Archive for February, 2010
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Half my camel wish
Looks like I’m going to have to back away from one of my camel wishes. I heard tonight that camel is not a common food item in Egypt. I know it is in at least one other Arab country. So I made a brash assumption leap. Back to keeping my eyes open and my mouth shut.
Anyway, I also heard tonight that tomorrow might be a good day for the other camel wish–to go riding with Johnny.
We expect to go to Saqqara to see the step pyramid, the first pyramid in Egypt. I read about it in Eyewitness Travel Top 10–Cairo & the Nile, but hadn’t expected to be going. And I hear that camel ride opportunities abound there.
P.S. The Eyewitness Travel guides are my favorites–so many great photos to get you ready for traveling, whether in your armchair or via other mode of transport.
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Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Just tie a yellow ribbon. Not.
Last thing before we left home I knotted yellow ribbon onto each of our bag handles so they’d be easy to spot at baggage claim on arrival. Smart thinking, huh?
Except that somebody else had the same idea. Ramoul, who was helping us, found our garment bag with a yellow ribbon and piled it onto our baggage trolley. Except it wasn’t ours. We almost left with somebody else’s bag, with a different sort of yellow ribbon.
By the time we returned that one to the carousel, a tour group of 20 or more people had collected all their bags–each marked with a yellow ribbon. While Johnny was searching through their pile, I finally spotted ours, one of the last off the plane.
So next time? Fabric strips torn from the ugliest, gaudiest cloth I can find.
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Firsts
It’s gratifying to me that even at age 62 and having already traveled a lot, there are still new things to experience. A little like heaven will be.
Here are several firsts, and we haven’t even been in Egypt a whole day yet.
First time to Egypt.
First time in business class crossing the ocean.
First time knowing where to find Mecca while I was flying. (on the where-you-are-now screen)
First time seeing Egypt touch the Mediterranean.
First time staying in such a red room. Glad my eyes are closed for sleeping.
First time I received a complimentary fruit basket in the shape of swan.
Not pictured: First time a bellman hurried toward us to help with our bags and took the rolling bag from Johnny and left me carrying the heavy no-wheels briefcase. Fluke or culture?
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Cairo’s sweet welcome
We stopped at the coffee shop of our hotel to buy Coke Light, but Sprite Light was the only diet drink they had. So we asked for 2 of those.
The young woman helper asked me, “Why light?”
I said, “Because I don’t want so much sugar.”
Without a pause, she said, “But Madam, you are so beautiful!”
Reminds me of my friend Noel’s welcome to me in Cameroon last year.
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Death of books?
I just read an article that says the Kindle is the death of books.
But I, who love books, say: What is a book? It is a medium that makes an author’s thoughts and creativity available to me. So does the Kindle.
The article also says that if you find Moby Dick, say, free on Kindle, the 656-page classic is now worthless. I, who love books, ask this: If I receive a book as a gift, is it worthless because I paid nothing for it? Have the words, thoughts, and universal themes been erased? Is value measured by a $ sign?
On the contrary, I say that a new world of books is opening up to me because of my Kindle. Through Project Gutenberg, I find old, out-of-print books that I never would have known about or read. These days I’m exploring China through the eyes of 19th and early-20th-century explorers and travelers.
And I think about my missionary friends. I had lunch with Laurie the other day. If she had a Kindle, she could return to her ministry home with thousands of books–many of them free ones that will help her know her country more deeply. AND she wouldn’t have to worry about luggage and weight limits. She also could download books there because Kindle now has international wireless connection.
She could even have on her Kindle her suitcase-sized ESV Study Bible–for only $9.99.
I admit the Kindle is not ideal for every kind of book. Illustrations are in black and white and are small. Charts are hard to read. A reference-type book that requires a lot of flipping pages is cumbersome on Kindle.
But that still leaves almost a world of reading on Kindle.
Do you have a Kindle or wish you did?
What do you like or dislike about Kindle?
What would make it better for you?
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Monday, February 15th, 2010
Don’t forget camels!
Johnny and I are at JFK on our way to Cairo.
We’ll be thankful for your prayers. Sometimes there are important things happening that it’s hard to leave.
Johnny is scheduled to be one of the Bible expositors for Lausanne 2010. He and the others are gathering to get acquainted, to strengthen a common vision, and to study Ephesians together. That’s the main purpose of the trip.
But what else? Lord willing . . .
