Emily & Ben in Egypt

Three quick thoughts

Several quick things regarding our life of recent:

1) We had a youth overnighter at the church on Friday night. We had a great time chasing one another around, eating pizza, throwing water balloons off the roof, and not sleeping.

2) Emily is busy; I am domestic. Emily works 40+ hours a week and is simultaneously taking classes for her MA in Nursing, and accordingly, I have been doing even more cooking, cleaning, laundry, and shopping than usual. Fortunately, my job allows me to be home a good bit, and I love cooking. I guess this is mainly to say that we are surviving an especially busy period of our lives.

2.1) And I think I should make an addendum to this thought, since as I was writing it, Emily walked into the office and told me to call her "McGuyver". She just fixed the washing machine with duct tape. Good news is that I get to do laundry tomorrow, bad news is that our AC is still broken, and we have just a drizzle of water in the kitchen. (oh yeah, and it will be 95F this week)

3) Next week Emily and I have wonderful week ahead of us. Our dear friends Ryan Bonfiglio and Jamie Butcher are getting married in Princeton, NJ. Emily and I are going to be in the wedding and will thus be making a quick trip back to the states. We are thrilled to see our dear friends, not to mention eating pork with impunity. We are super excited, now Emily just needs to write a paper, and I need to write (and preach) sermon. So first things first.

Nothing too novel of recent, but I wanted put something up as I will have little to no time this week.

Ben

Exodus 32: 7-14 Sermon

I thought it might be nice if I posted the sermon I preached this morning. So check it out here if you are interested.

Ben

Eid Mubarack عيد مبارك

Happy Eid Al Fitir,

Last night Ramadan ended, and the country is now celebrating one of the biggest religious holidays of the year (think Christmas). This is bittersweet; it is easier to accomplish tasks and it is again culturally appropriate to eat and drink in public during the day, but there is something great about Ramadan. Last night at church a some friends told us the night after they returned from the states they went for a walk during the time that Egyptian Muslims were breaking their fast.

They only walked about 1/2 mile, but in that time four groups of people on the street asked them if they would like to join them for dinner. So in someways we will miss it... but in other ways not at all.

I also thought I would post a few photos that show the general disparity in our everyday life. The first few are from the beach last weekend. We live 2 hours from the Red Sea, so we slipped away with a few friends and spent 24 hours relaxing at the Red Sea.

Playing Volleyball on the beach

Crosswords by the pool

Relaxing in the pool

So this was obviously wonderful and relaxing. We returned home to Cairo and Emily got busy on her first paper for school, and I worked on the sermon I preached this morning. But life in Cairo rarely goes as planned. This week's drama was that our what was essentially shutoff for 3 days. We usually had water in bathroom (fortunately) but we had no water in the Kitchen. We could handle not cooking, but after three days we had piles of dishes that had to be done. We noticed there was some water in the bathroom, so we went for it and washed our dishes in the bathtub.

Yesterday morning I was thrilled to see that our water was back on, and life could return to normal... for about 12 hours. Water is gone again, but hopefully we will have a functioning kitchen again soon.

In the meantime, we have a few days off for the Eid that we will spend in Cairo relaxing, seeing friends, and doing homework (or at least Emily will be doing homework).

Cheers,

Ben

The Highs and Lows of Ramadan

Friends,

Greetings from Cairo. Well Emily and I are back in the swing of things, experiencing Cairo in all its glory and, well, whatever is the opposite of glory. I will try to give you a picture of both, but I will start with the stuff that makes us miss how efficient, non- bureaucratic, traffic free, and unpolluted New Jersey was... yes you read that right.

So right now we are in the Middle of the holy month Ramadan, which has upsides, and downsides. On the upside, we got to do laundry this week, and the downside, it had been a month since we had had a washing machine. It took the repairman over three weeks to fix our washing machine, because it's hard to get stuff done when you only work a 4 hour day. During Ramadan life slows to crawl. Businesses open late because people sleep in, and close again at 3pm so everyone can get home in time to break the fast. Some business reopen from 9pm to 2am, but then again, some never open. Two nights ago Emily and I went to a swanky restaurant downtown, only to find that the restaurant is closed for the whole month of Ramadan.

