Sunday, September 28, 2008 

Ramadan

The Muslim observance of Ramadan ends in a couple of days. During Ramadan, muslims are expected to not eat or drink anything while the sun is up. Usually, they wake up at like 4am and eat a feast before the sun comes up, go through the whole day without eating or drinking, then feast again as soon as the sun goes down.

Then there are the muslims in my city who don't give a flip. My city is a very western city, in that the people act more like atheist Europeans than muslims. Ramadan didn't change much of anything around here, as people still walked around outside eating and drinking, and restaurants remained open. At times I even forgot it was Ramadan.

I did notice a big change though as I traveled to other places with groups from the States. While in one city, we couldn't eat lunch because there were no open restaurants. We had several people tell us that they wanted to offer us tea and coffee as we sat and talked but couldn't because of Ramadan.

I didn't like what the Ramadan observance did to the people in those cities. Nobody was in good spirits, everyone just sat around and waited until it was okay to eat and drink again. Their culture and they themselves were being oppressed. I loved walking around at night in those cities because they all became themselves again. They were laughing and smiling while drinking their tea. I couldn't help but think that this is how it should be all the time. I long for the day when these people and their culture will be free.

After Ramadan, there's a big holiday where everyone will go and visit family and friends. It's their biggest holiday, like Christmas in the States. I'm looking forward to it, some old friends are coming back to the city while some usually busy friends are free. It'll be a welcome change to Ramadan.

11:48 AM | |

 

And I'm Back

I had the privilege of helping a group from the States come and minister to the people here last week. We had a good time as we walked around and prayed for the people here and talked with them. On a random note, we also had a good time as we played water polo in the hotel pool.


11:24 AM | |

Friday, September 12, 2008 

So...

The past 30 days or so I've seen more hotels (and hotel breakfasts) than I can shake a stick at. It's been a busy (and I mean busy) time, but a good one. I'll try to update you guys pretty quickly, tomorrow I'm heading out again.

Like I said in the last post we had our big meeting at a nice hotel a few weeks ago. It was a really refreshing and fun time, and even better than last year's meeting if you ask me. We prayed, listened to people open the Scriptures to us, worshiped God with song in a big group setting (which is something we all miss a lot while over here), and of course had a lot of fun.

The hotel


One thing I realized that week was how dry I was. I read my Bible and pray every day, but that's not enough. I need to be intentional about listening to sermons online and getting into truth more. I have a lot more negative influences in my life than positive ones. I spend most of my time here with unbelievers.

Here's some pictures from the meeting:


Yeah, we grew moustaches. Except for that one guy in the middle.

Yeah, we sang a song about moustaches. Even the guy in the middle.

After the meeting I went back home, did laundry, slept one night, then hopped on a plane to help with a group that had come from the States. We headed out East, to an area of the country I had never been to before.


Me without the 'stache. The area we went to was really green, and it was refreshing to be around all the nature. That's something I miss these days.

This area is notorious for the bad way the people there speak the language. They turn most every "k" and "g" sound into a "j" sound. It was funny, and kind of aggravating at times. Imagine the sentence "The Greek king is coming" spoken like "The Jeek jing is joming" and you get a sense of what it was like.


An old castle we visited had a lot of frescos on the walls and ceilings. The frescos told the Bible story from Creation to the Final Judgement. There was even a fresco for when Elisha parted the waters right after Elijah was taken up to heaven. Now that's detailed.


The trip went really well, we got to meet a lot of people and share the gospel really well. The local people really listened while people from the group shared. Me and two guys from the group sat in a local guy's house and talked about the Lord for almost 2 hours. It was amazing the attention they gave us and the message.

After the trip I went to the big city with everybody, ate an awesome burger, and bussed back home.

Tomorrow I'm heading out again, I'll let you know how it went when I get back.

6:19 AM | |