Inefficiencies

You know what’s interesting about Egypt? The abundance of inefficiency everywhere! You could walk into the local Carrefour store (a WalMart type establishment) any time of the day and find every single check-out till (all 15 or 20 of them) fully manned and ready to serve you… even if you’re the only person in the store! Many shops I go to during the day have more workers than customers, yet at the same time, most of these workers are so lazy or specialized in their skills or areas of knowledge that you still can’t get the help you need. The work ethic here in Egypt is quite different from that of the Western world. I walked into a paint shop one time, and it was completely dark inside. When I walked in I saw a guy who had been sleeping with his feet up on the counter. He slowly got up, turned on the lights, woke up his co-worker, and waited for me to do what I came for. After finding out they didn’t have what I wanted, they turned the light back off and resumed their napping positions. Many shops are very similar to this. The workers will either be snoozing in a chair or sitting outside smoking sheesha while catching some sunshine. Despite the fact that most establishments have more workers than they need, about 1 in 10 people in Egypt are unemployed, according to the CIA World Factbook. Many Egyptians seem to see Canada (and other Western countries) as the land of opportunity for them. This weekend after church I met with an Egyptian man so I could tell him all about Calgary, where he is hoping to move in one or two or however many years it takes for him to get his immigration stuff sorted out. The thought of moving there is so far away, but he is already chasing the dream of it by finding out everything there is to know about living in Calgary. I must say, it’s quite the interesting situation to have a man twice my age with a PhD in medicine drinking in my every word, and even taking notes on what I’m saying. I guess the longer I live here the more I realize how different everything is from back home.

'Quick' Quirks

We are still in the midst of Ramadan right now. This means that members of the dominant faith continue to fast during daylight hours, not only from food, but also from water… even their own spit! Shortly before 5pm, just as the daily fast is about to break, the roads become mayhem. It’s almost as if ‘patience’ is no longer a part of Egyptian vocabulary (or the Arabic equivalent of ‘patience’… which I don’t know). Suddenly the roads are race tracks where every driver has their own circuit to complete in the shortest amount of time. One ‘lane’ roads become three lane roads. ‘One way’ streets are no longer just one way. Now, I put ‘lane’ and ‘one way’ in quotations because lanes are merely suggestions, as are one way streets. By 5:30pm, though, the streets are barren. It’s the quietest time of day, aside from mornings! This is merely the eye of the hurricane, though, because when these Egyptians finish breaking their fast, the chaos continues. Now everyone is full of food and have entered a blissful state of unawareness. Last week I was riding my bike home around this time and a little boy ran out directly in front of my bike while chasing a ball. He didn’t even look where he was going. I had absolutely no time to stop, so I hit him at a fairly high speed, knocking him to the ground. He got up right away and was promptly reprimanded by bystanders/family who motioned for me to continue on my way. My bike rattled and squeaked more than usual the rest of the way home. It seems the poor kid bent not only the front fender of my bike, but also my brakes as well.

Today I went to wash the dishes (yes, a rarity, but also a nice gesture every year or two). But as I turned the water on (or turned the taps on, rather), nothing happened! This was somewhat alarming, seeing that I am living in a desert. I thought it had finally happened. The Nile had dried up! Our water supply was gone for good. It was bound to happen eventually. People stand around all day watering their gardens and trees. People stand around watering the pavement in front of their houses to keep the dust down. People even stand around watering the sand to keep it from blowing around too much. Nobody seems to care at all about their amount of water usage. I imagined myself having to ration the remaining water out of the toilet bowl in order to make it through the week. I remembered the kitty had some water in her dish, still. I figured I’d drink that up before I dove into the toilet water. Well, before I got desperate enough to drink the cat water, my host family came home. They mentioned that this happens from time to time, and can actually take a couple days before the water comes back on! We decided to order pizza rather than waste our little bit of water in the fridge (which I had forgotten to include in my water inventory) on cooking. Just as we ordered from trusty ol’ Dominoes, the water came back on. Actually, it came on a number of hours ago now, and I still haven’t used any of it. Who needs water anyways? It’s just another crutch that we depend on to get us through each day, much like coffee. From this moment on, I’m going to boycott water! No, wait, I’m really thirsty. I’ll start my boycott after I have a nice cold cup of water. And maybe after tomorrows nice warm shower. And perhaps after breakfast, cause I always need some water to wash down my toast. Wait a second! FOOD appears to be another crutch I rely on to get me through the day. I shall boycott it as well! Boo food. Boo water! But… I like food. I also enjoy the odd cup or two of water. Ok, boycotting is dumb. I think instead of boycotting food and water, I am going to boycott boycotting. Who’s with me?!

