Domini Balli in Roatan

So this past Friday, I had the special treat of seeing Dominic Balli here in Roatan! For you Santa Barbarans you know who he is. Dominic Balli was/is? a worship pastor at Reality and is a super rad reggae artist. Club Natale, a resort/vocational training center I wrote about a couple posts ago, hosted a massive benefit concert to help promote education on Roatan. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've been to in a while. It was full of goodness. I wish I had better pictures to represent the night, but alas, I don't. But it was filled with incredible music by local artists, including a group of local girls/women from the East side of the island, who have voices of angels.

They were so incredible. They also had these awesome local Garifuna people do some of their traditional dances. It was the bomb(dot)com, I was so entranced watching them, my cheeks hurt from smiling so wide. The Garifuna people are native to the island and are of African descent. They have a very rich culture and it was so fun to see some of their traditional dances/music.

There were also a bunch of other musical acts, Dominic Balli being the headliner. He rocked the stage and even preached the gospel during his set, it ruled. The night ended with an epic fireworks show, it was kind of random, but mainly awesome. Oh and I forgot to mention that at one point there were flame throwers doing a little fire show, it was pretty epic.

View from the rooftop. The little flame on the right is the flame-thrower!

Overall, we had a ton of fun. I felt super blessed by the night. We also made contacts with an organization from CA called Artists for Human Rights, they gave a small presentation during the night and are doing some really cool things.

Here are some pictures I stole from my friends of the night:

view of the stage 

basically a view of the night

the girls!   

love them.

Sarah and I 

Ingrid and I

Sorry, the pictures are mainly of my friends and I, but it's the best I've got!

The rest of the weekend was spent lounging at the man made beach in Parrot Tree (the closest resort to us) and lesson planning. Oh also, this Sunday we went to a huge conference in Coxen Hole that a bunch of the churches on the island were a part of. We only caught the last session, and the whole thing was in Spanish, so it went a bit over my head, but there was lots of Holy Spirit and Jesus loving going on, it was pretty cool. There's a sweet abandonment that a lot of the Spanish speaking churches here have that I feel is a bit rare in the States. I've really enjoyed being a part of it here, hoping to find a church soon to settle into, but for now it's been fun/interesting hopping around to the different ones throughout the island, they all have a unique flair to them. Anyways, I have a whole week ahead and I need to get planning. Lots of love to all you readers out there. Please don't be shy to leave a comment!