- Johnny will preach Sunday, 2/21, 7 pm, at Heliopolis Presbyterian Church.
- We will visit with a person from our church who is studying in Cairo.
- There will be a visit to Muqattam, the garbage village, to see a bit of what God is doing there, including the amazing Saint Simeon’s Church.
- And we will keep praying that God will open our hearts, minds, and mouths for the sake of the Kingdom wherever we are.
- Of course we hope to visit the Egyptian Museum and to go to Giza to see the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx.
AND, don’t forget camels.
I haven’t tasted camel meat yet, and I think it’s time. It’s standard fare at feasts in Arab countries.
Also, I’ve been in an Arab country before and have ridden a camel. But Johnny hasn’t. Wouldn’t that be the perfect climax to a slide show?–My husband and I side by side on our camels, loping across the sands into the sunset (don’t forget the sunset!)?
Friday, February 12th, 2010
A hero in Haiti
Thinking about Haiti over the last weeks, I’ve gotten used to 2 words together –orphan and crisis.
Obviously, there are more words that crisis could be attached to. Here’s a biggie. Tuberculosis. Like the orphan situation, this was an epidemic even before the earthquake. TB is the second killer of Haitians, just behind AIDS.
In one TB hospital, Pierre-Louis Monfort was one of 50 staff nurses before the earthquake. Now he is the only person caring for all the patients who are left:
He scavenges the rubble daily for medicines and needles. He sterilizes needles using bleach and then reuses the bleach to clean the floors.
In his cramped clinic, eight of the sickest and most contagious patients lay on brown- and red-stained beds. He said he had lost count of how many more were sleeping in other pockets alongside the hospital. (read it all)
Here is one hero in the midst of calamity. “These people here are dying, but they keep me alive,” he said. “I know they are hurting more than me and not complaining.
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
He feeds the sparrows–at the birdfeeder
Not sparrows, actually. Chickadees.
Perhaps this internet friend’s story caught my attention because it came so soon after my own God-incidence (no coincidences, you know), when all the pieces came together for me to be in the right place at the right time to hear from God what I especially needed at the moment.
I also resonate with this story because I too lie fretting in bed very early some mornings, and because I too enjoy birds, and chickadees are the most faithful, year-round little friends in my frigid, northern, urban yard.
Do not be anxious . . . God feeds the birds.
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Give us this day our daily bread
When I hear the words “food distribution” in a Haiti news report, my mind flashes to news photos of mobs of desperate people crushing each other to reach the limited amount of food.
What a contrast in this report from Callebasse, Haiti!
Look at the pictures. People desperately hungry, but waiting patiently. A list of the most needy, so they can receive food first. Then food left over. Church members will be hungry again soon. Shall the church save it against that day?
No. Their neighbors are hungry too. So the extra food is entrusted to church members so they can fan out into the community with daily bread in the name of the Bread of Life.
Will it make a difference in this community that the life-sustaining gift was received via the hands of the church? Lord, make your name sweet in Callebasse.
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
“I’ve grown to respect this young woman”
I don’t need anyone to tell me how wonderful Talitha is. But still, I do love it when a good friend like Jenny sings her praises. Jenny and her family are our downstairs neighbors. The photo is of Jenny and Sam.
Monday, February 8th, 2010
Thanks. I needed that.
On Saturday evening, we had dinner with old friends. We talked about God’s love and the difficulty sometimes of feeling the truth that we know in our heads.
Then on Sunday, we visited Sovereign Grace Fellowship in a southern suburb of Minneapolis. It’s one of our sister churches and a place we love to visit when we have a free Sunday.
Pastor Rick Gamache is in the midst of a series preaching through 1 Peter. But since this Sunday was communion, he felt led to take a detour and preach from Ephesians 1:4-5:
[H]e chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons, through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will . . .
Afterward, my husband said it was probably the best sermon he’s ever heard about God’s fatherhood and his adoption of us. For me, it was a direct message about God’s love when I heard Rick saying things like:
When we were adopted, God the judge put down his gavel. God the judge stood up and he stepped away from bench and he took off his judicial garb. He came to us and took us in his arms and he said to us, “my child, from now on call me Father, and he rejoiced over us with loud singing.”
The rest of the sermon was just as good.
Coincidence that Rick should change course and preach about God’s love? No way. God knew what I needed.
Monday, February 8th, 2010
Does the Gospel change a life?
Perfect love casts out fear. And that changes every practical daily activity.