But putting my cynicism aside, Ramadan truly is a wonderful time. Every night tents are erected in the street and filled with food for the poor. Anyone can stop in and eat for free. It is humbling to see how the Arab world insists that the disadvantaged are included in their celebration. There are also a few very practical things that are great about Ramadan. During sunset this city of 20 million is covered in quite; the streets are deserted and dining rooms are full. A few weeks ago we took advantage of this lull to have a special event for St. John's Youth Group. We rented an Ice Skating rink where we played(?) curling, but instead of big stones, we used massive Egyptian Cabbages. We then went bowling and had the place to ourselves. This kicked off our Youth program which is now up and running.

In other church news, the expat community is slowly returning to Cairo. This year more people have waited until after Ramadan to come back to Cairo (due in part to the later start date of the schools); this has meant that things have been quiet at church, but are starting to pick up again. I am really excited about having wonderful church school teachers and a great group of high school kids. We will also start our Young Adult group next week.

And in one last bit of news, Emily starts school this week. As I mentioned earlier, Emily is starting a MA in Nursing online from Gonzaga University so she can become a Nurse Practitioner. She is excited, but nervous, and figuring out how to deal with details like a newly introduced textbook that needs to make its way to Africa before her first paper is due. Good luck EM.

Thats about it for now, I put a few photos of the youth event below.

Ben

Curling with Cabbage

Ramadan Kareem

Today the Holy month of Ramadan begins. During Ramadan Muslims fast from food and water from sun-up to sun down. This is quite a feat, especially considering that it will be 97F today. At the American School where I coach, the Muslim students work out after school despite having no food or water all day. Ramadan does share a few similarities to Lent, but the vibe of it is quite different. Ramadan is a month of fasting and feasting, especially in Egypt. Every night is a party. People take off work early to home and eat with their family (they break the fast at the call of the minaret at sun set). Tents line the streets that are filled with tables for the poor to eat in; local businesses take turns providing the tents with food. The whole country is festive, and the pace of life totally changes. In many ways, it is my favorite time of the year.

However, there is something about how Egypt celebrates Ramadan that is strange, and often infuriating. Nothing gets done during Ramadan; in the weeks leading up to Ramadan we try to take care of anything that needs to be done in the following month. For many Egyptians Ramadan looks like this- sleep in late, wake go to work for a few hours (where they do little work because they are exhausted, hungry, and thirsty), leave work early, take a nap, break the fast with a huge opulent meal, take another nap, eat sweets, go out to visit with friends, have another meal around 2am, and eat sweets until right before sun up, when they go to bed. More food is consumed during Ramadan than any other month of the year. Oh, and the government instituted a temporary Day-light savings, so people could break their fast earlier.

All that said, Egypt is unique; few places in the Arab world are so opulent in their feasting, and many Egyptians are very humble in their fast. For one person Ramadan is a month of deep spirituality when they deprive themselves of sustenance and focus on recitation of the Quran, whereas for other, its a month long party.

Hope that provides a little snapshot of Ramadan in Egypt. I will get out one of these days and take some photos.

Cheers,

Ben

Back in Action

So we (read I) let the blog slip, but we are newly resolved to provide more regular updates this year. I want to do something more in depth soon, but for now I thought I would let you know that we are back in Cairo and things are kicking into gear.

This summer we had the chance to travel to Switzerland to meet our God-daughter, see Emily's folks (the Hinsons) in VA, and see my folks (the Robinsons) in WA. It was a busy three weeks, but a godsend to be able to see friends and family. We returned to Cairo about 10 days ago, and jumped right back into it as I lead worship and preached, and Emily returned to work at the Embassy. I have had a little downtime now that Paul Chandler is back, but most of the youth from church are not. That will change this week as we kick off our youth programs for the fall at St. Johns.

In other good news, Emily is now a student at Gonzaga University. She will begin a MA to become at Nurse Practitioner at GU (via correspondence). For the next two years she will do her coursework while continuing to work at the US Embassy. Go Emily.

And now a couple of pics...