Such a Spirtiual Thing to Do!!!!

Today I had a really disturbing experience! I went to practice Arabic with my friend at her store. I usually go and just sit and talk with her for an hour or so. She is rather forceful with correcting me so really she is just what I need! Anyway, first I should in saying I went to her "store" I am being really generous with that word. Her "store" is the size of a small bathroom. So we were just sitting there talking....as women do best... and these SUPER MUSLIMS came in, you know the fully covered can't see their face all black type. I always feel like they think I am dressed awful or that my hair is just creating such a problem here. So I am always uncomfortable around them. I mean come on, all you can see is two tiny dark eyes....a little spooky right???? Well, they were especially strange because they came in asking to see the clothes that were hung up directly over our heads. They were hovering.....I hate when people hover.......they were almost leaning on me...AHHHHHHHHH. (People here have no concept of the whole personal space idea, you know your bubble...) Anyway, as my friend and I were helping get down the clothes they supposedly wanted to see, evidently in that moment the lady was not focused on the clothes as we were, because they STOLE MY PURSE! They were gone about two minutes when I noticed my bag was not were I had left it. Which was about an arms reach from me. In the movement of us lowering the hanging clothes and offering our assurance the clothing was nice they had stolen my purse. I was shocked! I am not going to lie......I was super MAD! So many thoughts were racing through my mind. I felt so taken advantage of. It is hard sometimes to think good of people, you know to trust people. But when you get burned like that... The crazy thing was that it was head covered women, not poor dressed "wordly" women. I was robbed by supposedly the example of Spirituality. Hummm.. I asked my friend this question," So I am a foreigner right, and Follower of Jesus, NOT a Muslim. You want to me to like and respect your religion when my things just got stolen for the most spiritual among you....?" She was quiet, her usually holier than thou answers didn't seem to flow in this situation. I explained that though I was upset it was only things that I lost and things are not what brings happiness.


To be honest when things like this happen, I get mad. I really loose compassion for the people here. It is easy to do. They are so aggressive and critical. I always have to keep reminding myself that they really don't know any better. They have NO hope and nothing to live for. My husband reminded me as we were walking down the street with me crying after the whole ordeal that God has given us so much and I have to be an example of His Grace. Man, it is humbling...I just wanted to be mad at that lady. I wanted to take out all my feelings of frustration with this culture on her. I wanted to go off about hypocrisy and about how everything they do is for show. My flesh so weak. Praise God, He helped me overcome all my anger towards them.( For today, I have to seek continually to know the mind of Christ.) I know that lady as well as all the other Muslims just need Jesus. Only by His blood can they have a new life. Only by the Word can they really learn how to fear God and live Holy lives....I can't expect honesty and peace.

Everything is working Again!!

Not that everyone was just at the edge of their seats waiting for a blog entry or anything, but I sure am glad to have the Internet working again!!! We were traveling for a week or so and then we were home for about three hours and our Internet quit working. If you've ever lived in a third world country you know exactly what I mean!!
So much has happen in the last few weeks. I'm glad my husband was able to write about all the exciting things!
Another exciting thing happened today....not quite as exciting as 5 ex-muslim men being baptized but none the less exciting.....

*Our Daughter who is 19 months old used her little potty seat for the first!* I am crazy for writing about this, but come on, diapers are VERY expensive here!! :)

Frustration.

