Maybe it's my advanced age :) - or, maybe it's a part of how busy I was over the past couple weeks - but I'm experiencing much more "jet lag" from this trip than in all my previous trips combined.
I did all right after my arrival on the evening of March 6, sleeping in a bit that Thursday morning. But since then, I have moments where I'm really awake, or really tired--and those moments seem to be at the wrong time! I'm not a full Eastern or Central Time Zone experience--it's just a few random hours, never at the same time, here and there throughout a 24 hour period. For example, last night, from 1:50 am till about 3:50 am--I was up; then, from about 9:00 am to 12:30pm today, I was in deep sleep.
Well, as I try to readjust, the world continues to spin and the calendar pages turn, keeping us in the midst of some exciting areas of ministry.
CCF continues their weekly worship on Sunday evening, but just prior to my USA trip, we began a children's program at the villas that had 15 in the first week, and as many as 30 in my absence -- this weekend, we had 19 children of all ages (including our 3) and that was with a large group deciding not to travel on Saturday due to area protests and uncertainties. The parental involvement has been strong with this new ministry, too -- we have enjoyed getting to know a few of the parents, and we're eager to involve many of them in the weekly leadership so that we can have greater opportunity to interact with all the parents. The parents have created a Facebook page to keep each other informed of the program details and to spread the word.
Of course, this excites the older CCF members and gives them great hope of another generation being blessed and enriched by Christian Education. We're excited and blessed by how well our own children (who are much older than the kids in attendance) are helping to enthusiastically lead and assist the younger children.
We are nearing the expiration of our ministry visa; next Monday, I will go to the main ministry building at Tahrir Square with one of the Egyptian national Church of God Pastors to attempt to renew this crucial visa. Please pray for access to the building, favor in the process, and the ability to have this renewed in one trip as opposed to multiple trips.
As Western Easter approaches, so do several spring events. We will once again host the annual sunrise Easter service here at the Maadi villas and garden. Unlike last year when Western and Eastern (or Orthodox) Easter were separated by only one week, our special events will span more than a month! We will have a Choir Cantata in April, and then the day after Eastern Easter, we will have the Egyptian festival of Spring, Sham el Nissim on Monday, May 6.
The weather is heating up, and appears to be settling into warmer temperatures continually after bouncing back and forth for a few weeks. We began sorting our winter/long sleeve clothes, for our summer/short sleeve clothes. It was a much shorter and milder winter than our first in Cairo, though this one saw a much greater, and unusual amount of rainfall. Keep in mind that Egypt has two seasons (summer for 9+ months, and then winter); and the average, annual rainfall in Cairo is between .5 and .75 inches (it may have been twice that in the past three months)!!!
Though political and financial concerns seem to continue to mount, at least according to the news, the day to day seems to continue without much interruption around us. The Nestle plant had a fire, and so there has been a shortage of their bottles of drinking water. The power has more frequently been interrupted for hours at a time. Other than that, all continues here in Cairo, Egypt.
Though all appears well, national church pastors decided that now was not the time to make a trip by train to Upper Egypt to visit congregations and pastors there, as we had planned to do this weekend. Within hours of that decision, we received a caution from the US State Department declaring that their personnel were prohibited from using the Egyptian trains until further notice due to unrest and other irregularities in the service.
The national Egyptian Church of God will hold their annual General Assembly meetings at the end of this month in Alexandria. I hope to be able to participate in those meetings again, depending on national events. A couple of the young leaders we met in January have been in touch and are eager to see us again when I go to Alexandria; a couple of our support congregations with whom I was able to share over the past couple weeks have pledged to help raise the funds necessary to send 3 Egyptian young adults with me to the Lebanese Ana Terzo young adult camp in August. I'm excited to get this worked out so that we can begin helping these prepare for that event.
Thank you for your continuing interest and prayers for our family here in Egypt. Continue to pray for my father, Bill, who will undergoing 7 weeks of radiation therapy for remaining cancer cells; pray for his strength and courage, as well as my mother, sister, and brother who will be patiently encouraging and helping him through this time. Thank you.
Jet -lag is getting worse for me the older I get too. I used to only have it West to East. Now I have it both ways and it lasts more than a week, despite the fact that the time difference is less in Europe than in Asia. We're just getting old, man.
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