Add a little 'spice' to your sermons

There comes a time in every pastor's ministry when they happen to 'spice' up their sermons, either intentionally or unintentionally. Click here to view a short little video clip of a certain 'Blake' fellow who unintentionally spiced up his talk a number of years ago. A couple weeks ago, I showed this video to the pastors at our church so we could all share a good Christian laugh together. A little more than a week passed by when one of the pastors (Dave) mentioned the video to a student I was talking to, just before the weekend church service started. So, I explained what happened in the video to this student, we had a good laugh, and then went and sat down in our seats for the service. That weekend the other pastor (Larry) was delivering the sermon. Part way through his sermon, poor Larry attempted to ask everyone to take out their schedules to have a look at them, but by complete accident, he said, "Please take out your sexual..." and then he stopped and proceeded somewhat like old Blake did in the aforementioned video. At that point I not only realized what a hilarious conincidence all this was, but I also saw how stupid little things like that can make the sermon a whole lot more memorable... if they're tied in properly.

Well, yesterday it was my turn to speak at our middle school church service thingy. Rather than deliver a boring sermon that was just talking and talking, I decided to try out a few intentional 'spices' that would hopefully make the talk more memorable. Now, I didn't bring out any naughty words like those pastors in the last paragraph did. No, that would probalby scar these poor kids. Instead, I worked a few demonstrations into my talk. The first demonstration was washing the feet of one of the students. I was talking about love and how it is more than just a word... it's an act. Wait, that's not right. I put it in better words than that. haha. It's an action. It involves DOING, not just SAYING. There we go. So, I demonstrated serving others by washing the dirty feet of one of the students up on stage. It was pretty gross, I'm not gonna lie. But I think it was also pretty memorable for the students cause it was so wierd and different.

Well, that was the least interesting illustration I did last night. For the next demonstration, I was making the point that love involves tolerating people. To make this point, I had a volunteer come up on stage and get as much saliva in their mouth as they could. Then I told them to spit in my face. The first person that volunteered was a sweet little girl. She couldn't bring herself to do it, so I had to find someone else. It's surprisingly hard to find someone to spit in your face these days. Eventually one of the boys came up and did it. Suddenly washing someone's dirty feet seemed a lot less nasty than it felt a few minutes earlier. I guess there's just something about the feeling of spit dripping down your forehead that makes the thought of dirty feet a lot more appealing. Anyways, the point of that was to give the students a visual representation of what happens to many of us each and every day. People spit in our faces with their unholy words and actions. Love is tolerating those people. Something like that, anyways.

And for my final demonstration, I invited each of the students that wanted to take a 'step of faith' to come up on stage for one last thing. Props to Mean Girls for this idea. I had the students face the back wall, and then fall backwards off the stage, without looking. Don't worry, we had a group of leaders catching them. heh heh. It was a neat little demonstration, though. Remember that girl that didn't want to spit in my face? She was the first person to come up for this, and she volunteered even before she knew what she was going to have to do. She was at the edge of the stage, ready to fall backwards, but just before she did, she turned to me and said, "I can't do it!" We all encouraged her to have faith (ok, that sounds kinda cheesy, but hey, it seemed cool at the time), and eventually she did it. While everyone else was taking their 'step of faith,' she came up to me and excitedly asked, "Can I do it again?!" That was neat. I thought to myself, "Sure! Devote your life to full time ministry and you'll be taking that 'step of faith' every single day for the rest of your life!!"

Sporadic Weather Changes

Do not fret, ladies and gentlemen. Just because I had a moment of seriousness does not mean that I cease to live a joy-filled life while I am here. Sure, some days may feel dark and depressing, but I always have someone alongside me who understands. Yeah it sounds a bit cliché, but I have Christ with me each day. He lived a human life here on earth so he could share in these feelings that we all have from time to time. Christ knows what it is like to feel the way we do, and He is there to share the burden alongside us. I thank each of you who have been praying for me. It makes a world of difference knowing that people are interceding on my behalf. Now, with that said and done, let's have some fun!