When I mention frustration I am sure everyone thinks I am referring to my own frustration.....not the case this time!! I am referring to the frustration of my three year old. Yesterday I was busy putting up the summer clothes and taking out the fall and winter clothes. My son came in the room and asked for some juice. I told him to go ask Fatima.(The girl who watches the kids while we go to language school.) I heard him searching all around the apartment for her. After a few minutes he returned. He told me she wasn't here any more. I laughed and again instructed him to go find her and ask her, because I was up to my ears in little kids clothes! Again I heard him screaming, "Fatima, Fatima, FA-TI-MA." A few seconds later I heard the door to his room open and I heard him talking. He ran into my room and very upset told me that Fatima was on the ground. (He proceeded to get down and demonstrate exactly how she was positioned on the ground.) He had been in there with her for a few minutes, right in front of her. He could not understand why she would not respond to him. He was very upset. I quietly explained to him that she was praying....(hmmmm..well, not really praying....more like reciting......try explaining how some praying is good and some bad to a three year old.) I was a little surprised she wouldn't even acknowledge his presence in the room. He has so many questions. It is a little difficult to teach our kids that Islam is wrong without teaching them to be intolerant. For example the Mosques here are such beautiful buildings and they have tall minarets, some with crescent moon shapes on top. My son thinks they are fascinating. Once when he asked to go there, I tried to simplify the reason why we would not be going by simply stating that Mosques are "BAD." *Well, it's true they are, but does that make the people who go there bad?? You can imagine the questions that came form my simple answer. I know this is just the beginning of the challenges we will face with our children living here. I would appreciate your prayers for wisdom in this area! I have a very curious little boy!

So...uh..where's the bathroom???

Where to begin.....we just got back from a trip around the country. We traveled to meet new believers and others who are searching for the truth. We drove all day on Tuesday and made a stop to give some materials to a young guy who wants to study more of God's Word. We were with him for a few hours and then it was back in the car again. We had a good friend of ours with us who is from here and is a new believer himself. He was such an encouragement to us. My husband and him talked nearly the entire trip about Jesus and The Bible. He is excited to know that he now has the truth. It seems like all this guy does is read the Bible!!! Even in the car....when there was a break in the conversation he was reading his New Testament. I felt sick at even the thought of reading in the car on those winding roads.

.... As we continued driving, it was getting late. Or friend mentioned that we were relatively close to the "city" where his family lives. Or to explain it better, the tiny little village very far away from evertything where our friend grew up. ( Lets just say I can see why he lives in the city now!!) Because we were so close he suggested that we stay in the village with his family.......uh....okay...I guess....So we continued on , first we came to the turn off of the main road. There was a sign there for the next city so I thought we didn't have much farther to go. Wrong! After passing through a very small city the road got extremely narrow and dark. We went further on the loosely paved road. After maybe 1/2 hour I saw faint lights in the distance. (Honestly at that point I was relieved to know that they at lest had electricity!) We soon parked our car and grabbed all our belongings and began the walk to his house. It was incredibly dark. Finally we arrived at his home. His super nice family welcomed us in. We sat and ate in their two room home. They have two rooms that do not connect. You have to go outside to get from one room to the other. They have a dirt floor, two light bulbs hanging down and NO bathroom. Not even an outhouse! So it was a different experience for us to say the least. Honestly, I had a great time. I am thankful the Lord is allowing me these opportunites. The time at their house was awesome for language practice and learning about a culture very different from the culture of the "city people" here in this country. We all wore the same clothes the entire time we were there, partly for lack of place to change and secondly because they would find it strange we change our clothes everyday. I have to be honest, when I asked to go to the bathroom and I was lead down a dark to path...... I started to get frustrated. I thought about how I didn't want to be there. I stopped and asked God to help me, to help me appreciate these people,their way of life, the hard work they do everyday, and their hospitality to us. God answered my prayer. We had a wonderful time. I can say it was truly by God's GRACE!

