Another Friday Outting

This past weekend we were able to head out of the city to a smaller town that is about an hour away from our home. We met the family of Scott's tutor. This family has 7 children in it, all grown, and one that is married and has a four year old daughter.

Zeke had a blast playing with his new little friend. This little girl was SO adorable and sweet. She kept trying to talk to me, but her voice was so quiet I just couldn't understand her. Zeke thought it would be fun to tackle her down to the floor! She put up with him for about 2 minutes before she finally started crying so that he would get off of her! Originally we thought he was hugging her, but did use the opportunity to talk with him about the differences between how girls and boys play! He had the biggest smile on his face the whole time...ah, what a little boy, huh? He loved entertaining everyone and getting as much candy out of the visit as he possibly could.

They made us a great big meal. It was pretty typical with rice, chicken and a vegetable stew as the main part, but this time they also made us fish that was very good. They also served us a typical drink that is made up of yogurt and water, but it is very sour and fortunately over our time here I have learned that it is not insulting for me to refuse it. Scott enjoys it enough to please them with his glass or two of it.

This was the father of the house. He was very typically dressed for an older man here. After this picture he even went and got a special addition for his hat, in order to make the most of the photo op!

Because we spent most of the day with this family, Scott had the opportunity to go to the mosque with his tutor. One interesting part was that his tutor was actually doing the calls to prayer that day, so Scott got to see up close how that was done and we were able to learn how the words never change from one caller to another, but they each have sort of their own style in how its sung. This day was a beautiful day, so instead of doing their prayers inside the building, all the men went outside and took advantage of the warm sunshine.

We were very tired, as usual, by the end of the visit, and our legs a bit sore from sitting on the floor off and on for 6 hours, but we felt we were able to connect well with the family and learn more about the culture. One valuable lesson we picked up is that when you travel outside of the city to see someone you should assume that you are staying the night! We had plans for the evening so when we made motions to leave around 4 they were having a hard time understanding why we weren't staying over! This is all pretty different from western culture, so next time we will pack our little overnight bags and plan on another whole new experience! Another bonus of the day was the drive to and from the city...its hard to say where I think is most beautiful, but I would say this drive definitely ranked up in the top 5! The mountains are amazingly beautiful and some are evening starting to show their snow caps! We took a little extra time on the way home to capture some pictures of God's beautiful creation. Below is just a small taste of what surrounded us on all sides of the car. God truly is an amazing creator!

Recent Events

One really fun opportunity with running our center is that through the contacts we meet there we are able to throw special events. This can range from additional seminars that we offer to our students to seasonal parties to ladies events. The latter of the three is something that we have had the opportunity to do several times over the fall months. In the beginning we did some low key events in our homes, but discovered that having these parties was really meeting a felt need in the lives of many women. Most women here are caught up, like many women in the world, with the care of their homes and family. Some of these women also have jobs or studies in the local university. On top of these responsibilites that take up so much time, because of social rules and obligations, many women don't get out of the house very often at all. Therefore, these ladies events offer us the opportunity to serve these women and show them love, while for them it is a great time to let loose and relax with only women around!



We have had many short term visitors over the past few months. Because of their excitement and energy they really help us out by taking care of many of the details of the events and really executing the plans. The picture above was from our fall themed "thankfulness" party. We had a great time with talking about what we are thankful for in our lives, a fun craft, our make-your-own pizzas and dancing!

Another ladies event we had focused on beauty. Like every culture in the world beauty is something of great importance to women. We had another guest from the states who brought out a suitcase full of gifts for the women which really delited them! The gift bags were full of fun American beauty products and even included notes and pictures from women in the States who had put them together.

As a craft for the beauty event we supplied many decoration things so that the ladies could make their own cards to send back with our visitor to give to the ladies who put together the gift bags. It was fun to see how the women got into this craft, really bursting with creativity and fun ideas. It even sparked an idea for possible future events! This gathering ended with a crazy fashion show that the ladies loved! Some of us girls chose funny outfits that we tried to pass off as the season's latest fashions! It was great to laugh and have fun together and to see these women really open up their lives to us.