I was writing a few emails today, and while I wrote them I noticed the weather forecast on my browser. I have a nifty little plugin on my internet browser that displays the current and forecasted weather conditions for the next couple of days. Don't call me a nerd! It's cool and you should have one as well. In fact, here's a link where you can get a weather plugin for your browser (You need the cool and non-nerdy FireFox browser for this plugin to work)! Anyways, back to my story... I've been noticing that it's been cooling off quite a bit lately (I think I'm going to take a blanket to bed with me this evening) and I decided to see what the temperature was like these days. There are always three suns displayed in the forecast. One to show that today is sunny, one to show that tomorrow will be sunny, and one to show that the day after that will be sunny. It's always the same. But today I hovered the mouse over top of these icons for a few seconds so I could read what the predicted/current temperature was. It was at this point that I realized how bored meteorologists in Egypt must be. Today it was sunny and 26. I moved over to the next icon and it read precisely: "Abundant Sunshine and Nice". I moved over to the next one which read, "Pleasant with sunshine." See, it's ALWAYS sunny here, so it seems the weathermen have to get a little more creative in order to spice up their weather descriptions. By comparison, meteorologists in Calgary have a thrilling life, changing the weather description every ten minutes or so. I bet the rookie meteorologists all start off working in Cairo, and then when they get really good at making the various sunny days sound interesting, they move up to some location that actually has weather patterns. Some day, if they work hard enough and become some hotshot weather dude, they will move to Calgary and become Darr Maqbool. For those of you who don’t know who Darr Maqbool is, he was voted the most beloved Calgarian by FastForward Magazine. It doesn’t matter. He’s just some cool weather guy in Calgary. Now, what is the point of all this weather mumbo jumbo? Nothing! Aside from the fact that I get to brag about how nice and sunny it is here while you guys are all preparing for the winter freeze! Woohoo! Yesterday I was telling a few friends back home that it was 23 degrees while I was talking to them, and that I was feeling cold. Weird, eh? What's weirder is that I can never come up with examples of how to properly use the word 'eh' in a sentence whenever someone asks how we Canadians use it. Aaaand, before I close this evening, I would just like to point out that I still haven't worn anything warmer than a short sleeve t-shirt since arriving here from Canada. In the probable words of Albert Einstein, "Na na na boo boo! I'm better than yoooouuu!" And now I bid my humblest tidings to all. Good day!

A Serious Post

Have you ever felt that each passing day flies by faster than the last? Do you ever look back and wonder where all the days have gone? Perhaps you wonder to yourself, “How can I keep from getting lost in this mad rush of time?” Well folks, allow me to give you a recipe that is sure to slow down your perception of time:
1. Move away from all those who are dear to you
2. Move away from all that is familiar to you

Today is my day off, and on my days off I often realize how slow time is passing by for me while I’m in Egypt. It’s not that my days off go slow. They don’t seem to last long enough! And it’s not really my weekdays that go slow either. They seem to pass by quick enough. A week doesn’t seem to take very long to end, either. So wherein lies the problem here? It appears as though it is life itself that has slowed down for me. I look back to August 8th, when I left Canada, and it feels like an eternity ago! I feel like I’ve been away from everyone for so long and that any day now I should be heading back home to reunite myself with my previous life. But then I look at the calendar and realize that I haven’t even been here for 10 weeks!

Now I’m sure that one of these days I will look back and wonder where all the months of this past year have gone and think to myself, “It feels like only yesterday that I arrived in Cairo and was building that ridiculous food fight contraption,” but that is because I will have become familiarized with this new life of mine and will have developed deep and meaningful friendships that I won’t want to leave behind. But until that time comes, life crawls along as if it were in the wake of a snail. This does not mean that I find life at this moment miserable and unenjoyable, but merely long and uncertain. In these days of a slowed perspective, I am often left with mixed feelings about this ministry I seek to devote my life to. Some days I will wake and be energized and driven to accomplish the deeds of the day. Other days I feel I hardly wake at all. I simply drudge through the day not wanting to do even the simplest tasks. On days like these I am overwhelmed when I look at all that needs to be done in youth ministry. I sit there tired and helpless, wishing I were getting myself into a simpler profession. On such days I feel butterflies battling it out inside my stomach and I never quite know why. It is days like these that make time crawl by. It is days like these that make home seem farther away. And it seems like these are the days that have been coming in abundance during my stay. This is probably just because they take longer to get though than a driven and energetic day. Either way, if I want to succeed in this ministry, I must learn to conquer such days.

