For: Dena, Jena OR Unknown MESPer going to Cairo

Please email me....echristensen@georgefox.edu. I need to know if any of you have space for me to send a small package to MESP...and no I am not a stranger (does anybody remember my funny package story from first semester??).

I have been having fun taking my morning or afternoon breaks with Lindsay. She even sends me letters through campus mail, it is quite fun.

Heather and Chris: I am already signed up to be notified when your pictures are online, I can't wait.

Liz: I am sorry that I can't make your wedding. It will be such a beautiful day. My parents will be here from Jordan that weekend. Those who are going, take lots of pictures. Where are you going on your honeymoon?

love you all xoox,
Emily

shoot, well here are the pics I was talking about... hopefully.

Buna Ziua!

Pronounced Boona zeewa. That means good day in Romanian in case you were wondering. I thought I'd finally allow myself some closure, as I'm just now writing follow up letters from my trip to Romania almost a month ago. We worked a ton which was a great experience. Our team painted many fences and many rooms as well as gates and other paraphenalia. Also I learned how to spackle! So if anyone has cracks in their walls, just call on me to come save your world. haha! thats a good pickup line as well... okay maybe not.
I think one of the biggest lessons I learned from my trip was that I really enjoy working with the elderly and hope to volunteer at the senior home we have next to the university. We stayed in this village called Peicica (Peshka) for a week, and we were painting benches there in addition to scraping walls in a room that had asbestos and then just painting over it. haha! yay for health. And Jordan (one of my teammates) and I were prepping this bench outside that needed to be painted. An old man had been sitting on a bench just watching us all day. He always wanted me to come sit down with him but whenever he wanted me to come sit I was always transporting heavy buckets or running errands for the leaders and what not. So finally I was like, why not.

I sat down beside him and I didn't speak very good Romanian, nor him English, so we just sat there and tried to communicate through hand motions and the like. Then out of the side of his coat he pulls out this wine size bottle of beer. He motions for me to take it and I'm like, no thanks, we can't drink. Of course this translated to, "blay de gleiah sdfjsie" for him. So then Jordan is intrigued by this moment and sits down across from us and together we get the idea that he wants us to open the bottle for him to drink.. we think. Jordan opens the bottle and hands it back to the old man. haha, then he is like, "nu nu nu. (nu=no) He can't drink because of medication that he takes!! haha, so now we've opened his bottle of beer, he can't drink it and now he is slightly offended that we can't drink it becuase we are on contract and our leader is scrubbing a bench 20 feet away. Honestly at that moment I was like, screw the contract, denying a pleasant drink from a kindly old man is more culturally insensitive than breaking contract. What is even more funny is that 15 minutes later Jordan went through the same thing with the same old man and a pack of cigarettes. haha! But being the smart one that I am, I just sat at the bench and laughed at him. :) So yeah, the picture attached is of me and my old man friend. I forgot his name, I'm sorry. But that is just one story of a million from my month in Romania. The second picture is of a river that fed into a glacial lake that we spent the day at. My good friend Rick and I went hiking/rock hopping up the river, long story short, we wanted to cross the river, thought one place was shallow enough, turns out it wasn't, I fell in, he held onto me and kept me from being swept downriver in 55-60 degree water. I was soaked for most of the day, and we kept on hiking upstream, but heck, what an adventure, right?
sincerely,
Lindsay

p.s. its REAL hot here now. In the shade of my porch it was 102.7 degrees outside. Last night I slept butt naked with not covers on and the fan blowing over me. I'm definitely not a quick adjuster to the heat!! hope "ya'll" are doin well, and greetings from Or E gOn.

Hotels

Has anyone booked a hotel yet for the wedding? It would be really neat if we could all stay at the same place... maybe I'm stretching, but I would really enjoy that. Chris and Chelsea and I are planning on driving out on Friday. I started looking at hotels last night, but wanted to see if anyone already had definite plans. Let me know what you think. Love, Heather Joy
P.S. Yes, there will be wedding photos online and I am certainly waiting just as anxiously. They will be posted (hopefully soon) on www.pictage.com. Just look up Micklewright in the search bar and you'll find it.

Bells will be ringing...

Alright so I have had an incredible whirlwind of the past two months or so. GRE, wedding planning, moving into a new apartment, endless job searching, spider killing, Maryland wedding, hooking up the internet 10 minutes ago after being connectionless from the world for three weeks, and oh yeah figuring out last Friday that I have to get a new wedding dress. Countdown to wedding: 41 days. Oh yes. Life is fun.