Babies and HOT Peppers

One thing I noticed after a little while of being here is that they don't sell too many high chairs. For the reason that if they did their baby would be sitting up way higher than everyone else. People here eat sitting on the couches they have lining their living rooms. They usually holds the small children on their laps or....they just let the kids run around like crazy. :) Whenever we eat with other people, someone always insists on holding our daughter while we eat. I am never comfortable with that situation. You know being the typical mother I worry she is going to spill something or break something. I also worry about what they might feed her. Well, the other night I had a reason to fear!!!! Our friend wanted to hold our daughter at the table. She seemed to like him so we started eating with her eating sitting with him. There was a small bowl of extremely HOT hot sauce on the table. If you have ever been in South America, it was similar to Peruvian Aji.....we are talking about super HOT. This stuff makes the hot sauce at Mexican restaurants seem like ketchup. Sooo...you probably know where I am going with this, our friend had no idea how HOT it was. He took a small piece of bread and scoop up the HOT sauce and popped it right in our daughter's little mouth. I didn't know how to say anything in Arabic at that moment. I screamed "NOOOOOOO!" Everyone at the table was running around trying to get something to wipe it out of her mouth and soothe the burning. She shocked at the new horrible taste in her mouth. I think it was the worst ten minutes of her little life. our friend felt awful. We assured him she was okay. He learned that night babies aren't to fond of hot sauce. As for me, I have learned in my short time being a mom in living in 3 different countries and traveling to many more that I can't shelter my kids. I can't keep them from being right in there with everything the country and the culture have to offer. Obviously it is not always easy for me or for them but I really believe if you want to build relationships with people you have to share your life.

Later that night our daughter was sitting with our friend playing on the floor, forgetting all about her experience at the dinner table.

"You are the KING!"

We all know that God loves it when we sing to Him and Praise Him. I just can't help but think He must enjoy it even more to hear those praises in Arabic. Sometimes when the Christians here are singing at church I feel tears coming to my eyes. There is one song they sing that I can understand almost completely, I love it. In the song they sing to Jesus and say, "You are the King."It is beautiful. They sing it with joy and thankfulness.
I have written several posts in a negative tone about Ramadan. Today I was thinking of something that has really blessed me this month. That being, while most people here are following strict Muslim practices and talking about all the things they are obligated to do, the Christians are learning about and experiencing even more the freedom they have in Christ. For example yesterday, it was awesome when our friend who was visiting us understood that he didn't have to fast during Ramadan. A little funny too! Anyway tomorrow Ramadan is over and everyone will be stuffing their faces all day. I am pretty excited myself. :) It will be nice to get things back to normal. Normal????.....I guess that wasn't the right word, back to the way things were before Ramadan.

"I JUST SAID THAT!!!......didn't I?????"

Okay, so I would not be covering all the bases if I did not write about Torture......I mean LANGUAGE SCHOOL! I am in language school here learning dialectal Arabic. Arabic as you may know is not written using "our" letters so this really complicates things!! So in other words it is not like how it was when I was in Spanish language school..... where I would just write down the new word in a small notebook. In Arabic there are sounds we don't have letters for!!! Like for example the H in English, "H-h-h-Hat" right??? Well, here we need to learn three ways to pronounce what to me always sounds like "H". There is a sound that is kinda like a "KH"....but honestly it sounds like somebody clearing their throat. Then I was taught another "H" sound. It has to come from deep in you lungs. When our teachers teach us they always put their hands on their upper chests and ask us to the same. They say we should be feeling vibration. Hmmmmmm.
Today, I probably repeated a word 25 times after my teacher because I just could not hear the difference in what he was saying as oppose to what I was saying! AHHH! Talk about frustrating, I kept telling everybody,"I just said that!!" It was pretty funny our two other friends in class with me were agreeing with me(Nice to have the support.) Our teacher was cracking up shaking his head no.
It is NOT easy learning a new language ever. If you have children I think things can even get a little more tricky...not to mention annoying when your three year old can pronounce Arabic letters better than you and all your friends LOVE to point that out. God is giving me the patience and the desire to learn. Little by little everyday that is my goal. When I was ending Spanish language school I realized how much I did not know and I suppose to be "finished" learning. The truth is I am still learning English. I like to look at learning new languages as a journey. It seems to be easier to grasp that way. Really though it is not easy and sometimes have to make myself leave my children and go to school, I know it is an awesome opportunity from God to be able to learn how to communicate His word with people who otherwise might not hear......But please pray for me!!!!!!!:)