I wonder if my perspective has been set too much on surviving rather than on thriving. Perhaps I want to do just enough to get through each day without failing, rather than to get through each day screaming not only success, but legendary triumph as well! We all want to be people whom legends are written about, but how many of us have the passion to make a legend happen? I have been given the honor of coming to Egypt as an ambassador of Christ. I should go through each day boldly doing the work of the Lord because He has entrusted me to come here to do it for Him. This work should not be my own, but His, and the success of it should not rest on me, but upon Him! Maybe I have these drudging tiresome days because I forget to see the big picture and attempt to do things all on my own strength. But this seems so elementary! A lesson I have learned many times before! Well, let me tell you a little secret: no matter how smart you are and how great your memory is, sometimes you still forget. Look at the Israelites! God stepped in and miraculously helped them a number of times, and yet they always managed to forget about God and to build themselves idols to worship instead. At times I get angry at how stupid the Israelites seem to me, but that’s because I can see the bigger picture. If I step back from my life and take a look at things, I am no better than them.

So tell me, how do you fully rely on God each and every day? How do you get enough passion and zeal from Him to successfully make it through the unending days of time, not only as a survivor, but as a winner? I would like to hear your thoughts on this! I have enabled comments on my blog so that each of you may leave your thoughts and opinions. Alternatively, you can always send me an email with your thoughts as well.

Bad News *Updated*

Today my computer will not recognize the hard drive. This does not bode well. Word to the wise: back up your computer regularly. It does not feel good to realize that I may have lost years of work in a day. Pictures, school work, writing, webpages, secret projects... possibly all gone for good. I will keep you posted. The bright side of things is that this is only about a computer and not my life or anything crazy like that. Darn, I hate it when I see things in perspective. Makes my stupid problems seem so meaningless. Well then, I say to you, "Eat, drink, and be merry. That way you will experience happiness along with all the work God has given you." -Ecclesiastes something or other. My favorite book on meaninglessness. I like to read it every now and then to see life differently. Ever notice how contemplative you get when you're desperate? Maybe it's just me.

In other news, last night I went to a potluck with a bunch of catholic people. During the evening conversation, while sipping a beer, one of the men matter of factly stated that he is a priest. I think a part of my mindset only imagines priests as those dudes who wear black suits with a straight collar and no sense of humor or life apart from church. A fairly loaded preconception, I suppose. At any rate, now I know it's not true. One thing I found odd about the evening was that nobody prayed before their meal. Apparently blessing the food is just an evangelical thing? I don't know. Anyways, the reason I was there was so that I could find out about the prison ministries that take place in Cairo. One of my gracious supporters has asked me to visit a penpal of hers who resides in a prison here. I'm not sure what his crime was, but he has since become a Christian, and thus, I would very much like to go visit him and hear his story. Hopefully I will be able to do this on a semi-regular basis and be able to take students along with me for the experience as well. Anyways, I need to get back to my laptop so I can try to fix it. We're supposed to be showing a video on it tonight at youth, but I somehow doubt that's going to happen. We shall see.

*Update* My laptop is now in stable condition and data has been recovered from it. Once I get time to reformat it, ol' Lappy should be back to its happy old self.

Random Ramblings

This weekend at church I met a guy originally from Edmonton. Now, with me being from Calgary, the normal salutation from me in this event would be to kick him in the shins and then knee him in the head when he bends over (naturally, of course). But since this guy moved AWAY from Edmonton, I decided to give him an opportunity to earn my respect. He shook my hand, said how nice it was to meet me, a fellow Albertan (man, way to guilt me into being nice to him), and promptly mentioned that hockey had resumed in Canada. Now, by hockey I mean ICE hockey. When you mention 'hockey' here, people automatically think of that sport where people run around the grass in skirts with an upside-down cane and chase a ball. That's not the sport he was talking about. So yes, apparently ICE hockey has resumed on the continent of North America. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Yes, I know! I live in North America! Now why is this schmuck telling me all this junk?" I am bringing up hockey today because I was recently remembering how excited and united the city of Calgary became when the Flames not only made the playoffs (perhaps the first time this millennium? I don't know), but made it to the Stanley Cup game against... that other team, I forget. Really, nobody cares who won that Stanley Cup game. The Calgary Flames were the real winners because they sludged their way through cowpies and mud, past the skeptical critics and embarrassed fans, and they played their way into the Stanley Cup Finals. This action brought about the excitement of an entire city. Everyone drove around with flames flags on their cars, houses were decorated (and even painted, in some cases), and jerseys were everywhere you looked! Calgarians were suddenly crazy about the sport of hockey. If you went to the Red Mile after a game, people took over the streets and marched nowhere in particular, high fiving each other, shouting out cheers, and singing. It was an atmosphere like no other. Of course, I had never been to any country who was really into soccer. Until now. Football games here in Cairo are a big thing. I was driving through a more traditional part of Cairo last week (well, I wasn’t driving, I was a passenger… I haven’t be blessed with that opportunity yet), and while we were driving along, a major football game was on TV. Every shop in this part of town seemed to have a TV propped up somewhere in it. Surrounding the shops were crowds of people who stood or sat and smoked sheesha while enjoying the game. When the keeper made a good save, you could tell because the streets erupted with cheering. We didn’t have the game on in our car, but we could pretty much follow what was happening with it just by watching the crowds of people in the streets.