In my past I have generally worked with teenagers. However, I wondered how that sort of experience would translate to my work here. I am discovering with each new experience that although I am working with a different age group here, that the principles of it remain the same: out of an overflow of the love that I have received I can show love to these women here by serving them and openning my home, time and life to them. It will be different than my past experiences, but I am confident that God is directing my path and is preparing me for the things that He desires for me to do. With that I have confidence to venture into new areas and to try things that I previously thought I couldn't do. I guess thats all part of trusting God and walking within His strength...fotunately, its not about me, but about what He wants to accomplish!

Thanksgiving take 2!

This year marked our second thanksgiving outside of our own country and culture. Amazingly enough, it was vastly different than last year! I really appreciate how God continues to answer prayers that I hadn't even realized I had! This year my prayer was to feel more and more like this is our home and to be able to maintain our own traditions while learning about those practiced here. God is good and we are so very thankful for His work in our lives and provision of our known and unknown needs!

Although we greatly missed our families back in the States, we had a wonderful time with our new family that we have right here. Thursday we started out our day with yummy cinnamon rolls and some quality time with Zeke. Then later in the morning we headed to Cheryl's where us ladies cooked up the final sidedishes to compliment our Thanksgiving meal, although Cheryl had already done the vast majority of the work! We enjoyed a huge meal with all the trimmings with our entire team, plus a couple of straglers who came with another friend. It was so delcious and really made us feel like we were right at home! For the afternoon we relaxed, watched movies and played games. For the evening we all enjoyed turkey sandwhiches and more good conversations. I couldn't believe how quickly the day went and as an added bonus for the day Zeke even took a nap in a bed that wasn't his own!


The next day we actually did it all over again! This time we invited some friends from this culture to join us. We chose a family that we have been growing closer to over these past few months. We also chose them because we know them to be more adventurous than most and that they wouldn't pick at the food the way that some might. The meal all came together with only one minor problem...I completely forgot the pumpkin pie that was in the oven and burned it to a crisp! Fortunately the apple pie sufficed for us! One surprise for us was the hit side dish...cranberry sauce! The entire thing was eaten and the plate practically licked clean! There aren't any cranberries available here, so that was the first time this family had ever tasted them. Also, the mom of the family absolutely loved the devilled eggs I made, so that was a new favorite for them as well! After dinner we asked the family to help us in our tradition of decorating our Christmas tree. The adults got more into it than the kids, but it was fun for us to be able to share some of our traditions with our new friends.

Altogether it was a wonderful way to spend Thanksgiving this year. My only wish was that it wouldn't go by so quickly and then take so long to get around to it in another year! Directly following our holiday was a huge holiday here that commemorates God's provision of a sacrifice to Abraham. We were able to visit many of our friends during this time and continue to deepen those relationships. This week we are a bit tired out from last week, but continue to look foward to every opportunity that presents itself to us. Hope you all made the most of your family time and had a wonderful holiday.

an education...

We have had the opprotunity over the past couple of months to visit a small, village school that is just outside of our city. These visits were both very enlightening and tiring! This particular school is currently meeting in what is supposed to be a house, so their classrooms are small and they have to run a tight schedule in moving teachers around to the different rooms in order to get all subjects covered for the kids. Classes run about 45 minutes long and students seem eager to learn. The style of learning here is through rote memorization, so information is presented and then students are expected to go home and review that lesson, memorize its information, and relay it back to the teacher through a class review or through a test.

Most American kids would be thrilled with the information I am about to share, but here it is a self perpetuating problem: kids only go to school for about 4 hours a day. Often when teachers can't make it in to school, there are no substitutes. Also, curriculum can be outdated and confusing for the kids at times. However, from what we saw, the teachers are doing their very best to invest in these children. I was very impressed by the level of encouragement the teachers gave to the students and how excited the kids were to participate. I'm sure not all schools are like this, but we really appreciated what was going on at this school while working with the circumstances they have in place.

