Cape Verde Islands

I bought this book from my local Christian book store called Operation World. The idea of the book is to make Christians aware of the world that they live in and what the situation for Christians and other people is in every country of the world. Each day of the year is a different country (weekends are one country for both days). The idea is to pray for the peoples of each country of the world in the course of a year, for missionaries, and for non-Christians too.

For instance, today's country is the Cape Verde Islands, a small set of islands off the west coast of Africa. Specifically it's about 600 km off the coast of Senegal. The total area of the islands is about 4000 sq km, or about the size of Rhode Island, but the population is less than a half a million.
Cape Verde was discovered by the Portuguese in the 15th century, as a part of their ongoing slew of discoveries along with the Spanish. They used it as a trading center, notably slaves to America.
It became independent of Portugal in 1975 and began a slow transition that ended with multi party elections in 1990. It continues to be one of the most stable democracies in Africa. It has a President, whose powers are fairly strong due to constitutional changes in 1995, a 75 person legislature and a judicial branch. There is also a Prime Minister appointed by the President.

About 95 percent of Caboverdians are listed as Christians, but that's in name only. Tribal customs and superstitions remain a strong part of lifestyle, and so that's one of the things we are supposed to pray for: the true conversion of those who consider themselves in the faith.

Cape Verde is a member of NATO.