The kids are out of school for the next couple days, for the election (see below), giving them a four day weekend. Last night, we attended an end of the year party for the youth group of the local community Church that Titus and Grace are now attending. (Titus bumps up to Middle School youth during the summer activities, while Grace moves up to High School youth.) The end of the year party is a bit early because there are so many different school schedules holding finals over the next month, graduations, and release for summer break, so they do one big bash now and then a few things over the summer since many return to home countries for break.
The Maadi Community Church Youth Bashapalooza was a family event that featured a welcome to incoming 8th graders into the H.S. group, 5th graders like Titus were invited but not recognized, but the focus of the evening was on the 6 graduating seniors, all of whom had spent many years in Egypt and in the youth group. 4 of the 6 will return to the states for various college options, 1 will go back to her native Holland, and the other will remain in Egypt. As with all farewell to Senior moments, there was the wonderful bittersweet moments of appreciation and memories shared. A few tribute videos were played of all the youth in the past year of events, as well as of just the seniors. But the highlight of the evening was a parody video with the youth counselors and youth pastor (GJ) saying, "Bye, Bye, Bye" to the seniors. I've witnessed a bajillion such videos through the years of youth ministry and i rolled my eyes when this clip started to play--by the end, I was crying from laughter--I watched it again this morning and I was still crying because I was laughing so hard. The humor is not in the staging, or the resurrected dance moves that need to be forgotten, nor in the other typical parody video moments -- no, what's comic genius is the youth counselor (Chris) who just drifts or stands throughout the video awkwardly. His "participation" is hilarious!
The Maadi Community Church Youth Bashapalooza was a family event that featured a welcome to incoming 8th graders into the H.S. group, 5th graders like Titus were invited but not recognized, but the focus of the evening was on the 6 graduating seniors, all of whom had spent many years in Egypt and in the youth group. 4 of the 6 will return to the states for various college options, 1 will go back to her native Holland, and the other will remain in Egypt. As with all farewell to Senior moments, there was the wonderful bittersweet moments of appreciation and memories shared. A few tribute videos were played of all the youth in the past year of events, as well as of just the seniors. But the highlight of the evening was a parody video with the youth counselors and youth pastor (GJ) saying, "Bye, Bye, Bye" to the seniors. I've witnessed a bajillion such videos through the years of youth ministry and i rolled my eyes when this clip started to play--by the end, I was crying from laughter--I watched it again this morning and I was still crying because I was laughing so hard. The humor is not in the staging, or the resurrected dance moves that need to be forgotten, nor in the other typical parody video moments -- no, what's comic genius is the youth counselor (Chris) who just drifts or stands throughout the video awkwardly. His "participation" is hilarious!
(You can see other videos at the Maadi Community Youth Facebook page or search for them on YouTube).
Today and tomorrow, May 23 - 24, Egypt's 50 million+ citizens will cast their votes in the first Presidential election following the January 25, 2011 Revolution that lead to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. There had been an "election" years ago that led to a sweeping Mubarak victory, but most feel that election was rigged and staged as an appeasement to pro-democracy supporters. Mubarak is still very much in the news today, actually receiving some votes as a write-in candidate from citizens abroad, and having a ruling in his favor that says he is eligible to vote.
Of course, no one is expecting a Mubarak victory this week. Who will be the next Egyptian President? No one knows, and few feel confident to even field a guess. There were 13 candidates to choose from after 10 were disqualified by the Elections Commission; 2 withdrew recently, but their names will remain on the ballot, which means they are likely to receive some votes despite their withdrawal.
Prior to this week, the media and most felt it was a 2 man race between former physician & Muslim Brotherhood activist Abouel Fotouh, and Amr Moussa who is a 'secularist,' former Arab League chairman, & former Foreign Minister under Mubarak. The two were even featured in a recent debate.
Amr Moussa had seemed to be the leading non-Islamist candidate, but many Christians and secularists were torn between him and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, and worried that splitting their vote between the 2 would just lead to greater numbers for the Islamist candidates.
To further complicate things and continue splitting the vote, a third candidate began making strides in the past couple weeks . Hamdeen Sabbahi has surged as a non-Islamist candidate who does not have ties to the former regime and his gained in popularity among the working classes.
The Islamists candidates also worry about vote splitting. Abouel Fotouh seemed to have this election wrapped up once Salafi (Muslim fundamentalist) supporters started lining up behind him last month. His anti-Israel rhetoric in & since the debate with Moussa created some concerns throughout the country. Early returns from the Egyptian absentee ballots collected internationally showed him leading, as well, but the final tallies showed that the largest percentage were awarded to new Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy, with more than 30%.
This surprise support from Morsy catapulted him back into contender status after being relegated to an afterthought in recent weeks. The new absentee support led to a lot of citizens jumping back on the Muslim Brotherhood bandwagon and turning out to a Cairo rally a couple nights ago where Morsy spoke for over an hour. Morsy had made statements in recent weeks that "there was no such thing as an Islamic democracy" and that the goal of the party was for democracy; however, in the rally, he seemed to fall back to previous Muslim Brotherhood platforms that "Islam is the answer," and Sharia law being the goal for Egypt.
All that to say, there are no longer any clear front-runners and with the polls open, the leadership and direction of Egypt now rests on each ballot cast by the Egyptian citizens. With the potential of so much vote splitting, the likelihood of a runoff now seems evident -- the top two candidates from today and tomorrow will appear on a new ballot June 16-17 for the final decision. The hope of Christians throughout the country has been that one of those two will be a non-Islamist candidate.
PRAY for Egypt today and tomorrow...
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