It was so cute how the kids kept sneaking looks back at us and smiling shyly. We also got to offer small bits of help during the English classes. We all kept our coats on the whole time since these building are made of cold concrete and the temperatures are beginning to drop. Scott shared previously about going to a high school, so now that we have been to a primary school we look forward to maybe seeing a middle school in the future. Like all school systems in the world, there is always room for development, and here is no exception. With everything these people have been through in their past, as I look around at the little faces of these young children I do see a hope for the future. As some of the tragic events of the past get further and further from each new generation, there are opportunities for people to enact change and to make this country what they want for it to be. We are so thankful to be a part of this process and to be here amongst these people.

Family Fun :-)

Recently we have been trying to find unique ways to spend our family time. It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and allow family time to become an extra day to get things done around the house. Therefore, one of our recent activities was a family hike near some mountains in our area.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. Cool enough to wear a jacket, but warm enough that once we got moving we wanted to shed those jackets! Zeke got the easy ride on Dad's back while Scott and I maneuverd the tricky terrain. We've been getting alot of rain lately so it was nice to get out between showers enough that the ground was hard enough to walk on with out sinking down. We saw lots of animals (including a cow that didn't seem to have a home) and many beautiful views. We even found what appeared to be a very old cemetary. The place we went is translated a thousand husbands...we have wondered for sometime how it got that name and we have begun to wonder if maybe there was a battle here where many men lost their lives. One gravestone in a newer section of the cemetary was marked that i'ts occupant's death was as a martyr. Bopefully someday we will discover some real information about this place, but for now it was a very intriguing find!

We also decided that Zeke is old enough to help with some things around the house. So we had a family cookie bake last week. Zeke loved it! He got to dump in all the ingredients and stir everything up to make some delicious chocolate chip cookies. His favorite part was definitely eating them at the end. The main challenge in including a 2 year old in this kind of activity is that they don't contextualize. This wasn't to be a one time event for Zeke, therefore, he thinks that everytime mom is in the kitchen that it is his duty to pull a chair in from the dining room and help with whatever I am making! I appreciate his

efforts, but at this time his "help" is really more of a hinderance, as you can imagine! It is wonderful, though, to see how much he is growing and changing all the time and how many new things he can do in participating in family activities! I guess he really isn't a baby anymore!

As it happens often this time of year our entire household came down with a pretty nasty illness. We don't know if it was possibly h1n1 or not, but what we do know is that it was miserable! Zeke had a fever for a week straight! It was very strange to see my active little boy wanting to do nothing but sit in my lap and moan! It was especially difficult because I was sick as well! However, we all got through it and it was so rewarding at the end to see Zeke's smile and energy return, along with his precotious nature for getting into trouble!

Zeke recently had a couple of new milestones. One was his first birthday party that wasn't for him! It was hard for him to accept that this day with its presents and cake wasn't all about him! He had a good time, though, and really got into the birthday games. Another big milestone for him was moving from a crib into his big boy bed. We were really nervous about this transition, but Zeke did beautifully. The first morning he was so proud to come strutting into our bedroom to let us know that he was awake! Since that first morning, though, he has learned to stay in his bed and wait for us to come and get him. With these recent rainy days he has even fallen back to sleep until late since his room was still dark!

We feel so blessed by God to have a good, healthy family. When the hard times hit we still know how to count our blessings because God has given us so many good things. We are starting to get very excited to meet the newest member of our family, as we are just a week shy from entering the final trimester of this pregnancy. I'm sure the time will go very fast since we have several holidays to look forward to and then we are off to Jordan where we will meet our new little guy. Our prayer for this holdiay season is that God would use us in whatever way He sees fit and that our life and example would be one that is honoring to Him as we invite friends over to celebrate with us. Feel free to contact us...we love hearing from you and knowing what is happening in the lives of families stateside. Have a great week and happy Thanksgiving!