Actually I absolutly adore having my own apartment. It's liberating and freeing in a way that I haven't experienced before. I can shower with the bathroom door open. And I often do. :) It's really hard financially until Andrew moves in and he can help pay rent and utilities, but it was a step I had to take. WEll, its going to be hard financially for awhile, but I have (to have) faith that the Lord will provide. I live about an hour from work now, but my job is silly anyway and that just gives me more motivation to apply to more and more jobs. Nd plus, I have my own flowers on my own balcony!!!!! :)

I was so excited when I read Marsha's blog because it would be so, so awesome to see all of you at the wedding. My original plan was to send out invites to all of you, but, alas, that goal just didnt get met. So, here goes:

IN THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN LOVE
WE WISH FOR OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
TO SHARE WITH US THE BEAUTY OF THIS DAY
AS WE JOYOUSLY UNITE IN MARRIAGE BEFORE GOD.

Elizabeth Ursula Wortman

&

Andrew David Shell

TOGETHER WITH OUR PARENTS
INVITE YOU TO SHARE IN OUR HAPPINESS
ON THE DAY WE HAVE CHOSEN TO BEGIN OUR LIVES TOGETHER.
SATURDAY, THE TWENTY-NINTH OF JULY, TWO THOUSAND AND SIX
AT TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON.
ST LUKE’S CHURCH
1690 STERNS ROAD
TEMPERANCE, MICHIGAN 48182

A CELEBRATION OF dining AND dancing IS TO FOLLOW
AT SIX O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING
DUSSEAU’S RECEPTION HALL
12200 LEWIS AVENUE
TEMPERANCE, MICHIGAN 48182

Hearing about all the great things you guys have been up to lately is nothing short of inspiring. Way to go. This has truly been an amazing group. I mean that with all honestly, despite the cheesy shoe card-box feel of it.

So about the random pics. This is the best one I have of Heather and Chris... my camera isnt working so well. The one of Andrew is at Arlington National Cemetary, which we visited while in town for Heather and Chris' wedding and is also where we met four years ago. :) And I had to include one of my dad's fishing catch. I love my dad! So then I had to include one of me and my momma, who has been my pillar of sanity through this whole wedding thing. :)

Love you all!!

Lizzy

Dena I am so proud of you! You will be a great MESP intern. Just remember to take the students to Spectra Cafe at least once a week to regain your sanity when Cairo gets to hard to handle. Oreo Madness or Brownies and Icecream tend to melt away Cairo blues.

And Jenna Mabrook as well. You and Dena will make great roommates. What a good support system you will be for each other. And Jenna you probably will get to go on all the fun weekend trips :-) What is the name of the school you will be teaching at? Is it the school that we went and heard all about? We are thinking of going to Cairo next year, so if it is a good teaching experience maybe my husband would like to work there. Keep in touch ladies. I am so jealous that you will be able to see Diaa and Carol's new baby when it is born.

If you could all be praying. Some guys from our sunday school class went climbing on Mt. Hood this weekend and there was an accident. One guy walked off the Mt., one guys is at the hopsital scheduled for an jaw operation and other other guy (who doesn't go to our church) isn't doing so well. Please be praying for their recovery and their emotional well being, it was really traumatic for them all and hit really close to our church community. God is good and in control, his guiding hand watchs each step we take.

I love you all so very much, without this blog I don't know how well we would have all kept connected. I thought I would include another picture of Brad and I from our backpacking trip last weekend.

Oh and who is the other person going to cairo??? You all need to stay there at least two years so we can hang out when Brad and I get there :-)

Another Return to Masr

Well, it's about time I posted, and here I am. I wanted to share some exciting news with you all, and I'm finally getting a chance to do it. A few months ago, after much contemplation and consideration and prayer, I decided to apply for the MESP internship. Last week I talked with Dr. Dave on the phone and found out that I will be following in Emily's footsteps this August as the new MESP female intern. Her shoes are big ones to fill, but as I had a great example of an intern in her, and a great example in all of you of how amazing a group can be, I have a good foundation from which to start! I found out today that I'm leaving August 8 (arriving August 10) and I will be living with none other than our dear Jenna, which makes me even more excited. As you know, she's teaching in Heliopolis (and will be making the long commute from Agouza every morning) and I'm so glad she's willing to do that because she's going to make a great roommate. Turns out another of our MESP friends will be in Cairo too, which is also great, but I'll let him post about that because I don't want to ruin his news. I'm so grateful for this blog and for the chance to keep up with all of you and I would love all of your prayers for and during the coming year.

