Bad Attitude=No Posting!!

Okay, so I always try to be extremely honest when I post anything right?? So, that's why I haven't written anything for a few days. The good news is God is faithful to always help if you allow Him to. After a few days of feeling sorry for myself and moping a little, God is really doing a work in my heart. I know the bases of my problem stems from my lack of FAITH. It is so hard for me to see the future full of Christians in our work here in the country. I get in the attitude sometimes that we are wasting our time. I KNOW this is not true, but in weak moments it so easy to think this way. I think of what an awesome man my husband is, how God created him with such a zeal and so many talents. It is hard not to think of him working in a different place with many many converts. (the grass is always greener on the other side....) I know he struggles the same way at times. I hear of our friends ministries and often, though I am ashamed to say it, my delight in what the Lord is doing in their work is a bit tainted by envy. I know very well there is great sin in these thoughts of mine. I know it is not God causing these thoughts. These are struggles that the devil loves for me to have . I can't praise the Lord when my heart is filled with discontentment.

I have been very ungrateful in these last few days. I don't write any of this for anyone to feel sorry for me, I really don't want anyone reading to think I want to spread negativity. I only mean to share everything of my life here serving God. I want to be transparent. I do wish we had some women here to meet with in Bible studies and women to have Christian fellowship with, ladies meetings, etc. I have in these past few days not really been defeated by the lack of this, but by the lack of faith that God will work. It has been my negative thoughts that have kept me in a bad attitude. I am not very good at waiting. I know God is working. Tomorrow I am going to go to a new friends house for the first time. She is married and has one son. She is related to Suffian. We are praying hard that the Lord will open her heart. She has expressed some interest in learning about Jesus. I know God has a purpose for my life. I know I am very fortunate to be in His will. I am praying for faith like I have not had before.

Time in the Kitchen.

I just wrote this entry, pushed publish, and.....it all erased because our internet is acting crazy! So here goes again.
This past week I have really done at lot of cooking. I enjoy to invent and try new things. So usually I like to cook, but this week was a little different. I had to make traditional food for the national people here. To me it was really intimidating. Here the food is a HUGE part of their culture. For example often when we are invited to someone's home we are served serveral different salads and side items and often two main course meals. Obviously too much food!!! Here that is their way to show off and a way of making the guests feel special.
We had invited some of Suffian's family over for dinner. I knew I needed to make a elaborate spread....but...I wasn't really sure where to begin. So I called my friend. I have known her now for over a year and we have a very close friendship. She came over and gave me some recipies. I was very grateful but still a little nervous.
Praise God my friend amazingly stopped by exactly the time I was begining in the kitchen. I opened the door and she smiled and said, "Are you ready to get started???". I was sooo relieved! As we cooked we talked about everything. Everything from the importance of having faith to our Presidential canidates. We are close friends and I thank God for her always being such a help to me. There is just one thing.......though we have simliar personalities, we like the same things, we can both be loyal friends, our differences are very deep. We are friends only on the surface. It creates such a burden in my heart. Though we talked many times about Jesus Christ and the wonderful grace He gives, she has yet to accept Him as her Savior. She doesn't understand everything yet. Tradition and pride are very difficult to over come. I am praying God will work through our friendship. I pray that God will cause me never to go blind to her spiritual need, a need I know she knows she has.

My "Liberal" Friends.

I just had a long talk with two of my friends. I have known these two sisters for about six months now. When the students were here last summer they began the friendship with them, and now we still get together a few times a week. First I will describe what these two "liberal" (in their own words) girls look like. Not too uncommonly for early twenties, they do not wear head coverings. In addition to this they almost always leave their very long hair flowing. They wear whatever they wish. Sometimes very reveiling clothes. In the summer it is not a big deal to them to go to some areas in the country and wear a bikini to the beach. (not in their home city though.) They also believe they want to marry for "love". They say it is no big deal to them if their husband is a Muslim or not. - In Islam a woman is only permitted to marry a Muslim man. They are pleased to see this country opening up to the Western way of thinking. They are very educated girls. The youngest is even starting her own business where she will have a man working for her. These two also are in favor of freedom of religion in their country. They believe people should be able to believe whatever they want. They feel really burnt by the idea that how spiritual you are is based on whether you cover your head or not. They both said they beileve God is really going to judge people based on their heart. HMMM??? I think so too! For the next few minutes I shared how I completely agreed with them about God looking at the heart. I shared my testimony and we talked a lot about what the Bible says about sin and the forgivness of sin. I am praying that God will work in their already open minds. I thank God for the two girls here this summer who began such a good relationship with them. Their testimonies have not been forgoten by these two girls here. One of them told me their father asks about the "two American girls" all the time. I think God is working in their hearts. They came to a few Bible Studies awhile back. Please be in prayer for them.

FIRE!!!!!

