Exciting things!

 I am long overdue for a good update and sadly many of the things I am going to tell you about happened at least a month ago.  But here they are anyway.  I have almost completed two sessions of my conversational English classes.  I am really beginning to feel more comfortable while teaching and I love the conversations that I have been having with my students.  They have been teaching me so much about Egypt and putting up with all of my questions :). I have included some of my pictures from the final day of our last session, which ended up being a party complete with lots of food and sparklers.

At the end of October I also took a short trip with a couple of the girls I work with to Dahab.  Dahab is on the coast of the Sinai overlooking Saudi Arabia.  It was wonderful to get out of Cairo and spend my days snorkeling, reading and eating.   I had been once before when I was with MESP and it held up to my memories!  Each month here seems to be better than the last as I become more and more comfortable here.  My mom just arrived today and will be spending Christmas with me.  I am so excited to have her here.  We have big plans for the week and I am excited to show her around.

Rain

Tonight it rained.  Now let me just inform you in case you don't know, I love rain.  As a child I hated thunderstorms.  They scared me silly.  Eventually this changed and in the last couple of years rain and thunderstorms have become my favorite things.  But it hasn't rained in Cairo since I got here.

Tonight I was having a rough night.  I mentioned the last time I wrote that I have been praying and waiting.  Well for many things I am still waiting.  But there have been signs that God is working and tonight I was overdue for one.  So I was on my balcony when I saw a flash in the sky.  At first I thought that it was just fireworks left over from the holiday last weekend, but then it happened again.  This was a sight that I knew well ... this was lightning!   I watched the lightning until I couldn't see it through the clouds and then I went back to my room thinking that this was the end of the show. A little while later I heard a roll of thunder.  Moments later I was again standing on my balcony, this time with outstretched arms thanking God for rain.

Tonight I have been thinking a lot about who I am and where I am.  I'm a girl who loves rain living in the desert.  A girl who loves people living alone.  A girl who loves to talk in a country where I don't speak the language.   Lately I haven't quite felt like myself for these reasons and a variety of others.  But I still have an incredible peace that this is where I should be right now and that is the best feeling of all.


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I promise to put up another entry soon which will include many exciting life happenings including the beach and an end of term party!

Happiness, Peace and Cool Buildings

I have been asked more than once lately while talking with people at home if I am happy.  The question initially surprised me.  I am living in the place which occupied my dreams for a year and in the midst of my stories someone was perceptive enough to ask,  "Laura, Are you happy?".  And not just once but twice, which is when it occurred to me that I should really seek the answer.  The truth is that I've got that peace which transcends understanding.  I am confident this is the place God has for me right now and even though I have no idea what is coming next, I have peace.  This is the verse that has been occupying my mind lately:  In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation Psalm 5:3.  And believe me I have been, but never before has waiting been accompanied with this much peace.  

Now for the part you have all been waiting for, the cool buildings!  I believe that I work on the compounds of two of the coolest buildings in Cairo (and there is some stiff competition).  I have begun working at two different places.  The first position is teaching English at St. Mark's Cathedral.  Teaching here has been different from previous teaching experience that I have, but it has been good.  I am teaching two levels of conversation classes to give the students a chance to practice the English they have been learning. 

The second position is working with Episcocare which is the development arm of the Anglican diocese here in Egypt.  The cool building to the left is All Saints Cathedral.   I will be working in the office a couple of days a week helping however I can.  I will be editing and possibly writing grants and writing a quarterly newsletter.  

 So that is life here in Cairo thus far.  I work in cool buildings.  I spend hours of my life traveling from cool buildings to my home.  I spend my free time with Egyptian friends or MCC staff.  And I am consumed by peace.

Mother of the World

I have been feeling quite childlike during my first couple of weeks here in Egypt.  I rarely know where I am going and I require assistance to get anywhere the first time. I have the same Arabic understanding of a very small child.  I can currently only talk about things that happened yesterday.  Egypt seems to be full of mother figures.  My Arabic teachers are not that much older than me but they force me to repeat words and phrases over and over again until I have said them close to correctly.  I have been riding the Metro (Cairo’s Subway equivalent) almost 2 hours a day to and from my Arabic classes.  The Metro has cars for women and cars for men. Most days the women on the metro become my mothers.  Today I felt a hand tug at my shirt before I exited the Metro and realized that the women behind me was adjusting my shirt that had ridden up during my ride.  Another time a women asked when I was getting off and I told her the name of my station.  Later as we approached that station I had several women including a girl of about 13 reminding me that this was my stop and I should get off.  Even within MCC I am the youngest and I have the shortest term.  My SALT term of only one year places me at the bottom of the totem pole.  

At first all of this mothering made me bristle up.  I wanted to make sure that people knew I could take care of myself,  I can get off at the right stop and I am saying this Arabic phrase the exact same way that you did!  But then I began to realize that this is a blessing not a curse.  I have probably 100 Egyptian women watching out for me on the metro everyday.  I can ask really dumb questions and not feel like I should have known.   I had to get one of the other service workers to show me how to use my gas stove this weekend.  I get tongue tied and confused with Arabic words and sounds but my teachers are always celebrating my little successes.  

So this year I am preparing to be mothered.  While I am on the other side of the world from my actually mother, my many Egyptian mothers will be taking care of me.  And maybe I will learn a thing or two.