Zekes big day...

It has been just a little over a week since we had Zeke's big 2 year bash. We had a wonderful time and even managed to wear Zeke out by the end of the day! Zeke got really into the festivities this year by being able to open his own presents and get in on some of the games. He has even spent the last week singing his own little version of the birthday song. We feel really blessed to be surrounded by such good friends and family that made for such a special day. Scott made a video that sums up all the fun...

First day of school

Scott’s Two Cents

What an experience I had the other day! As part of our language learning program, in lieu of a formal track specifically for foreigners (which doesn’t exist in this country), our team has been finding creative ways to get deeper exposure to the language. Some of them started attending local grade schools, so I asked our neighbor, who is 11, if he knew of one I could attend in our neighborhood. I was aiming, with the many local adults who haven’t finished school, to join an adult night school program. Instead, the neighbor’s 16 year old brother came over and offered to ask his principal if I could join him. Sure enough permission was lined up and at 7:50 this morning, I became an 11^th grader again! Katie couldn’t go as schools here are separated by gender. After I thanked the principal, we marched up to the second floor of the 3-story-tall high school. The first class was math where the students learned all about mean, median and mode: nawendi, nawrasti and baw. It struck me, as I caught bits and pieces of the lesson, that I learned these things in 6^th grade in the States. These kids only attend school 4 hours a day, and that in shifts—some in the morning, some in the afternoon—and they cram in 13 subjects. To make that work, they have each subject maybe once or twice a week, and since each class lasts only 40 minutes, you can see why just now these 11^th graders are learning about basic statistics. My conclusion is this: there are more schools and many more teachers needed!

After math came Arabic. Now, this might come as a shock to most of you, but I’m not, nor was I ever, what you would call “cool.” I still wear shirts I got 10 years ago (fortunately here they’re just coming into style). About half my jokes flop, and what I saw usually comes out fairly jumbled unless it is simple: me hungry, me tired, etc. But, I realized in Arabic class that I was becoming the buzz of the classroom in a good way. I remember in my high school the foreign kids kind of being made fun of. Of course I never did this, but it happened. So being wary of this reality, I tried to ignore their comments and listen. Meanwhile the entire class was talking over and generally being disrespectful of the teacher, who was growing angrier by the minute. He really was an angry guy. In our language there are a few ways to politely ask someone to be quiet, but he was saying to the class the equivalent of “SHUT UP!!” about every 2 minutes. My neighbor, who was sitting a few chairs in front of me saw me mouth “he’s really mad,” but didn’t understand what I was saying. So he got up to find out and when he sat back down, the teacher asked what I said! I could have slugged him, but my neighbor told the teacher that I thought he was really mad. The teacher was ready to slug me then, so he tried to embarrass me by trying to get me up in front of the class to speak in our language. I thanked him and said no, and then he came to where I was sitting to have a nice little talk and explain why he was angry. “If you’re not angry, they’ll eat you,” he said. I told him I had insulted him and apologized several times. Then after class I walked with the teacher a while and re-apologized. He wanted to know why I would sit in an Arabic lesson if I wanted to learn our host language (95% of the Arabic lesson was not in Arabic). I might skip next week and spent time with the principal instead.