Two sad but interesting events have taken place in the last week. There have been two significant fires here in the city where we live. The first was serveral blocks away and was caused by old electrical wires. The fire burned up clothing stores and a lot of people lost a lot of money. There were huge clouds of black smoke rising into to he sky for over an hour. It was a little scary as I saw many rescue squads and fire trucks racing towards the smoke. (Also I bet you can guess some of those scary thoughts that passed through my mind.)
The second fire just happened yesterday and it was a little too close to home. It was in the building right next to us. In a residential area. I was in my kitchen cooking when I saw smoke rising from the apartment next to ours. We watched as people ran from all around to see what was happening. After a few moments my kids also wanted to see what we were looking at. We opened the window to see if we could judge the severity of the situation. After just a few moments we heard horrible screaming. We quickly shut the windows because it was not a "G" "rated event any longer. I don't think the screams were coming from and injured person, but it is possible. It is possible people were unable to get out by themselves or maybe they were just screaming for their losses. Whatever the case it was awful. My children were scared, but we took the opportunity to teach them to pray for people in need. We asked God to please use this situation to somehow bring those affected to come to know Him. We have a close friend from Pakistan that after being in a horrible plane crash through a series of crazy events he came to trust Christ. God can do anything, we believe that! I just thought I would share about these fires because it was a little out of the ordinary. At least I hope.-Just a side note, the spell check on blogger is not working right now and spelling has always been my worse subject...so forgive me.=)

Thanksgiving Sunday

Today was a great day. It is awsome to see all God is doing! You can read about today also on my husband's blog, so I will just add some details. Today was our first day of Sunday School. I decided the best place to begin was the begining. There were three Arabic speaking children and also my kids. I taught in both Arabic and English. I had to translate everything. I wanted to be sure everyone understood. Praise the Lord it was an easy lesson to translate. We memorized Gen. 1:1 in both Arabic and English. I was excited to see my son saying the verse in Arabic. It was a language lesson and a Bible lesson for everyone. The parents of the other children are aslo Believers and they wanted their children to be able to attend Sun. School. Praise the Lord we have the opportunity to provide this for them.

Also one of the big events of today was the food. We had two tables full of food and drinks. After almost two hours of fellowshiping every last crumb was eaten.....I am not joking I saw one of the young boys holding the serving bowl of chips over his head to ensure every last tid-bit fell into his motuh! It was great to prepare and serve the food.

I can honestly say I am very thankful to the church we have been attending for the last year they have been such a huge help to us with the culture and the language. I am also very thankful the Lord is having us step out now on our own. I do have to admit, just so everyone gets the whole idea...For over a week I have been very nervous, I guess it is better to say scared. Not about whether or not everything would go well or not. But about how loud the singing would be, (we could be heard on the street below.)about whether or not one of our unexpected visitors would knock on the door.(two people came yesterday during our ministry day.) I was worried someone who lives in the apartment might have read the article last week (an article about the danger of foreigners bringing their religion to this country.) and decided they needed to report us. So many little negative thoughts were racing through my mind. I asked God to clear my mind and cause me to focus on Him and on all that He wants done here. Praise the Lord everything went well. God gave us protection and He blessed us all greatly. I Praise God for allowing me to serve Him. It is wonderful to thank the Lord for all He is to us and for all He has done for us.

Out Numbered.

Yesterday one of my friends invited me to go with her to her work for their monthly Lucheon. I was a little nervous. She assured me everyone was interested in meeting me. I asked if I could bring my daughter because as long as she is there I always have a distraction. A very beautiful little ice breaker! She told me to bring my daugter and meet her at noon. So we got all dressed up in our dejellbas (traditional pretty robes for this counrty.) And waited below our apartment for my friend. When we first arrived I was a little surprised by how plain the office was. My freind works at the deligation of education here for the city. We went into the banquet room where there were a few women cooking couscous on single standing gas burners. We walked around and I met everyone. My little girl was a big hit. She starting screaming, "Mommy look couscous." as soon as she saw the plates. You would have thought it was candy or something. All the ladies were so pleased by her excitment. I felt relieved. We ate and had a good time of conversation. I only had a few minutes of akwardness when the majority of the women went to pray. I heard one of them say, "She doesn't pray." She was talking about me. In this culture that is a way of describing someone to be unspiritual. My friend looked at me to see if I had heard or if I understood. I know she knows all about what I believe. I gave her a look and she told the girl in my defense, as if I did not hear the comment, that that was not the case. She explained breifly I pray in a different way. And from there they began on their favorite thing to judge spirituallity by...their clothes. I could handle that conversation. We talked about that for a few minutes and then I changed the conversation to ask where one of the women bought her shirt. WHEWW. It can be a little nerve racking to be so out numbered. But praise the Lord we talked about many things and I believe I made a few new friends today.

In the Hospital:

Would you prefer Extra Modest or Sanitary????





An interesting article I read on the news a few minutes ago made me want to laugh out loud. It was an article about how Muslim Women in the healthcare profession in the UK are breaking health codes by refusing to wear clothing with their forearms exposed. This is a medical concern because it is impossible to be completely clean from you elbows down if you wear long sleeve shirts. So these very spiritual women would chose to potentially spread dangerous germs, rather than have men around them lusting over their forearms. HMMM..... I can't imagen how this idea is one the bases of spirituality for Muslim women. I am asked often if we, as followers of Christ believe it is wrong to show our arms. I always answer that we believe it is very important to be modest, but we do not have strick rules in the Bible about our sleeves. (Nor head coverings for that matter.) I mean there is so much more to loving God than how we dress. I am not sure, but maybe these women in the UK who have such a problem with the rules, maybe they are just trying to see how far they can go. How much they can play the card of freedom of religion. God reminds me more and more that my life as a follower of Jesus is about HIM! Living everyday to try and please Him, not trying to judge and show to others how spiritual I can be. I just thought this was kind of interesting and I wanted to share it. Maybe those of you in the UK who read this have heard about this issue??