I mentioned sheesha a few sentences ago and I’m not sure if I’ve told you anything about it yet. Sheesha is the tobacco product of choice for Egyptians and is commonly smoked… everywhere. Sheesha is smoked using a bong-type apparatus which sends the smoke past boiled water (or something like that, I haven’t inspected any of these things yet) before it comes out of the tube that you suck on. Sheesha is usually ‘flavored’ with all sorts of scents… such as apple. Because of this, Sheesha smokers don’t give off the annoyingly nasty smell like that of a cigarette smoker (sorry to any smokers who read my blog, but hey, it’s gross and you can’t deny it). But yeah, that’s about all I know about sheesha. I think it’s illegal for me to take any out of the country, so don’t bother asking for any. One of the rules of my internship is that I can not smoke sheesha, so no, I have not tried it. Another interesting rule of internship is that I have to wear a helmet when I ride my bike, or else I face a $5 US fine. This would not be so bad if I were living in North America, for instance, but because I’m in Egypt it is a very weird thing. Nobody here wears helmets! People look at me weird enough because I’m white with big red hair, but when I have that ugly helmet on, people point and laugh and act as though I’m a clown! I don’t think this rule is for my safety. I think it is to enforce another rule: No dating during internship. As long as I wear this ridiculous helmet, I’m never going to get a girlfriend!

More Local Tidbits

Back home in Canada, fall evenings are usually fresh and crisp and are a great time to go out for a walk to enjoy nature. Evenings in Cairo (at least where I live) are not so pretty and, well… breathable. The reason for this is not only that the air cools down and causes the pollution to fall to ground level (sure, that’s nasty, but that’s not the only cause), but also because of farmers who burn their rice fields. It is actually illegal to burn rice fields in and around Cairo, which is why the farmers wait until it is dark to do it. Then the wind carries the smoke over to our lovely little neighborhood where we get lung cancer and die. All for the sake of rice. So I say to you, boycott rice or I’ll pay the price! Keep rice far away and I’ll live another day! But wait! Burning rice fields aren’t the only cause for the heavy air in our neighborhood. Nighttime is when the streets come alive and everyone goes out to eat and be merry (not just during Ramadan). Eating usually requires the use of charcoal to cook the food. Now when I say charcoal, I don’t mean those nice little briquettes we have in North America that smell of lollipops and honey when they burn (or so it seems when you compare it to the stuff Egyptians use). No no, this is Egyptian charcoal, which means more heat and way more stench. I’m almost beginning to like it, though. When I went over to St. Mark’s Cathedral the air was so ‘fresh’ and normal and boring. When I got back to my neighborhood it was nice and charcoaly. Sometimes familiarity is good, no matter how gross it is. I think that one of the reasons Cairo is so polluted is because most of the vehicles burn oil… or who knows what! When a minibus passes me (rather than hits me), it leaves behind it a trail of black opaque smoke. Think of Mary Poppins when they’re going on their little roof escapade. The smoke coming from those chimneys is thick and black, just like the crud spewing from the minibus exhaust pipes. Once I tried walking up it like Mary Poppins did, but apparently the smoke here isn’t quite as supportive. Enough about pollution, though! It’s really not that bad during the day… unless you want to see farther than 500m ;)

