Today was an interesting day. . . I definitely woke up with my throat hurting sooo bad. It turns out that I felt like I had a fever as well. You could call today the day of sickness for sure. The guys came up to the apartment where I still had my head under a pillow, but they had breakfast. Then I decided to take some medicine, drink some gatorade, and try to get through the day. Papa told us that we had to read Acts ch. 17 to figure out Paul's testimony to the greeks and apply it to our own testimony. It was very interesting because it corresponds with the islamic people. I guess it really applies to all people: idolizing the world instead of worshiping God. We talked about how different it is telling our testimony to a non-believer than a believer. It is hard being in a region where Christianity is looked down upon. Tomorrow starts Ramadan and it is interesting because all the mosques, all the apartments are decorated in what we would call Christmas lights. I kind of understand now how other religions feel when we have Christmas Break or Easter break, because right now the entire city shuts down from dawn until dusk (around 7:00 pm). It doesn't matter if your Christian or not, but the entire city will be shut down. Once we talked for a while, Taylor prayed for my sickness to go away. It was really strange because about 3 minutes later I felt 100% better. I really thought I wasn't going to make it today, but after praying/drinking lots of gatorade, I felt better. Even though I started to feel better, Scott started to feel nauseous. (The calm before the storm).
We made our way to one of the poorest areas of Cairo. As we drove around, there were donkeys, horses, and goats tied up in the middle of the road. There was trash everywhere and many people out walking. It is crazy because there would be boys on bicycles carrying huge blocks of ice on their bike, women carrying huge baskets and bags on top of their heads, and men sitting down on the side smoking. It is a very different culture, but in this particular area the chaos seemed to reach out in every direction. We pulled up to the church where Papa told us, "Guys, now, I need to ask you something. Get out of the car, don't look around, and go straight into the building. We want to not show ourselves to anyone. This is the protection of the building and not the protection of us necessarily." I looked at him and internally said, "Well, okay. That is a little nerve racking, but sounds good." I was the first out and I walked silently and quickly into the building. I walked up to the first floor where I heard music playing. We walked into the room and sat down in the back. (There was wonderful air conditioning!) We listened to the passion in the pastor's words even though we couldn't understand what he was saying. We ended up being moved behind the stage (stage left? lol) where we could listen to the music and service. During this time Papa brought a shot of B6 for Scott because he was feeling so nauseous. Scott then got the opportunity to share his testimony which was really awesome to hear. After the service ended, we were told by the lead pastor that he wanted to make us lunch and if we would like tea or a "bebsi." We all said bebsi because we are americans. haha. We walked up the narrowest stairs I have ever seen to an apartment that had wonderful couches in it. The door to the balcony was open where we could hear the sounds coming from the streets. Taylor has a film camera and headed toward the window. We were stopped by one of the egyptians who told us we should not put ourselves in such a place in fear of someone seeing us. We stayed in the living room while Papa talked to us about part of his testimony. We all at that time looked terrible and felt useless. I think that the pastor of the church saw this and said, "It is 1:30 and lunch will not be ready for about another hour. You go into the rooms and sleep till that time." It was such a blessing because I really did not feel good, and I knew that I needed a nap. Typing this right now, it is crazy to me that he let us go and sleep in their beds. haha. They are such loving people. Needless to say that nap with Joy was amazing. : ) I woke up an hour and a half later, and as with the egyptian timing lunch was late.
Lunch was very interesting. haha. First they brought out the rice. The rice looked and smelled SO good. Next, I found a man carrying up a tray with something black on it. I looked, and there were about 15 fish that had been cooked. Not the normal fillet fish, but the whole fish. So we sat down at the table, and one of our translators told us that he was going to give a lesson on how to eat fish. He proceeded to put his hand inside of the fish and pull it open. Then his other hand wrapped around the whole head. While he pulled the head up, the spine and some of the ribs came with the head. . haha. It was very funny because I felt like I was on indiana jones or something. However odd it felt to pull a fish's head off, the fish itself tasted so good. The rice also had a pumpkin spice flavor? haha. It turns out they cook their rice by first melting down sugar in a pan, adding oil and garlic into a sauce. Then they put in the rice and add Indian's 7 spices. It tasted like pumpkin pie though. lol. It was really good. : )
After this, two of the Egyptians we had been with shared their testimonies. I love hearing their testimonies because it seems like the Lord brings these people to Himself by showing them certain things. Being Christian is such an americanized thing now, that most people miss out in the true meaning of it. But in Egypt, it is illegal for a muslim to convert to christianity and if they are found out to now be christian, they will be killed. This is something that blows my mind. I ask myself the question that if I was in this country to begin with would I give up literally everything and my safety to follow Christ? I can't say, because I know God put me in the US for a reason. I know now that he has me in Egypt for a reason.
After spending more time with these people, we headed to this crazy Ice Cream place. . . which was very interesting. haha. Mine was a mango smoothie, topped with bananas, topped off again with ice cream and other mango sauce. The ice cream here though tastes like frozen whipped cream. haha. It was good, but I started feeling really bad again : (. We ended up going back to Papas house where we worshiped with one of our translators for about an hour. He sang American songs in Arabic and it sounded so awesome! Its so crazy to me that Chris Tomlin's songs are being used in Egypt! haha. I want to tell him that. . . if I ever meet him again. I took my temperature then and found that I had a low grade fever, which I took some Ibuprofen for and feel much better now. Papa made us all frappaccino's (egyptian style with cinnamon, sugar, and milk) and then we had dinner which consisted of a backed pasta and egg casserole with cinnamon (cinnamon is a major spice here). It was surprisingly good. Then we had cake for dinner. . . as you can see Egyptians love to eat!! haha. It is crazy.
We made our way back to the apartment and many things started to go wrong: Scott and I were really sick today, CJ didn't know that the tuition date had passed and was dropped from a very important class, Marlie found out that the job she applied for didn't get a huge part of the application which took her forever to type up, and Scott's friend in Austin apparently got in a really bad mugging situation. All of these things kind of brought us down and so Joy said, "Guys, we need to pray right now and make sure that our focus is not coming off of Christ." We sat down together and prayed for all of these things, and we knew that we have God on our side and that he was going to use us.
Tomorrow we have a daunting task. We are going back to the same church but this service is the student ministry you could say. We are running the whole service which means we will have worship, 2 testimonies, and a message. These kids though are kids from very broken families that are into sex, drugs, and everything else of the world. They have been coming to this church, but most of them are not saved. We have the opportunity to bridge the gap between what they think about christianity and what it really is. CJ is going to be sharing her testimony, which is very hard to speak in front of a large group of people. Prayers for her are much needed. I ask you guys to pray for all of us as we go into this task tomorrow that God will move many and that more of these lost children of God will find the peace and love of Christ so that they may be saved.
*** http://countrystudies.us/egypt/67.htm *** This is a good website, however, it doesn't touch the bases on many things that are very odd about Islam. I will try to get the details to you later.
Ramadan starts tomorrow!!! So, I have a challenge for you. In the muslim tradition, they fast from food and drink from dawn till dusk. I really feel called tomorrow, as it is the beginning of Ramadan to fast for these people. To have their hearts be broken that this is not everything in life, that their religion is missing something and that is Christ's sacrificial love. I challenge you to fast tomorrow for all the muslims in the world that God would pull them towards Christ. Pray for them hourly and really seek Christ and the truth in all of this. Do your research about the Islamic faith.
THANK YOU GUYS!! I can't do this without your prayers! Please pray for our health that we will all feel as good as we can do do God's work here! Love you : )
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