My trip to the Salon

It wasn’t my first time to get my hair cut here, but it was the first time I’ve had enough language and knowledge of the culture to really understand and appreciate the whole experience. The salon is in the same building that our office is in. Just to give you a picture of what the ‘salon’ is like, it is a room with a mirror, a counter, a couch, and one salon chair. I guess since there is only one lady who works there it makes sense to only have one chair. The lady who runs this place is fully covered. She covers her head and wears the long shirts to her knees. The first time I went to get my haircut she left me in the salon by myself for about 20 minutes so that she could go to her house and pray because it was time for afternoon prayers.
So, when I showed up yesterday there was quite a crowd… I wish I could have taken a picture of the women there, but it would have been pretty rude! The first woman was dressed from head to toe in sparkly red. She had the traditional Kurdish clothing on and was going to a wedding that evening. She was getting her makeup and hair done for the occasion. Women here REALLY like their makeup, especially for special occasions. The women also think it is beautiful to have really light skin, not their naturally really dark skin (I know, the grass is always greener huh?). So, she only has one shade of powder and it is really light. It requires much caking of the powder to conceal the women’s actual skin coloring. There is also nothing sanitary about make up application. There are no separate wands, or brushes, or cloths. After the make up she did this lady’s hair. They really like big hair here, I mean like 1984. The finishing touches were a can of hairspray and some glitter in her hair. I guess it’s a little bit like getting ready for prom, only with way more sparkles and gold jewelry.
The next lady came in to get her face flossed. I don’t know what you call it actually. You know those people in the mall who do people’s eyebrows with the string. They do that here too, but they don’t stop at the brows, they do the ENTIRE face. I mean cheeks, forehead, chin, lip, and sideburns. I felt pretty bad for this lady as she was grimacing in pain and kept having to wipe tears from her face. I’ve never done the face floss myself, but this lady’s face was bright red afterwards. It pretty much deterred me from ever wanting to experience it though.
So, then it was my turn. They don’t wash your hair here when you get it cut; they just spray it with a bottle. After I explained what I wanted, or tried to anyway, she got right to work. When she wasn’t using the comb to brush my hair she stuck it in her own hair and when she needed to pin up my hair she took the clip out of her own hair to use it in mine. I just had to smile and think about what it would be like if a hairdresser in the states did that. She insisted on drying my hair afterwards and giving me her own style. She is a really good hairdresser and I’ve liked my hair both times she has cut it. I’m not a big fan of her styling, but I never liked how they fixed my hair in the states either. See below for a picture of the finished product. After she was finished the other ladies in the salon exclaimed ‘She looks Kurdish! Now she must speak better Kurdish.’ I couldn’t agree more.

Improvement

I just wanted to take a few moments to report that Jeff & I are doing so much better. We've been in country for over 3 months now and praise the Lord, we are continuously improving.
I'm so proud of my husband... he has really pushed himself and is doing such a tremendous job of making the most of life here. Learning a new language with 44 letters in the alphabet, many of which make a sound that has no English equivalent is pretty daunting. Especially when you have to learn to read and write all over again! It is really neat to see how well loved Jeff is here. He says 'hello how are you' (in Kurdish) to just about every guy we pass on the streets and they all LOVE him. The shop owners and restaurant workers he has befriended are constantly giving him free stuff and refusing to let him pay for things because he has been such a good friend to them. Every time I am with our neighbors or the families we have helped through PLC they are always asking about Jeff and when they will see him again. He spends time most days in the big outdoor market just meeting people and practicing his Kurdish with them. I know it is exhausting trying to think and speak in another language all day but Jeff is doing such a great job and improving in his ability to understand and communicate every day.
It is hard. I know lots of you probably have hard jobs that you have to do every day. I just wanted everyone to know what a great job Jeff is doing and how even at the end of these long days of language learning he still comes home singing some oldies song and smiling. There aren't a lot of people here to pat you on the back for using a new word correctly or celebrate with you that you said what you meant to say to that guy and he understood you. I just wanted to invite you to celebrate Jeff with me and the strides he is making in loving people well and learning a really difficult language. Ultimately, this isn't about Jeff and his ability to learn Kurdish and succeed here. I think we both have come to understand in new ways the depths of grace available when we most need it. So, praise be to God who gives us every good thing and prepares good works in advance for us to walk in them!

Homesick

I'm not one to get homesick easily. But man, these last few weeks I've been so homesick. Just about every night I dream about someone in my family, my friends, or some kind of food from America.... usually it is a combination of the 3. I had a dream about my mom and sister last night and was so sad when I woke up.
I'm sure the pregnancy hormones and being sick all the time only compound the problem, but I guess I just keep expecting the swell of homesickness to pass, and it doesn't.
I feel like we haven't even been here long enough for me to miss everything so much, but I do. I guess the difference between here and the other places I have been overseas is that it doesn't feel like home at all. There is little to nothing that resembles America here. In some ways I'm really grateful for that and can really appreciate it. In other ways, I just wish there was a McDonald's here or something. It's weird the things that make me feel at home. Even when I lived in Istanbul I didn't go to the American restaurants like McD's or Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway etc that often, but it majorly made a difference that they were there. I don't like to think and certainly don't want to admit that my heart can be so tied to worldly things like food....but seriously, right now I feel like some bacon, guacamole, and a good cheeseburger could totally affect my happiness. I'm laughing at myself as I write this and at the same time holding back tears because it is really true. I just needed to confess that the world still has me in its grips, and even though Jesus is worth far more than the sacrifice of these small things - some days it is really hard.
I don't know that I will ever feel at 'home' here the way that I did in Turkey, but what I'm learning is that our home isn't anywhere in the world. I can get on a plane and go back to America and probably gain 20 pounds, but my heart would not be full. Ultimately, our home isn't here or anywhere in this Earth but in God's kingdom, and I'm sure it won't be defiled by the presence of a Mc Donald's... and I'm also sure that I won't mind at all if I spend eternity without those things. I don't know if I will miss you guys any less as time passes, but I am confident that God's grace is sufficient for me today.

Randomness in the mind of Jeff Part who knows!

I am going to be a father. This is on my mind a lot. I tried to read about called What to Expect when your Wife is Expanding. It was terrible, I don’t know enough about babies or pregnancy to distinguish what was for real and what they were joking about. Knowing me I would think something was a joke and it would have been really important. So to remedy this I found two books on Amazon to read. I also found a manly green diaper bag. HA!

When I googled babies there were 112,000,000 hits that came up hence the reason I went to Amazon. =)

Amazon still wasn’t as much help but at least they have a baby section.

I am really excited about being a dad if you hadn’t picked up that!

I don’t know how to baby proof a house. Well I know not to leave sharp objects or cleaning supplies laying around. I always told Erin I would get a gun safe when we had kids. The one I want is at Cabalas, it’s green and I can’t afford it. =(
I just looked at babies r us at safety stuff. You can get stuff to put on corners of tables, baby gates, and outlet covers (in Iraq all the outlets are up high at my house so I don’t have to worry about that one for a couple years.

A couple of days ago I saw a little kid carrying a chicken and thought, oh he is taking it home for dinner. I decided it was his pet when he opened his water bottle and tried to let it drink some of his water.

I saw a taxi trying to get out a mud filled parking lot today on my way home for lunch. I stood and watched and thought to myself. We drive a patrol (it is a beast of car that can handle just about anything) and I am not sure I would park in this lot. Primarily because once I stop the vehicle I have to get out and walk through the mud into my office. But as I stood there and laughed to myself with a huge smile on my face I thought about going and getting our patrol to pull him out then realized I didn’t have any chains and then realized even if I were to offer to help I might not be able to clearly communicate I was willing to help. So, as I continue to watch him spray mud everywhere and his tires spin and his taxi go nowhere. I couldn’t stop thinking about why you would drive into this parking lot in a 2-wheel drive vehicle. I still don’t have an answer but this thought has not left my head all day.

OK, I made it home from watching the taxi get unstuck and Erin and I are talking and I tell her I hear someone on the roof splashing around in water. (It has been raining) She says its probably the neighbors. I decide to go look and sure enough there is a neighbor on my roof standing in water up to his calves. I feel bad cause he is trying to get the water off my roof. Then it dawns on me. Crap is my roof somehow flooding his house? Of course I don’t know how to say this so I just say I’m sorry repeatedly. I call my friend who comes over and offers to help, he reassures me this is not my fault but that is the fault of the owner of the house. I say, “I know its not my fault but my neighbors are very nice to us and I want to make sure there house is ok, lets go talk to them.” We go over there and while I think the inside of their house is flooding they were worried about us because they just say the water running down the side of the house and not the drain. They were trying to help us out. It was very thoughtful. They made us tea and told us they were there to help us no matter what time it was all we had to do was knock. I always thought our neighbors liked us a lot but today with the help of my friend who speaks the language I found out how much they like us. A lot!

Today, as I am seeing my neighbor standing in ice cold water up to his calves and I am standing right outside the door in no water I learned how sloped our house is. (Don’t worry I didn’t make him stand in the cold water by himself. I ran over there and stood with him and said I’m sorry. My feet just warmed up. I hope I don’t get sick tomorrow.

We got a blender and make milkshakes now! =)

I think I found a bbq pit that will work for me =) =) =)

I’m sure there has been more funny stuff like me blowing our electricity twice trying to change light bulbs and the huge flies here that are so big they are slow and fairly easy to kill but I can’t think of anything else right now except for the huge pile of work I need to get done in the next hour. Enjoy!!

blowing bubbles

We had a celebration for the children who returned from Turkey after surgery. It was great to see these kids who couldn't walk up stairs before play games where they had to take deep breaths and blow and they did great! They had a great time and it was so fun to watch their enjoyment and see how healthy they are looking.



Ahmed if you remember was one of the worst cases. He was very blue before surgery and could hardly walk. Look at him now! He is doing so much better and has been playing and gaining weight - he looks amazing!



This is Taban. She is doing great! Her family is worried that she's being TOO active because she loves to run around and play and is now totally healed. She will never need another surgery and will be able to grow up and have kids and live a normal life. Her dad loved playing the bean bag toss with her, it was really cute!


This is little Zana. He was the last to return from surgery and just got back a week ago. But look how great he is doing at blowing bubbles!


Here is the girls with our first child we sent to Turkey for surgery. She is the one in the middle in the red and she's doing great!

normal?

Life here is continuously becoming more 'normal'.... or I guess I should say that things here are the same, we are just getting more used to them. There were things when we arrived that I couldn't imagine getting used to. But alas, I had to think really hard about what those things even were now.

- Jeff never thought he would get used to being called Kak Jeff. That is how they refer to men here, it is like Mr. and is a term of respect. It is pronounced like a bad word in English, it rhymes with sock. But now Jeff is called Kak Jeff several times a day and refers to other men as Kak so and so without being phased.

- Pretty much every English cuss word is a normal word in Kurdish. Just walking down the street or listening to people talk it sounds like they are dropping the F-bomb and every other manner of cuss word. The word for thing or stuff is Sh*t, so people say it ALL the time. I use it now without feeling awkward, so that's a step forward.

- The electricity goes off every 2 hours when it switches from government provided electricity to community provided electricity. Sometimes it takes several minutes for the switch to happen or other times it won't switch at all and you are left in the dark. I used to feel like everything should stop when this happened (haha it just happened as I'm typing this). But now it doesn't matter where we are, you just continue your conversation, finish your dinner, do the dishes all in the dark and it is okay.

Well, I'm not sure it is coming back on, so I better go before we loose our back up power source!

our house

Here are some interior pictures of what we have finished so far in our house. The upstairs is a work in progress, but the downstairs is almost finished!


This is our bedroom. We painted the walls and LOVE the color!


This is another view of the bedroom.



Here is our kitchen. The stove and fridge are on the other walls... but they seem pretty bare by themselves, so I didn't post those.


The living room.


The faux fire place. the mirror isn't supposed to go there we just haven't hung it yet.

That is the downstairs, minus the bathroom, shower and sink (which are all separate rooms). We are in the process of painting the upstairs and I will take pictures of that as soon as we get around to buying furniture for it... it might be a couple months! =)

Sad News

We found out late last night that 11 year old Serhang has been declared inoperable. He is the only child of the 7 that are currently in Turkey for surgery who have to return to Iraq without the hope of receiving the surgery that he needs. Serhang was originally in the group of 4 who were supposed to be fairly easy cases with a good chance of a full recovery. Unfortunately, he was misdiagnosed and he is missing a pulmonary artery. Even if the surgery were possible, he would not be able to survive the surgery due to his pulmonary pressure being too high. Apparently that means that his blood pressure is too high in his lungs.
I am the family advocate for his family, so we will go with a translator to his village on Monday to see how he and his family are doing. His mom was very upset. I was with our translator when she called his dad to give him the news. She said he was very saddened but didn't have much hope that he would be operable. Without surgery his condition will only get worse and he will likely only have a couple years left to live. All we have left to do is to pray. As Jeff & I prayed last night for Serhang and his family I was really comforted by the Lord and reminded that He was not surprised by this, He did not misdiagnose Serhang and no one is inoperable to Him. So, let us pray to the Lord who still does miraculous things that he would cure Serhang so that his family, his village, the doctors in Turkey, and the watching world will know that Jesus Christ is the God who heals, saves, and delivers.

Last Night

So... here's a run down of how last night went in the Priour house. I (Erin) was making dinner for our teammates, I had gone into the living room to pick up some stuff when I hear Jeff coughing really loudly and making hyperventilating noises. This didn't alarm me, because since we arrived here Jeff has had this really bad cough that sounds like he is dying every time he coughs. Then I start to hear some different noises, so I go into the kitchen to see what is going on because Jeff isn't answering my 'Are you okay?' yells. I go into the kitchen just in time to see him running out the front door. I follow him outside and he is throwing up in the yard. When he has settled down I'm trying to figure out what happened and he says 'Sorry, I threw up on the rug'. When we go back inside to clean up the rug I realize that our sink drain is clogged and is flooding our kitchen. So, I'm trying to keep dinner moving, get the rug cleaned up, and get the standing water mopped out the door. Suddenly, Jeff yells - 'It's on fire!'. I turn around to see a towel that is next to our gas stove totally engulfed in flames and Jeff is looking wildly around the kitchen trying to figure out what to do with it and I'm yelling 'Throw it outside, throw it outside!'. So, he throws it outside and fills up a bucket with water, but instead of walking outside and pouring it on the fire he just throws the bucket of water at it from inside the house. It put the fire out. And then I finished making dinner and we ate an hour late.

Oh, by the way, Jeff is fine. He wasn't sick, he just choked on his apple juice. It scared the crap out of me, but he's fine. I started crying right after this just because I was scared. I don't know the Heimlich maneuver and while I know you're supposed to throw yourself over a chair - we don't have any chairs because people here eat on mats on the floor. I don't know what I would have done, I don't even know any emergency numbers. The good news is that after all of this, I laughed really hard instead of bursting into tears. A week ago this might have pushed me over the edge, so I think we are doing better because we were both laughing. Here is what was left of our kitchen towel. Good thing we brought several from America.

Honesty

I think I'm about to tell you the truth... I hope you can handle it. =)

Life here has been pretty difficult the last weekish or so. I (Erin) cried for about 2 hours last night and even though I don't wish we were back in America I didn't want to be here. However, location is not the issue, not having water (which we haven't since Saturday with the exception of 1 day), not getting electricity from the government, not being able to make the washing machine work, almost setting the kitchen on fire when I tried to re-heat dinner, being unable to do anything without a lot of assistance.... these are not the issues. They are the things that have been pressing in on us and compounding the frustration, but that is the thing about getting uncomfortable and being out of control... it squeezes out of you all of the things that are buried deep inside, the things you don't want anyone else to see.

The only thing that could calm me down last night was playing some worship songs that are really close to my heart that speak the kind of truth I can't always hear through the noise of my own life. Songs like 'Holy you are still holy even when the darkness surrounds my life. Sovereign you are still sovereign even when confusion is blinding my eyes. Lord, I don't deserve your kind affection and my unbelief has kept me from your touch. I want my life to be a pure reflection of your love. So, I come into your chamber and I dance at your feet Lord, you are my savior and I'm at your mercy all that has been in my life until now, it all belongs to you. For you are still holy.' I had this vision the other night of being this hard ball of clay that was being molded... it was the kind that was so cold and almost like rock that it hurt your hands to try and soften it, but slowly it was warming up and becoming softer and able to be molded. I think that is me right now and the state of my heart.

I don't mean for this to sound all dark and painful, although I have felt much of that lately. I feel a lot of hope and joy too. I'm grateful for the hands that push and break and mold until I am soft and able to be yielded to whatever those hands want to make me into. I ask that you would be praying for Jeff & I in these coming weeks and months. Our time here is too precious, and the work at hand too urgent to waste our time and energy being angry, frustrated, rebellious, and a number of other very unproductive emotions. I feel kind of silly being so frustrated about worldly things when we are dealing every day with families whose children are sick and dying and in need of a heart surgery they may or may not receive. But as I was praying last night I just felt from the Lord that suffering is exactly that - suffering. If it wasn't hard and uncomfortable there would be nothing remarkable about joy in the midst of it. Having to choose joy instead of anger or frustration will likely be a daily (sometimes hourly) choice for me for a while. And for now, that is enough. Knowing that His mercy is new, His grace is sufficient and even when my circumstances don't change - He is still holy.

That's all I have the energy for now. But I've got some great pictures to post of some crazy things we've seen here. I'll try to get that posted in a few days. Thanks for your prayers and for caring about our transition. We have a lot of hope right now for what God has in store for us.

The Potty Post

In honor of one of my friends I am posting this blog. For those who don’t know in other parts of the world they do not always have toilets like we have in the states. A simple definition of the squatty is it a relatively nice porcelain hole in the ground in which you squat to take care of business.
I have come to realize that I am spoiled by the western toilet. Going to the bathroom used to be a place to get away from everything, it is a place where no one will bother you and you could sit in peace. Now, there is no sitting you can still get away from everyone but you probably don’t want to be in there any longer than you have to. It doesn’t smell nice. A friend once shared this advice with me. If work is stressful and you need a break go sit on the toilet, your boss may look for you but will not bother you if he finds you in the louver. The longer you are there the less likely someone will ask you to do more work. You can all thank me for this free tip by commenting on this post! =)
A few days ago I hung out with a couple of Kurdish guys who had lived in the states and they were telling me about having to run around and turn things on and off depending on whether or not we had national or community electricity. (Electricity here is complicated, perhaps when I fry something I will post about it. Also, notice I didn’t say if I fry something but chose the word when.) Anyway once they finished telling me about this, our conversation turned towards toilets. Their belief was that the western toilet was inferior to the squatty because with the western you have to take a magazine or book with you because it takes longer to take care of business when using a western toilet. They feel that when using a squatty all you have to do is go in squat and it all comes out and you are done. However, I believe the western is superior to the squatty because you get to sit and not squat. Sitting is much easier on the body and it usually gives you a chance to catch up on some reading or if you have a poker game on your phone you can play poker (Keith). While both views are valid, I am too old and my body is not made to squat for more than about 25 seconds to pick something up off the ground.
So yesterday I went and bought us a western toilet and in 2 days it should be installed. Now, here is why you should appreciate your toilet. In the states toilets have on the back down by the bottom a piece that looks like a S. You are probably thinking ‘so what?’. Well here is what! That S curve keeps the smell and other things from coming back into the toilet after it is used. So today be grateful for the technology we have in the states.
If you made it to the end of this post I hope you enjoyed it and got a little bit of humor along the way. Feel free to comment because If there are no comments it will likely be awhile before I post again. Dueces!!

We made it!

Sorry for the update delay. We have had a pretty busy 5 days here in Northern Iraq/Kurdistan (I may use these terms interchangeably here on out). We are doing great! We have finally recovered from jet lag and even though we arrived with head colds, we are feeling much better today. We have made a lot of progress with our house. We got the whole thing cleaned this week, we bought our bedroom furniture, living room furniture, all of our carpet, and designed our kitchen cabinets and counter tops. We are having everything delivered on Monday and will get all of the painting done this weekend. So, by Monday night we should be staying in our house! We got 4 amps from of electricity from the community generator, so we should only be without electricity for around 6 hours a day. Here are some 'before' pictures of the house. I'll post the after ones next week!


Here is Jeff in front of our house. It is a 2 story house with a bright purple gate!


These are our front doors. Traditionally there are separate entrances for men and women, the women's enters into the kitchen and the men's into the main part of the house. It doesn't appear so far that these rules are very strictly followed, but all of the older houses have 2 entrances.


This is the view from the top of our roof. Notice the mountains in the background? It is really very beautiful here, if only there were a beach...

We got to go yesterday and meet one of the children who's heart surgery we helped fund a couple months ago. She was visiting a dentist to get a filling and have a check-up. Lack of dental care is one of the causes for many of the heart conditions that effect children here. It was really great to get to meet her family and tomorrow I am going to see the family of the child we sent for heart surgery last week.

The people here have been so wonderful to us and we are really enjoying ourselves. We are learning more and more Kurdish words everyday, but we still have a LONG road ahead of us!

We will keep you posted! In the meantime check out our website for the latest updates at www.preemptivelove.org

5 weeks

The countdown has begun! I don't have a lot to say right now, or probably more accurately don't have a lot of time time say it.. but just wanted to give you a quick update

Our traveling adventures will continue when we head to Corpus on Thursday to be there until Christmas (sadly, I think that will be the longest we've been in the same location in the last month). We're looking forward to some quality time with our families and time with friends there! Then we are heading to Pennsylvania to see Stephen & Elyse. This will be the first Christmas that Elyse & I haven't been together for and I'm pretty bummed about it. But at least we get to see each other the day after Christmas! Then we are going to NYC for our anniversary weekend! I'm so excited about that! We will return to Corpus on Jan 1st and then back to Waco on the 2nd and then we will be here until the 13th when we will make our final trip to Corpus to make sure everything is in storage and then we will head to Houston (with a quick trip to Austin for a wedding) and will fly out on the 22nd. I think we'll catch our breath a little when we get to Iraq! =)


Here's Elyse & I on Christmas morning last year. It won't be the same without you and pastel Santa will definitely miss you.

I'm grateful that we get to spend our last holidays with our families and we are looking forward to the next 5 weeks, even if we appear to be slightly crazy, don't worry the whirlwind will pass. Here is what we've been up to lately.



We shipped these boxes to Iraq and are shipping 2 more this week. Hopefully we will only have to make 1 more shipment after that to get all of our stuff there. We are looking forward to getting there are getting to settle down for a little while, I think up to this point we've had a pretty transitional lifestyle. Our friends might have found a house for us (that sounds perfect) so keep your fingers crossed. Until next time....

leaving on a jet plane

We bought our plane tickets this week! Michelle (aka Fife) found us an incredible deal! Both our tickets to Istanbul were under $1200! It was kinda weird buying one way tickets, but I'm super excited. So we are leaving Houston on January 22 and will arrive in Iraq on January 25th. We will get to spend a day in Istanbul and might get to catch up with some friends, so that should be fun! It is a pretty big relief to have a departure date and see and end in sight to the 'preparation phase' of getting ready to go. We're really going!
This week of global celebration at our church has been a really wonderful time of affirmation and opportunity to share about what is going on in Iraq. It has been great to see Jeremy and Michelle and I'm so thankful to all of the families and individuals at our church who have been such incredible advocates for us! So...62 days until we leave. Jeff quit his job last week and Friday is my last day at my job, so we will be traveling a lot and get to spend some good time with family before we leave. I had my sad week a couple weeks ago and now I'm just ready and really excited! I'm dreading the good byes as I know those will be REALLY sad, but I feel an extreme sense of peace and joy for what is ahead.

Pics from MEW at UMHB

We had a good time last week hanging out with students at Mary Hardin Baylor and telling them about the work we will be doing in Iraq and what is currently going on with The Preemptive Love Coalition.


This is a canvas I made for the event to showcase some of the latest stuff from our website.

The following are pics of pinwheels our sunday school class help make for the event. PLC has a new Pinwheels program to help advocate for these kids in Iraq and give people some really tangible ways to get involved. Did you know that most of these 3000+ Iraqi children in need of heart surgery aren't even strong enough to blow a pinwheel? So, if you can blow a pinwheel then you can make a pinwheel, sell a pinwheel, get a bunch of people together to make and sell or showcase pinwheels on behalf of these kids who need our help!


Aren't these fun?!



This is us at our booth for the ACT Now event

If you don't have a buy shoes. save lives or preemptive love T-shirt yet, the new V-necks are on the website and they're pretty awesome!

Art * Music * Justice

Last night Jeff & I had the opportunity to attend the final night of the Art. Music. Justice tour in The Woodlands. The proceeds from the event benefited the International Justice Mission and the World Hunger Relief. It was an incredible night of worshiping with some of my favorite artists and hearing about what is going on around the world and how to get involved. It was a really renewing time that made me feel really alive! I think in America it is easy to hide or insulate ourselves from the realities of the rest of the world, sometimes even things that are happening in our own backyards. It is really good for me to be confronted with these things - poverty, famine, slavery, sex trafficking of children, orphans, widows, the hopeless, women and children dying of AIDS, or 3000 + Iraqi children waiting for a heart surgery or death. I know it seems like a paradox, but these things make me feel ALIVE. I was telling Jeff last night through tears about how THIS is what we were made for, this is what it means to be human. It is to LOVE, to show COMPASSION, to give ourselves away to the broken. I was so challenged by these songwriters who sung about how 'No amount of green, gold or silver will replace the peace of God." It is so easy for me to hedge myself and begin to believe that it really is about the stock market and my future retirement, or it's about feeling good, or it's about my family, or maybe it's about power and wealth. That's not how God made us! Over and over throughout scripture we are exhorted to:
"Give counsel, grant justice, make your shade like night at the height of noon, shelter the outcasts, do not reveal the fugitive. Let the outcasts of Moab sojourn among you, be a shelter to them from the destroyer. When the oppressor is no more and destruction has ceased and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land, then a throne will be established in steadfast love." Isaiah 16:3-5 Amen and let it be!
I was challenged with the question of To what end have you groomed your personal walk with God? Because the TRUTH is that we are not powerless, not in the least! Let us not become so numb to the injustice in the world that we decide it is NOT our problem, that we have no power to affect change in the world - friends, that is a lie! To every single follower of Jesus - the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the sick, the orphaned, the dying - these are your neighbors and we have been called to action:
'For by grace you have been saved though faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we SHOULD walk in them.' Ephesians 2:8-9
Not only do we have the promise of God that these good works exist, but we have the POWER of God to accomplish them! We are not powerless! But we must be obedient, we cannot claim our money as our own, our time as our own, our very lives as our own! Most of you know that Jeff & I are moving to Northern Iraq to work with The Preemptive Love Coalition to fund heart surgeries for 3000 + Iraqi children. We are less than 3 months from our departure and you know what? We are SO grateful for this opportunity! We would not choose anything else right now - not career, not 'home', not comfort, not family, not safety. That's not because we are some strange breed of holy or anything, but it's because of the grace of God in our obedience. We decided to obey God in his command to seek justice and love mercy and to give ourselves away for the least of these - for us that means going to Iraq. And God's grace is sufficient because last night we were filled with hope for the people of Iraq and for the broken around the world. God is healing, restoring, and drawing these people to himself and we get to be a part of that - it is SUCH an honor. It is an honor to go to Iraq and speak peace in the midst of violence, hatred, oppression, it is an honor to follow Jesus there.
All of the evil in the world, it is not a burden, it is not a burden to go with Jesus there and bring light and hope and freedom! Don't believe the lie that you can't do anything, that God can't use you, that the evil cannot be overcome - TAKE HEART Jesus already overcame the world! We have nothing to fear, and we have no excuses. Christian, you have no excuse. I have no excuse. We must respond, how will you respond?

ummm...what?!

I've been off and on studying the arabic alphabet for about a year. You really can't off and on study ANYTHING well for a year especially the arabic alphabet. So, really, what I've been doing is going over and over the basics trying to gain a basic understanding of word structure and letter formation and the shapes of the letters. There are 29 letters in the Arabic alphabet, and for 8 of them there is no sound in the English language that is even equivalent to the sound that this letter makes. That baffles me... and kind of discourages this beginner.

The other thing that makes learning the alphabet seem insurmountable is that the letter changes depending on it's location. Like, if it is at the end of a word it looks different than if it is in the middle or at the beginning, so you have to be able to recognize the basic structure of the letter before you can even begin trying to connect it to another letter to form a word. My previous language learning experience has not proved to be of any value yet because I've always had some kind of framework for understanding 'Oh, that's like this thing is in English.' Not so with Arabic. But, I'm eager to start learning Kurdish and hope that at least being able to recognize letters when I get there - even if I have no idea what word it is forming, will help me adjust more smoothly.

Did I mention that you read and write right to left? I will certainly count it a miracle and mercy of God if I can master the alphabet before we leave for Iraq - that is my goal anyway. I'll let you know how it's going, don't expect me to write you letter in Arabic or anything, but I might be able to write the alphabet for you!