My morning in the desert

This morning my school paired with another tiny Christian school here in Cairo to do a 5k and 2k race in the desert not very far from my house. The event took place at Wadi Degla (wadi just means valley). Since it was my first time to this wadi, I took along my camera and snapped a couple of photos.

And the winner was:

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I took this last shot as we were walking back out of the wadi and to the cars. Notice how empty it is. I was amazed a how just a few minutes from my home, the world can look so different. It was so quiet there. No sound of car horns, people screaming in the streets, venders with their donkey carts selling their wares, nothing. It was amazing.

Glimpses of Spring... in Cairo

I thought that I would share a glimpse of what spring brings to Cairo... other than yellow days.





This is a pointsettia that has grown into a tree.





These photos are all in my school yard.



























These flowers are blooming on a tree outside of our front balcony.










This is a shot of my street.




And these shots I took when John and I went for a walk in another part of our neighborhood.

The world is yellow today

The world is yellow today. Spring has arrived in Cairo. Where I come from in the States the arrival of spring brings warmer weather, light rains, flowers, buds on the trees. Here in Egypt it brings something entirely different: sandstorms. In Egypt we have three seasons: exceedingly hot, cold, and sandy.

Today the 'khamaseen' arrived. The 'khamaseen' are the hot sand laden winds that come across the western desert and cover everything in my house with centimeters of dust. They are the bane of every housewife in this country. I'm quite sure that they wait for laundry day when all the freshly washed whites are hanging damp on the line to come and turn them all gray. Or they wait for cleaning day, the one day a week when everything in the house is not completely covered in a layer of yellow dust because some poor person just spent hours meticulously wiping down every item in the home to clear it of dust and give the 'khamaseen' a fresh surface to settle on. Grrr. I am not a fan of yellow days.

All this while the cookies bake...

My poor husband is on the couch next to me, passed out with yet another one of his nasty headaches, and I am baking cookies so I thought that I woul sit down and actually blog while the cookies bake. I am going to try to keep up with this blog more than just once every two months. So here I am:

I was talking to my kids in our devos this morning about how much we have to be thankful for. We have been talking this week about how God provides for us daily. We have been going through the Lord's prayer with my worship pastor's wife and each week we examine a section of the prayer. This week the section is, "give us this day our daily bread." And He does! What a miracle.

Today I challenged each of the kids to think of one thing in their dialy lives that they take for granted, that if God didn't provide them with it daily their lives would be totally different. We took time to think of all the things it take to make our lives what they are. For me I thought of my job. I know that just a tiny little part of what I have to be thankful for, but I remember teaching in Thailand and how miserable I was in that job. What a crazy situation that was. I think of my time in the States after I returned from Thailand when I was struggling to find a job, and I was feeling miserable and useless. And I pass the big Egyptian government schools in the morning, with their 1:60 teacher-student ratios, and their nasty fist fights on the yard and think 'I could be teaching there.' Remembering all that makes me think just how happy I am to be walking toward my school with all of my precious students. My daily life could be so different.

I think of other things too. The ability to walk. My days would sure be different without that. My ability to love, to connect, to communicate (living in a country that doesn't speak your language sure makes you grateful for the times when you can communicate). My days would be much different without all of that. Coffee!!!! Now what would my days look like without that?!?

Wow. God has been so good to me. Living here, in a city where most people lack one or many of the things that I have daily, is a sounding reminder of what God does for me every moment.

And all of that is just in the physical realm. How much more is He doing unseen. How much more is he doing in my heart. How much more has He already done to purchase my salvation. Just thinking of it all overwhelms me, brings me to tears.

How good He is to me.