Another thing I keep meaning to mention, but always forget about, is what happens five times a day here. One of the five pillars of faith for the dominant religion is to pray five times a day. Because of this, every mosque (there are tons of them) is equipped with loudspeakers that play a call to prayer at five specific times each day (the time changes with the sun, I believe). These calls to prayer are sung by a male and broadcasted throughout all parts of the city. At night, if you are surrounded by mosques (or are high up in a building), these calls to prayer can often take on an almost ghostly character. This is because all of the calls to prayer do not start at the exact same time, or they do not sing the exact same words, and thus an eerie echoing of Arabic singing whirls through the windy night air and mixes into what resembles a wailing sound. So with this I say to you, Happy Thanksgiving! It’s weird living in a country and being around people who don’t even realize it’s Thanksgiving in Canada. The only reason I know is because somebody told me in an email! Craziness, I tell ya! Pure Craziness.

Wednesday Night - Part II

As we made our way to St. Mark's from the Metro station, we walked along narrow streets that were lined with parked cars and people. Pretty much everyone on these streets were headed towards the church. St Mark's Cathedral consists of a fairly large campus that is surrounded by large walls. After walking around half of the outer walls, we finally found the entrance to the church campus. The entrance had two gates, one that was wide, and one that was narrow. We found this pretty funny and decided to take the narrow entrance because "the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it" (Matt 7:13-14). Once inside the walls of the campus, we found ourselves walking through a sea of people. After wading into the waves of people we saw the great walls of the Cathedral lit up to our right. Many people were just hanging out in the courtyard, sitting on the steps or on the grass, seeming to have no intentions of entering the actual church. They appeared to be there for nothing more than the community of those around them. We continued on past them and entered the church.

As we entered the church, a woman who was sitting on a bench just inside the church jumped up and greeted us. She then proceeded to lead us to the middle isle where another man met us and walked us towards the front of the church. Once we got close to the front, we were introduced to an English speaking Egyptian man who took us to the front pews. Everyone was staring at us as we were seated. The pews we sat in were equipped with headphones so that the message could be translated into English for us. Directly in front of us stood the choir, made up of young adult men and women. To their left was a massive chair/throne for Pope Shenouda to sit in after he made his entrance. On the far right hand side of the stage was where all the Abunas sat during the service. Abunas are the Coptic equivalent of priests or pastors. Just before the service began, a blind man was led up to our pew and sat beside us. The atmosphere prior to the beginning of the service wasn't the least bit pensive. There were many technicians running around setting up their cameras and microphones and such. At any given point during the service there were between 15 and 20 broadcast quality video cameras recording portions of the service. These camera men (and the men chasing after them carrying the cables) were never the least bit discreet in their work.

The service began when Pope Shenouda entered from a door on the right. As he entered, everyone stood and clapped and cheered with enthusiasm. This wasn’t like a cheer after the end of a good worship song. No, it was more like the cheer people do when their favorite sports team scores a goal. All the video cameras swarmed around him during his entrance and followed him up to his seat on the stage. After he was seated the choir sang a number of songs for a good half hour. These songs were more of a performance than a leading of the congregation in worship. After each song was completed, the congregation would clap an average of about three or four times per person and then promptly quit. I don’t think anyone actually counts how many times they clap after each song, but it is for a noticeably short period of time. After the choir finished their performance, they went and stood in front of the pope and got their picture taken with him and a few of the abunas.

The next portion of the service was a question and answer period where Pope Shenouda answers questions that people have written on pieces of paper, or have emailed to him. It was at this point that the blind man sitting beside us picked up a microphone and started translating everything into English. We put on our headphones, and there he was, chatting away. I had a terrible pair of headphones during the Q&A session so all I heard was what sounded like someone Kazooing into a microphone. I put on another pair of headphones for the sermon at which point I realized that the translator was, in fact, speaking English, not Kazoolish. The sermon was about grace. It was long and repetitive. Watching how people engaged with the sermon was fairly interesting. One man was sitting at the front, facing us. He promptly fell asleep during the sermon. During the sermon, one of the Abunas walked in from the left side of the church and went to take his seat on stage. To get to his seat he had to walk by the man who was sleeping. As he approached the man, the sleeper jumped up from his seat, bowed down and kissed the hands of the Abuna. The oh so very tired man seemed very excited to see this abuna, so much so, that he promptly fell asleep after he completed this religious ritual of his. The end of the service came quite abruptly. Right after the pope finished speaking, everyone stood up, and a number of people started jumping over pews in an attempt to get to the front of the church near the pope. It was sudden and complete mayhem. Technicians were madly trying to wrap up all their chords and put away their equipment, all the while people were rushing around frantically trying to get who knows what from God’s chosen representatives. It was an interesting atmosphere. I hope to return during the daytime some day so that I can take pictures of the massive church, and hopefully, St. Athanasius’ shrine.

