of different ethnic groups created the need for a central language to communicate and thus the development of Kabuverdianu, a Portuguese based creole found on all the Islands. Each Island has a slightly different dialect of the Creole, some having an English, French or Italian influence on the dialect but all are mutually understandable.
So here we are having just left our base country which only has electricity on good days for about 6 hours and we arrive in another West African country that doesn’t look a bit like the West Africa we just left.
We immediately fall in love with our host, Brazilian Baptist Missionaries Elton and Karan and their two kids and Cape Verdean Baptist Pastor Emanuel, his wife Diva and their three kids Bethel, Rachael, and Jael. Emanuel took us to their mission house, a two bedroom apartment that looked straight out of Ikea. Over the next three weeks this apartment became our base and Emanuel and his family our lifeline. You couldn’t imagine a sweeter family.

     It just so happened (*cough* G0d) that Emanuel and an AOG pastor were touring all the Evangelical churches in Santiago the day after our arrival to promote a day or prayer…. Would we like to come with them? YES! So the day after our arrival, we were escorted to many of the established churches in Santiago which was just what we came to do.
The first Pastor we met was a man named Christian; he was leading a Brazilian Baptist church plant just on the out skirts of Praia. Christian’s congregation is the only Evangelical church in his prefect of ten villages. There are 8000 people living in his prefect but sadly there are only 7 believers attending his church right now. He explained how hard it is for a Cape Verdean to leave the traditional faith of Catholicism and accept Christ grace. In Cape Verde 95% of people claim to be Catholic, many are not practicing catholic but most still attended the monthly Icon celebrations. We were told more than once that partying is definitely part of the Cape Verdean culture, all Cape Verdeans love to party. Each month there is a party that really amounts to idol worship of a different catholic icon. Even new evangelical converts find the draw of these parties hard to resist.

There is a strong bias against evangelicals in Cape Verde, a Presbyterian Pastor on Santiago said, “The Catholics say (about our church), ‘it is the devils church if you go I am going to hit you.’ But we don’t give up, we continue to pray and talk about Jesus. We don’t give up, we don’t give up.”
While there is rarely physical persecution in Cape Verde there is a good deal of social persecution coming from devout Catholics and occasionally from the pro-catholic government. Often parents refuse to let their children attend evangelical churches or there is a break in the family over it. Please pray that this ethnically diverse country which seems so peaceful and tolerant in every other way will be more open to the truth of the good news.