Weekend Updates from Cairo...

once he woke up, Pastor Michael's
son wanted to be on stage, too

Hello Blog Readers -- thank you for your ongoing interest and support of our family.  We are nearing 18,000 readers of this blog since it's start at the end of April 2009; after a bit of a slow start, you've kept the blog averaging more than a 1,000 readers a month for the past 8 months!


This past week in Cairo has been a departure from our regular schedule with several irregular, but special, opportunities.

Pastor Michael led the worship

as is customary in Coptic churches,
the males sat separate from the
females in the sanctuary

Last Sunday, we did not meet with and speak for the CCF's weekly worship service; instead, Ken preached at the Shoubra Church of God through the invitation of their new Pastor Michael.  This was our first opportunity to participate in a regular worship service with one of the national Church of God congregations.  Preparation for an interpreter for a whole sermon was difficult--trying to break down longer sentences in smaller and
easily-translatable parts was quite the challenge.  Ken showed up ready to stick to a "manuscript", quite different from his normal preparation and delivery; however, before the service started, Shoubra experienced one of Cairo's increasing "rolling brown outs"*.  The service continued, in the dark--Ken's manuscript of no use to him once it came time to speak!  The only light in the room was a laptop screen that was intended to send song slides to a projector.  The darkness added to the difficulty of "reading the audience" for their understanding.  During the response song, the lights came back on and Ken was able to take a few pictures.  Pastor Michael and Ken served the communion elements to the congregation, and after the service, spent more than an hour in fellowship with a few of the leaders of the congregation.

This week, our afternoon schedule was a bit irregular, too, as Titus had after school rehearsals that went  on into each evening in preparation for his school's production of "Nancy Drew".  Titus loves drama and had been working toward a big role in his 5th grade year for his former's school's large, annual musical productions--but we moved the semester before he had that chance.  Now, in this new school, Titus has the opportunity to pick up that passion again, and we're excited to see him doing well.  He's playing the role of the henchman of the villains.  His international stage debut was last night, with two more performances today.

Saturday, our regular weekly CCF Kids! children's program will be interrupted -- well, at least our leadership of the program is interrupted.   We are happy to report that several of the parents are stepping up to lead the various components of the program in our absence--we helped to make the preparations, and they will take the lead.  We hope that this will help us get greater parent leadership in the future, too.  Anyway, our part in Saturday's program is interrupted as we participate in Grace's softball team's annual team versus parents game--the girls will attempt to beat their elders, while we all enjoy a cookout and some comical awards written by the coaches for each player.  Grace has really enjoyed this softball season and the friendships developed with these girls, so we're looking forward to ending this season on a positive note before they all face exams and some face saying "goodbye" as their families relocate to other parts of the world.  The downside of living among and developing friendships with other expats is that you say goodbye often as many are assigned to a location in 2-3 year terms.

Though we will be back with the CCF for weekly worship on Sunday, Grace and Titus will not have their regular weekly youth group meetings with the international church next week.  Instead, we will all participate in "bashapalooza" - the youth group's annual, end of the school year family event.  It's held well before exams and before many of the expats take off for the summer months.  There will be videos of the past year's activities and a goodbye and prayer time for graduating seniors.  But this year, there will be the added goodbyes to the youth leader, who has been here 3 years, and the leading female counselor, who has been here more than 3 years and instrumental in the children's ministry as well -- each of these families have been special to our kids and helpful in their transition to life in Cairo, so it will be hard to say "goodbye" as they move on to new chapters in their lives.

Meanwhile, throughout Cairo:

• The weather has been absolutely amazing, a bit of a wonderful and unexpected "spring" type season as the temperatures have been moderate through the mornings and evenings, though hot during a few hours of the afternoon.  That is ending this weekend as high temperatures break through and are likely to stay.  We had quite an "orange" day earlier in the week as a breeze became a strong wind; we posted on this earlier in the week with comparison pictures of the sky.  Flowers are in bloom throughout the city, and so are the flame trees, providing a beautiful orange canopy among the trees.

• *As mentioned above, "rolling brownouts" have been in effect through Cairo over the past several months in an effort to conserve energy in the metro area.  Though they are sporadic and usually less than 45 minutes, they are expected to become more regular and for longer durations as we get into the hot summer.  There has been some concern as to whether or not this will lead to increased crime as would-be-criminals seek to take advantage of dark, less secure situations--only time will tell.

• There was a random stabbing incident near the US Embassy on May 9, which had led to outrage by Egyptians and heightened vigilance by all expats, but has not led to any additional problems around the US embassy or any other parts of the city.  

• For the most part, demonstrations and clashes throughout Cairo have been actually down since last month.  Perhaps everyone was just busy enjoying the holidays of Easter and Sham el Nissim.  But yesterday, the US Embassy warned its citizens of scheduled demonstrations for today, Friday, May 17 by opposition groups; reportedly, the cause for the demonstrations is "advocating the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood and calling on opposition supporters to reignite the revolution".  Such demonstrations have been losing steam as of late, so it will be interesting to see how many show up, what happens, and how long it lasts.

So, that's a bit of what's happening around us.  We are excited for several of the upcoming summer activities, but we are focused on getting through the next few weeks.  Thank you again for all your interest and encouragement...

Pray for Egypt!