My Wednesday Evening Off - Part I

This Wednesday Evening, our regular youth activity was cancelled due to the October 6th Holiday (I think that's the actual name of the holiday). So, with an evening free from slavery, er... youth, Rob (my little brudder... that's Dutch accent for 'brother') and I finally made our way to the Wednesday evening service at St. Mark's Cathedral. St. Mark's Cathedral is the head of the Coptic Church where the pope (Pope Shenouda) resides.

To get to St. Mark's, Rob and I had to take the metro. Usually this is a fairly simple and uneventful process... but we're in the middle of Ramadan here, so nothing is as it should be. Our adventure began as we entered the metro station and saw that there was nobody at the ticket booth to sell us our tickets. The reason for this is that we were trying to get onto the metro shortly after 5pm, which is when daily Ramadan fast ends and everyone goes to eat a big feast. The metro is set up so that you purchase a ticket, then put that ticket into a little turnstyle type thing. It turns and lets you onto the metro station platform and then returns your ticket. After riding the metro, you leave the station the same way (by putting your ticket into the turnstyle), only this time it doesn't return your ticket. Well, as I said, nobody was there to sell us our tickets so we weren't quite sure what to do. We didn't want to sit there and wait for the ticket salesman to return because we didn't want to be late to the church service. So what did we do, you ask? Well, the natural thing, of course! We left the money on the ticket salesman's counter and hopped over the turnstyles. Shortly after hopping onto the metro we realized what a terrible idea this was. Sure, there was nobody at this station to sell tickets and to police the turnstyles, but after riding the metro for 45 minutes there would no doubt be people at the other station we were headed to. Well, I sat there slightly nervously, slightly worried that I would get imprisioned if I was caught without a ticket. After 45 minutes of sitting there we arrived at the station we needed to disembark at. We got off the metro, took a look around, and realized how unbelievably lucky we were. This station happened to be under renovations, which meant that the turnstyles were not in use. There was simply a guy sitting beside a garbage bin, who cared little about whether or not people had tickets. I discreetly picked up a ticket on the way out and showed it to the man. He waved us through and we were good to go!

The trip home was also pretty hilarious. Well, I thought it was really funny and entertaining... Rob, however didn't see the humor in it. We bought our tickets, just like normal, and walked onto the metro platform (the one under renovations). To get onto the platform we just had to hold up our ticket for the guy by the garbage can to see. Rob, for some reason, thought that showing this guy his ticket was all he needed his ticket for, so he threw it into the bin of discarded metro tickets. Immediately after doing this, Rob realized that he still needed his ticket to get out of the station that we were headed to. So I had a good laugh while Rob stood there kicking himself. In my pocket I found the extra ticket that I picked up off the ground when we first arrived at this station, so I handed it to Rob to keep him from committing suicide. In the end, the ticket I gave him didn't work and he had to hop over the turnstyle anyways, but nobody arrested us. After getting home I found out that the fine for not having a ticket is only like 15 pounds... 3 or 4 Canadian dollars. Pshhh, and here I thought I was going to have to give up my firstborn child if I got caught without a ticket! Stay tuned for Part II of this post where I tell you about our expierience at the Coptic church service...

Party all night long!

Yesterday marked the beginning of Ramadan. Ramadan is the month where members of the dominant faith fast from food during the daylight hours. Smoking and sex are also forbidden during daylight hours. At the end of the day, however, the fast is broken with prayer and a meal called the iftar. In the evening following the iftar members of the dominant faith generally go out visiting family and friends and have a bit of a celebration.

Facts about Ramadan:
- The month of Ramadan is a month where many people who aren't usually spiritual get very spiritual in their daily lives. People will feed the poor in the evenings and pretty much do everything they can to look good in God's eyes.
- It is not appropriate for me to eat food outside during the month of Ramadan. Although it is not against the law, it is very culturally insensitive, and is pretty much a cultural norm not to eat food in public these days.
- Traffic gets a lot worse during this month. Around 5pm, however, the roads are unusually calm. This is because around 5pm, the daily fast is broken and people are able to eat, drink, and be merry.
- Although Ramadan is supposed to be a time of great fasting, an extra 165,000 tonnes of food have been imported to Egypt for the month of Ramadan and people generally gain weight during this month.

