A Bittersweet Goodbye

Everything at SBT has been great, but I have noticed another downside to my internship: every week I am forced to say goodbye to one of my new friends. You see, every week one of the Idolos contestants is voted off the show and has to go home.

This week, my favorite contestant received the least amount of votes, and therefore had to go home. Don´t get me wrong, all of the contestants are extemely nice, but he was my favorite because he seemed to have the biggest heart of them all. Angel (pronounced like 'an' 'gel') is one of the most incredible Brazilians that I´ve met so far. (I´ll have to post a picture later, when I´m at another comupter.) Everyone on the Idolos production team thought that Angel was going to be one of the final two contestants, but somehow he got voted off much earlier. He has a family, so even though it was extremely sad to see him go, I knew that it would be good for him to be back home.

Last night was the night everyone had to say goodbye to him, and he and I had one of the best conversations I´ve had yet in Portuguese. He told me that we would be friends for life, and I agreed. But then we started to talk a little more, and I asked him if he believed in Jesus. He said he did! I had guessed that he might, because of his humble attitude, and I told him that his life spoke of the fact that he beleived in God. I didn´t really know enough Portuguese to be able to discuss our beliefs in any great detail, but I´m pretty sure that when he said he believed in Jesus he was talking about truly believing. If I had to bet, I would say that I will see him one day when we are both with God. I told him that not only would be friends for life, but that we would be friends for life "and more." I know this isn´t gramatically correct, but it was the best I could do in Portuguese.

I thank God, becasue I can´t tell you how excited I was to be able to have such a conversation in Portuguese!

Update (7/8/06): It´s over a week later, and I´ve finally found a computer that I can use to post pictures. Here is Angel with his family: