progress in transitioning from a big staff, big program, big budget past phase to fewer staff, targeted programs, smaller budget to emphasize mobilizing the grass-roots. While this has involved more people and less sitting and watching, it isn’t quite as much fun as the big buzz of the glory years. So as you can imagine this has become a stretching experience for Steve to surrender living up to his perceived expectations of what looks good and successful in order to learn to trust God’s calling instead. It’s his own “Gideon” learning experience!
Karan meanwhile continues part-time at Cairo American College (CAC—not an actual college, but a K-12 prep school). She has been able to make progress in the learning support services (LSS—aka mild special education) program in middle school so that they are talking next year about perhaps giving her the
6th grade learning support students. It has not been without its challenges to navigate the politics of established patterns. Meanwhile the high school LSS program has been a much smoother integration with Karan’s training and background. All in all, Karan has seen some students respond as they learn to make the adjustments that turn on the light of learning for themselves.
Alex is having a great year. In JV basketball, he sprained his ankle in pre-season practice and we feared he would be out for a month or more. But he healed quickly and used an ankle brace, so was able to travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a starter where they won the tournament.
This year Alex’s group (based on last name letter in the alphabet) had first choice in Week Without Walls in late February, so Alex chose a service learning opportunity at a panda conservatory in the Sichuan province of China. It was a bit less “hand-on” than the orangutan rescue in Indonesia last year. Next year his group chooses last, so he may be closer to home since the exotic locations are usually taken early.
Varsity baseball is now underway and this weekend they are hosting a team from Jordan. He is playing short-stop mostly. Usually the baseball team travels to Europe for an end of season tournament in late May, but this year Cairo is the host location. In between sports practices and games, Alex finds some time for school. He has actually improved his grades and made honor roll this past quarter. The school workload is definitely quite demanding, as you would expect from a college prep school. He also is involved in youth group when his homework load is not too great. He definitely likes Egypt better this year, but still looks hugely forward to his six weeks back in Spokane starting in mid June. He will start driver’s ed this year, so will be in morning classes.
Travis has been living with us since mid December while he does his international affairs internship with Global Strategic Consultants (see our December blog). It is a business
emphasis in public relations and communication, and he has liked it and done very well according to his supervisor (the picture is Travis, Mona Zaki his supervisor, and the president of the Czech Republic). He manages some of the public relations for the Egyptian Philharmonic so gets to attend some of their concerts (not exactly his cup of musical tea). The teaching assistant part of his internship has also gone well. Travis definitely likes the business side of international affairs more than the government side. He finishes in late May and will graduate (God willing and Travis turns in the required paperwork) in June. It seems hard to believe! He now begins the real world challenge of finding a job. His wrist seems to be near normal now.
Brett is our lone family member left back in the US. He has survived another drawing class and is now into the thick of graphic design basic courses.
This quarter will tell the story of whether he wants to stay in the program as a double major, or just graduate next winter only in photojournalism. He flew to southern California in early April to do a training seminar with Nikon or someone like that and really got a lot out of it. He will be doing a university communications internship this summer so will stay in Bellingham.
This past spring break we went to Austria for a ski/snowboard vacation. It was a great time and there was plenty of snow—almost too much snow since
grooming couldn’t keep up with the week of storms while we were there. We didn’t get to do any cross-country skiing, but did eat a lot of sausages and other pork products. Steve and Travis sampled lots of Austrian beer (they recommend Steigl). The start of the vacation was harrowing as Lufthansa didn’t have Steve’s ticket that he had booked on Lufthansa.com. In classic Egyptian fashion at the Cairo airport they said it wasn’t their problem and he would have to buy one on the spot for an exorbitant price. After some calls to the Lufthansa office in the US, they agreed to issue the ticket for the original price (that they had never charged to our credit card) only shortly before the plane was scheduled to depart. Needless to say, customer service is not a top priority in the Middle East. Then in the Munich airport, Steve managed to lose his passport—yep pretty dumb, huh? Someone found it and turned it in so that the potential nightmare never made it into reality.
School ends June 1 and then we begin our yearly pilgrimage back home. Hopefully we won’t wait another three months to post our next blog! Don't forget you can sign up to follow the blog. You have to create a google ID, but so far no one has complained about being spammed after doing it. So give it a try!
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