Thank you to all of my supporters!

Do you ever wonder what that Scroll Lock button on your keyboard is used for? I know I have! I've just never cared enough to actually find out what it's for. Why do I suddenly mention this Scroll Luck button then? Have I finally cared enough to do some research on it? Well, no... BUT, last week I was updating my financial donations spreadsheet (Thanks again to everyone who has supported my trip!!) and suddenly our cat, Holly (Holly's are nothing but trouble, I tell ya) jumped up onto my keyboard and did a little cat dance. After looking around the room for a .22 calibur gun and not finding one, I decided to allow kitty to live another day. I shooed her off of my computer, though not with my shoe, and continued working in my little spreadsheet. This is when things got exciting! See, normally when you use the arrow keys in a spreadsheet the highlighted cell moves in the direction of the arrow key. Simple and boring. For ME, however, whenever I pressed an arrow key, all the cells would shift in the direction that I pressed, not just the highlighted cell. This is because the scroll lock button was pushed. You see, pushing scroll lock allows you to scroll through a spreadsheet without having to use a mouse, or having to move from the current cell you are highlighting... something like that, anyways. Ok, so it's really not that exciting, but it's something you can brag about now. If you're standing in an elevator, for instance, and there is only one other person in it, don't put up with the awkward silence. Share your newfound knowledge with this other person! "Hey, guess what? I know what the scroll lock button is for!" The other person will be like "YEAH RIGHT! Nobody knows what that button is for!" Then you can reply, "Well I do! And for only $9.95 I'll tell you what it's for." So you see? Everybody is happy here! I'm happy cause you supported me. You're happy cause you're making $9.95 every time you tell someone about our newfound discovery, and the suckers in the elevator are happy cause they get to find out what that darn Scroll Lock button is for! Not only that, but awkward silences will then be less rare in elevators, enabling you to squeeze out that quick fart that only seems to want to come out during a silent elevator ride (Quick tip: if a smell surfaces, blame it on the other person). Truly this is a glorious moment! Not only that, but it also proves that even cats are more useful than babies.

Now, how about a daily Egypt reflection? Ahh, ok here's an observation. It appears that nearly every expatriate (non-locals) employ maids at least once a week to clean their house. I don't know if this is to help support the economy, or because it is ridiculously cheap, or what, but even the simplest of families do it! My family doesn't even have a microwave or a dryer, or a DVD player or anything fancy like that, but they still hire a maid to come once a week.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Ramadan, the ninth month of the dominant faith's calendar. I will tell you some of the details about this religious month tomorrow, so be sure to check back!

Alright, here's a question for all you smart people out there: What time is displayed on the clock pictured to the right? If you guessed 4:44, you lose! The time displayed on this clock is 7:16. Although this is a clock, it does not rotate 'clock'wise. Just as Arabic sentances are read "backwards" from right to left, this clock rotates backwards. Speaking of clocks and oddities, Egypt had daylight's savings time this past Thursday. I believe that is a full month ahead of when the rest of the world does it!

So, what have I been up to lately? Well, church this past weekend was put on by the youth. That means lots of work for us youth staff! All three services that I was a part of ran very smoothly and were great to be a part of. I got to do the announcements in the form of a news broadcast with one of our 9th grade students. Judging by the feedback, it was quite a hit. Pastor John seems to think that drama is my thing. I find that surprising since my acting debut was only this past March! Have I mentioned that I've been given the role of one of the Wise Men for this year's Christmas pageant? I get to ride a camel for it!! Quick fact: Camels often pee for about 5 minutes at a time (this is second hand information, I hope to confirm this rumor at a later date). During last year's Christmas pageant, one of the camels decided to relieve himself for an elongated period of time, right beside the pianist. I find that funny in more ways than one.

Well, I don't have much time to ramble on today. I preached for the first time at middle school breakaway (middle school youth-church type thing) on Friday night. I think it went fairly well. Hopefully I'll get more comfortable with that sort of thing as the year continues. Many of the middleschoolers had very nice things to say about my talk, so that was nice. Tonight we are about to have our big meeting with high school students and their parents regarding April's ***** trip to Kiev Ukraine, which I will also be going on. So, I have to go get ready for it. In the meantime, read my September in Review Newsletter that you should have recieved today. If you didn't recieve it, drop me an email and I will add you to my mailing list.