After that, we were supposed to have a computer class, but a really nice and good teacher grabbed us and said, “Come to my history class.” He had me share a bit about me at the beginning and then did a 25 minute lecture on the 10 eras in local history. It was really informative and the students really respected him, in stark contrast to the Arabic teacher. After this was a cake walk for me as we had English. I did well in that one! Getting some new words and being able to affirm the teacher were highlights. Then we had “werzish,” or sports, class. My popularity soared and I felt like the Fonz! These guys gathered around me almost like they were going to gang-beat me, but were really nice and wanted to talk and joke around. The gym teacher was standing in the doorway with little concern for organizing anything so I asked if they wanted to play basketball; that was a dumb call on my part. They wanted to play full court but 3-on-3. I was a bit winded after the first minute of chasing these kids. I am a bad-to-average basketball player, but these guys were all in the horrid category. I felt pretty good out there—at least my missed shots were hitting some metal instead of air. Then we went inside, sweaty and hot, for another section of English. Afterwards they all were asking what I do so I told them about the LIFE Center. They brow-beat me with questions, and many were interested in coming to register—interesting when they hardly remember anything or show interest in their FREE English class at school. But after talked about the LIFE Center a guy asked me if I am Muslim or Christian. When I told him Christian, he asked me what is becoming a more common question, “Why wouldn’t you become Muslim?” This question has bothered me ever since I was asked it in a store down the street. My gut response is the opposite, how could anyone not want to be Christian? When I respond saying I have many reasons, they tend to revert to the defense they’ve been told all their lives. Who can blame them? I grew up with the societal right to choose, and I chose Christ for many, many reasons. And while my upbringing gave me the opportunity to choose Christ, He drew me to Himself. I am finding more and more that our host culture does not accept change in this area; the barrier isn’t so much with what to believe, but the acceptability of believing it.

A good month

We have had a busy last few weeks. We have had a ton of opportunity for practicing our language and for investing in new friendships. First, a few weeks ago, there was a big holiday here to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the month where the people here fast from food and water during daylight hours. Its an exhausting time for many so they are very ready for some fun times with family and friends, and of course, lots of food! We did a marathon of visits during the week and even enjoyed lunch with two different families. Zeke was great and fully engaged in the visits through trying to help serve tea and getting into everything he possibly could! The good news is that the people just eat up everything that he does! Through this week we also got to visit two different family friend's of ours who recently had babies. It was great to be able to congratulate them during such a joyous time in a family's life. I had forgotten just how little newborns are and just how much work! It is good for us to see, once again, what we've got coming up! It was also interesting to see Zeke, who is usually so independent, both interested and jealous of me holding a baby!


We've also been able to have some general visits these last couple weeks. Our house has been very busy as we've had multiple families over. Our neighbor's children all came over (spanning from age 12-24) the other night and played video games and had pizza. Its all boys except for one girl and her and I, though difficult at times, we able to have a very nice conversation. We also had some good friends come over for dinner last Friday. I made them sweet and sour chicken, with a cherry pie, along with a few of their own cultural traditions. I could tell it was different for them, but they seemed to enjoy it. I was so exhausted after the whole week that I actually dreamed all night in the language we've been studying!

We have really come to a point where we are getting more comfortable with many of the friendships we have built and are really enjoying these social times. It took some time to figure out what was expected of us when we visit someone, as well as how to make them comfortable when they visit us. Now that we've got a few of these things figured out we have really been able to enjoy ourselves and get to know our friends better. We really feel like this is home and are glad to be here!

Everything is going well with the baby. I had a check up last week and our little guy is measuring right on track and is as active as can be. I love being able to feel him kick and spin around, especially while he still small enough that it doesn't hurt! We are just over half way now and are really getting anxious to meet him. Many people ask me if Zeke gets that he's going to have a baby brother. He can answer the question "where is mommy's baby" by pointing to my stomach, but I'm pretty sure that its all pretty lost on him for now. Fortunately, once the baby comes I'm sure it will kick in pretty fast! This Friday we are also very excited to celebrate Zeke's 2nd birthday! We are celebrating two days early since Fridays are the best for any sort of party. Considering all of our teammates, the short term team that will be out visiting us and all of our invited guests, its looking like its going to be a pretty big bash! We were able to find Zeke an amazing birthday present that we cannot wait to give him...more to come on that, along with pictures, after the big event. For now, have a great week!