Walk Like an Egyptian

So Egypt. It is an amazing country. The weather in April was fabulous, not too hot (most of the time), but warm enough to enjoy being outside.

I went to Egypt with the German mission organization called GospelTribe which was started in 2006, I believe, by Gernot and Sabine Elsner. It is specifically focused on getting youth interested and involved in missions and they go on trips all over the place, Italy, Egypt, Tunisia, South Africa, France, etc. (www.gospeltribe.de) Anyways I met up with Gernot and the rest of the team at the Frankfurt airport on March 30. In the previous week I had just returned from my month of travel, having dealt with my backpack and laptop being stolen, attempted to rewrite my Hausarbeit, term paper, in German in a few days and tried to relax and do laundry before heading out to Egypt.

Anyways, I arrived at the Frankfurt airport and met the other people on the team, Gernot, David (a guy from Ireland and friend of Gernot), two German guys-Denis and Jony (18 or 19 I think), and two German girls-Jasmin (22) and Sarah (19 or 20). They all seemed very nice and I figured I would get to know them pretty well over the next two weeks. We got on the plane and heading to Cairo, through Budapest. We left Germany around 8pm and arrived in Cairo about 3am on March 31....fun times.

After arriving in Cairo we met up with Samy, our Egyptian teammember, who was going to translate for us and generally take care of us and keep us safe. We loaded up our stuff into a minibus thingy and headed off on the bumpy road to a retired pastor's home where we were going to stay the night. On the way we drove over a giant speed bump and all three of us girls in the back flew up out of our seats. Sarah being the lightest hit the ceiling and got a giant bump on her head. Great start, huh?

We got a chance to rest up and then the trip truly started. That first day was a chance for us to see Cairo and get acquainted with Egypt. We met in the morning for devotions and team meeting and then spent the afternoon walking around the city, meeting random Egyptians, and then we attended a church service in one the largest evangelical churches in the Egypt/Middle East area. The next morning we packed up our stuff and headed for another part of Cairo where we would be serving in two different churches. We dropped our stuff off at the first church and then prepared for our services. We had split the team in half and each prepared a service. That day each team did their service in both churchs, once in the morning and once in the evening. On our team we did a drama, Denis, Jamsin and I. It was pretty creative and I think the people actually understood what we were trying to get across and then David gave the sermon. After the services we played with the children. And since it was Palm Sunday they all had palm fronds and what not, so I started playing around with the fronds and trying to make fish like I had learned in Hawaii, boy was that stupid. Once the kids realized I was trying to origami fold the palm fronds in to shapes they all surrounded me and asked me to make them fish and rings and head bands. I really didn't know how to make any of these things, but I sort of learned on the stop and probably made about 6 fish, 30 rings and a quite intricate headband. By then it was lunch time and I had to peel the children off of me so I could go downstairs and rejoin the rest of the team for food.

That night we stayed in a really nice, but unfurnished apartment in a poorer area of Cairo. We slept in our sleeping bags on camping mats and rugs. The apartment was cool, but it was right next to a giant garbage pile/pit/really smelly area. But it wouldn't have been the same experience without that garbage smell.

Monday morning we had some team time and then in the evening we met at one of the churches for a leader's meeting, which basically meant that everyone in the church showed up and we had another service. This one also included a drama that we came up with 5 minutes before we performed it. Not quite as good as the first, but still good. We stayed in the apartment again that night (carrying the other half of our stuff the 15 minutes through dusty, garbage-covered streets from the first church to the apartment.) Then Tuesday morning we went back to the Cairo city center and met more random Egyptian people. It was a chance to go up to someone and start a conversation. It wasn't directly evangelism because if you get caught evangelizing Muslims you can get in big trouble in Egypt, but it was an opportunity to meet someone new, have a conversation ahd hope that religion, faith, God and other spiritual topics came up naturally. We, the girls on the team, noticed that many teenage girls in Egypt aren't too comfortable with their English so the conversations stayed pretty surface level. Then that evening, Jasmin, Sarah and I led a women's meeting at the first church. The boys performed a skit and then Jasmin and I each gave a short talk, my first such experience and Sarah led the prayer time. I talked about the story in Mark 14 where Jesus is anointed by the woman in Bethany. I probably only talked for about 6 or 7 minutes, but I think it went pretty well. I wasn't nervous at all and the rest of the team said I seemed pretty confident and natural on stage. Who would have thought.

After the women's meeting we loaded up our stuff into a bus and headed to Alexandria. I think we arrived around midnight or so. We stayed in an apartment on the second floor of the church we were helping at....Ok so I have managed to tell you about the first 5 days out of 15...the rest with more pictures will come later.

Awesome German Weather

It is currently thunderstorming in Göttingen (like literally right over the building in which I am sitting. There was just a simultaneous flash and boom--so cool!) I love Germany! and it's crazy weather.

I went into class 2 hours ago and it was cloudy and warm, rather humid, but calm. Now just out of class and this storm has broken out. Luckily it waited until I was inside again. :-)

Oh and over the weekend I drove to Cinque Terre with some friends. I will put up pictures and stories tonight or tomorrow. I promise!!