Beginnings

Today was my sixth day in Egypt!  I am well aware that I am overdue for an update.  Allow me to start with orientation.   I spent a week in Akron, PA at the headquarters for MCC USA.  This week was really good for many reasons.  It helped me to slow down after 3 weeks of crazy preparation.  It surrounded me with a group of Americans and Canadians who are all crazy enough to travel for a year to countries all over the world and with a group of people from something like 25 countries who are traveling to the US and Canada to serve for the year.  The best times of the week were when we spent time together outside of the orientation sessions.  There were always people singing, playing games or dancing.  We had some amazing times of worship representing each of the regions MCC does work in.  Overall it was a pretty great week.

I left orientation last Thursday afternoon and traveled to Philly where I jumped the pond!  I do not have any super crazy adventure to report as of yet.  I am settled into my apartment.  I am starting to get a feel for the neighborhood.  I have met most of the other staff here and the others I should be meeting at a party soon!  I have had three days of Arabic and ilhamdiallah it is actually coming back to me!  Hopefully I will have something really exciting to post soon.

Also if I may suggest something to do with 20 minutes of today, it would be to watch this video.  We watched it during one of our sessions during orientation and it spurred some wonderful discussion.  I hope that you enjoy it as well!

The funny way things change

I am currently in a van on my way to Pennsylvania.  I week from today I will be leaving for Egypt.  In the last month I went from thinking that I might not make it overseas this year to being a week away from a return to one of my favorite places.  MCC called me a couple of weeks ago and told me that they had an opportunity for me with the same program that I was working with before (SALT)  that would be in Egypt.  I immediately accepted and have spent the last three weeks packing and saying goodbye.  While this whole process was not as smooth as I would have liked, but I am confident that this was God's plan all along.   So here I go,  only one week of orientation with MCC stands between me and the beginning of a great adventure back in Egypt.  I will be doing my best to update this regularly.  Put you email in somewhere over here -> in order to receive email updates when I update my blog.  

Dreams, desires and passions

"God is not in the business of helping you succeed at achieving your dreams -- even ones that involve sacrifice for His purposes. In fact, I believe he is more committed to dissolving and re-creating our dreams. God births dreams in us and then allows the desire to move us; it is in the pursuit of our dreams that we encounter tragedy and meet the deeper desires that only loss and heartache reveal" - To Be Told - Dan Allender

This is the quote that has been on my mind for the last couple of days. I think that it describes my thinking and my outlook both before and after this week. I am no longer going to Syria. It was my dream and it was even a dream that involved sacrifice for His purpose. I could have sworn that this year in Syria was God's plan, even to the point that I felt like I could see the way that he was working to prepare me for this all spring. Now that dream has been dissolved and I see the way that God has been working in a different light and with a different purpose.

Thus what I feel like I must do now is to continue to pursue my dream, but this time I am searching for the deeper desires, for the recreated dream that God is working to create in me. Yet again I find myself searching with only my passions in mind. But more than just my passions I am looking for the way that my passions can reflect the glory of God. Hopefully that will become clear in the coming days.

I want to leave you all with the two things which have played a major part in this search in the last week. The first in Josh Garrels new Album "Love & War & the Sea In Between" which is amazing especially the song "Further Along". The second is the book "To Be Told" which is helping me to place all of this in context and rethink my plans in the context of the story of my life.

Syria Bound

It has been roughly three months since I found out that I will be spending the next year of my life in Aleppo, Syria. When I set out over Christmas Break to figure out my life, I had relegated myself to the notion that I was going to find a job in some major city with an Arab population and consider it a success. But God planted a seed (I realize now that He likes to do things like this to me) and I felt like I should apply for the Serving and Learning Together (SALT) Program with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). With every step of this process it has been clearer to me that this is God's plan.

My favorite part of the last two months has been the reactions that I have received from others. The best ones came from those who I called or told moments after I got the word - my family, my close friends, my MESPers. These people immediately rejoiced with me as I dreamed of what this adventure would hold. There have been three main types of other responses that I have received and would like to answer.

The first are those who are worried about how my parents feel.

My parents have been awesome about this process. They never even implied that God’s will should put me closer to home and for that I am very grateful.

The second group are worried about me emotionally and usually ask, “Won’t you get homesick?”

The truth is that I will, but unfortunately it is never possible to have everyone I love in one place and I will always be missing someone, and I refuse to focus on that and be crippled by it.

The third group are those who are worried about my safety. Especially in light of recent events, and that is what I would like to respond to by explaining why I feel this call.

I do not know what God’s plan is for me - ultimately I only know the passions that he has given me. I have always had a love for the world and I have joked that I have been in the process of checking off continents in an attempt to find the one that I love the most. I have a love for the Middle East. It is an eternally fascinating topic for me. I also have a passion for people which has led me to first study psychology and then sociology and anthropology. I just keep following each door that opens and trust that God is leading.

Thus I will be leaving August 11 for training and then sometime after the 18th for Syria. I will spend a year living in the community of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Aleppo. I will be teaching English to Syrians and Iraqi refugees as well as helping with the church and church run schools. I am sending you this letter because I would like you to commit to praying for me during this time. When I studied abroad I was often in awe of the number of people who were praying for our trip. I always felt God protecting us.

I have been in touch with the MCC. When/or if it is determined that my move to Syria is no longer a possibility I will be given a new placement. Please pray for all those involved during these stretching times in the Middle East. I know that this next year is in God’s hands and that His Best Plan will come to fruition