Has it really been over five months since our last blog?? What can we say? We are sorry! It's been sometimes overwhelming and we feel like we are crawling to make it to our home leave.
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| Freedom is complicated! |
First with the Egypt news that CNN and FOX don't report. The city is not burning. We are not hiding in our homes (except when tired). Security is slowly returning. All journalists are not in jail (but unfortunately for freedom of the press, a notable few are). The freedom of speech cherished and celebrated in the US are there because the country is stable and it's a core value of our Constitution. Conditions and attitudes are not the same in other parts of the world, so be careful in applying western mindsets and values to Middle Eastern cultures--they don't always translate! Most Egyptians here are not wringing their hands about what happened on June 30 and August 14, 2014. They just want their country back. And we just want the expats to come back because church and school numbers are way down! It is difficult to watch expats who have lived here for 20 years have to suddenly pack up and leave because their company's contract was ended by the US foreign policy linked with aid to Egypt. The Russians and other Gulf countries are more than happy to make up that 3 billion in US aid in order to attach their own set of strings.
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| The red inked finger means you voted. |
The voting for president ended yesterday, and as expected former general Sisi who oversaw sweeping the Mu_slim brothers from power has been elected. Yes, the turnout was low, and leaders are worried about Egypt's image before the world. But what Egypt most needs is competent, honest, just, and courageous government that will tackle the real issues; then the image will take care of itself. We are hopeful about Egypt's future, but there are huge problems to address. One issue we feel personally is the power cuts. It is expected that in the 100ยบ+ daily heat of summer, we will see 3-4 power cuts per day lasting an hour each. It may be the summer of sweating in the dark! Now if we could only turn that into a weight loss program ...
After our snowy weekend in December, the winter turned out relatively warm. We never turned on our heat after that. The most notable and challenging thing Steve encountered at church was merging the African worship service on Friday afternoons into the main International Service on Fridays at 5 pm. We haven't had this much fun since the worship wars of the mid 1980s when some dared to start contemporary worship services in traditional churches. It seems some dynamics transcend culture! There was outcry, a petition, maneuvering, resistance, and weeping. But in the end we are now one worship service with many nations--no ethnic group has their own segregated service (but talk about irony when coming from a country where "segregation" is akin to racism!). Steve is emotionally exhausted and learning about placing all things in God's hands from the last five months. Those grieving the loss of African style worship will only have to wait a few months for our daughter church plant to hopefully move into that Friday afternoon time slot to provide an African-led and African-resourced church experience.
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| Egypt traffic is sometimes a free for all! |
Karan has also had a challenging year in middle school. After surviving the reduction in force (that will start in August), she has experienced the dynamics of lower morale among staff, while planning for fewer teachers to cover redistributed classes this coming year. Her special education student load this year has been especially demanding with more high-need students requiring higher levels of support. Her special ed colleague for the last five years will be moving to a speech pathologist position in the elementary division, so next year Karan will have a new co-worker in special ed. Her stress found its way into her back and neck which has limited some of her recreational activities. In times past, a Canadian chiropractor was able to keep things in alignment, but he left last summer. Finally earlier this month, she found a US-trained Egyptian chiropractor-osteopath-MD (three separate doctoral degrees if you are keeping count) who has realigned her back and neck to a much improved state. All for only $120 USD per session (three times the going rate in Maadi for an office visit, so we figure he charges once for each doctoral degree per office visit)! We pray it is covered by insurance.
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| Travis at the driving range |
Travis is still in Yakima, WA with Verizon as an assistant manager. He has done very well and they want to move him back to Spokane in August for experience in a larger store on his way to perhaps becoming a store manager. He seems to have found his niche, but has missed his social network in Spokane. Living alone has not helped. He started going to a gym and informed us that exercise actually has reduced his stress, helped him lose weight, and made him feel better. Oh, and the gym has some really good looking girls, but that is not his real motivation for going ...
Brett started a job in January at the Museum of Flight in south Seattle. He does design work in production for their advertising, but also has a little bit of opportunity to rework their website--his preferred area of design along with user interface apps. In December Brett bought a nice used Honda and then a woman ran into him while they were attempting a left turn and totaled his car. Worse than that was that he injured his toe. He was dazed and they took him to the emergency room, but the toe was the main issue. He is still receiving treatment, but has almost full activity again. Naturally there was a battle over responsibility. Since Brett only had liability insurance (and no personal injury protection), his insurance company did not get involved. This meant that Brett had to hire a personal injury lawyer to get representation. The police issued the lady a ticket which was upheld in a court challenge. So the lady's insurance has assumed responsibility and we guess the lawyer is waiting for Brett to complete medical treatment since his big toe is still a bit crooked. Brett's living situation was also less than desirable, so he moved in with some guys from Mars Hill branch church hear the University of Washington campus. (We have a Spokane friend who went to Washington State who would say that Brett now lives next door to hell.)
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| While Alex was in Spokane ... |
Alex has completed his second year at Gonzaga and now has been admitted into the Business School where he will major in Marketing and International Business with a minor in Sports Management. He also worked 20+ hours per week at Kimmel (a sports retail store),
took 15 credits (which included accounting, business law, business information systems, and economics),
and made the Dean's List this past semester. Alex came to see us at Christmas and we went to Switzerland where the balmy temperatures made the snow less than ideal for snow boarding. We tried snow shoeing, but carried the shoes more than wore them. We will try again next year. Alex will spend a second summer as camp counselor at Redwood camp (for elementary-age) at Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center outside Santa Cruz, CA.
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| Golden Temple Sri Lanka |
Our other trip outside Egypt was at spring break to Sri Lanka. We experienced a whole new culture and roads even more crowded and slower than Egypt! Still we loved the trip and got a taste of Buddhist culture and archeology. We also had a few days at a beach and a one day safari. Remember you can keep up with us on Facebook at Karan Wooley Flora or srflora on Twitter.
Cheers!
Steve and Karan