Right now I'm home for the summer, newly graduated, and I was previously planting potatoes in a greenhouse and am going to start mowing lawns for a landscaping company on Monday (I get a lot of teasing about having a BA and mowing lawns, but it's a good job, and I think I'll like it, so I can handle it).

I also wanted to let all of you know about something in case any of you are interested in returning to the Middle East this coming year and need a way to do so. Before I found out about the MESP internship, I was also looking at volunteering for SOS Children's Villages at one of their sites in Bethlehem. SOS Children's Villages (an organization which you can check out at http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/) runs "villages" all over the world - they have one in Cairo as well. I know the sister of the girl who is currently volunteering in Bethlehem and I was in contact with her about possibly taking over her position this coming year. She said basically what they want is a native English speaker who can hang out with the kids, play games, organize activities, etc. You live right in the village, and it sounds like a great opportunity. I don't think the position itself pays, but they pay for your plane ticket and your accomodations, so you also wouldn't have many costs. I'm not sure if the position is still open but if any of you are interested in this, you can email Anne Venhuizen (the current volunteer) at annemven@gmail.com. You can also email the regional director of the Children's Villages in Cairo - his name is Sebastian Corti and his address is sebastian-corti@sos-kdme.org. He's the one who officially hires/appoints the volunteers. You don't need to know Arabic before you go (Anne didn't know any) but I'm sure they'd love to hear that you already know some. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone was interested!

In other news, I know that most of the world is consumed with soccer at the moment, but my city (and country) has been obsessed with hockey, so I would just like to say GO OILERS!!!! :)

Love you all and hope you're well.

Ulasich's summer

Hey y'all. I'm going to Swaziland and Mozambique this summer with my brother. There is a link on the right side of this page to get to our travel blog. or you can go to brotherstoafrica.blogspot.com

Check it out if you're interested. Peace.

sabat ilxeer

Today I was sitting on the bus on the way home from work, and two guys came on. One of the guys greeted the man across the aisle from me, and said, "sabat ilxeer." It made me a little homesick for Egypt. Several of you are going back next year. That makes me happy. For my part, I'll continue to talk excitedly about the Middle East, and maybe influence my students a little.

We had 17 arrests this past week of young men of middle eastern dissent who had allegedly planned a huge terrorist attack. Somehow they managed to collect 3 tonnes of some sort of explosive. Now the prime minister, Stephen Harper, is touting Bushesque rhetoric about how this group of people hates us. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure how to react to all of this. Like true Canadians, all the people I talk to have opinions, which they're not afraid to share with the group. They ask how these young men could go through the Canadian school system and still be fundamentalist terrorist type people. I don't know. I don't know how Canada should react, and I don't know how to respond to these people, and I wish that this wasn't happening to my country. That's it.

A Michigan Wedding and Strange Dreams

First of all, who's in on Liz's wedding? There's a bus leaving from Iowa. Get yourself here and you've got a ride. Rumor has it Clarie, Cecka, and Chelsea will probably be on my bus and we'll probably be pretty hot at the wedding. The aforementioned can affirm or deny the details above.Well, I guess now there is on'y one seat left in the car. Andrew Kroeze...how does a weekend with the girls sound to you?

Guys, its been all long, long time since we were all together. I had this really weird dream last week. I can't really remember the details. You were all at my house. All 25 of us (including Emily). Except my house was Anafora. Maybe if I dream it long enough it'll happen. Paul was especially prominent in my dream. Maybe we'll here from him someday.

I wrote all of that last week and then got interupted, not sure what else I felt like I needed to add. I'm starting to get into the swing of summer. I have an internship at a Rufugee Cooperative in the mornings. A lot of our clients spent time in Cairo before they were resettled in the U.S. so I have little conversations with them in Arabic which helps win them over. Also, a couple nights a week I am working as a resident assistant at a shelter for women (mostly who were recently released from prison) not sure exactly what I got myself into with that one...I will learn how to give breathalizers and UVs next week.

I think that's all the news from me. Hope to see a lot of you at Liz's wedding this summer.

Love,

Marcia

Prayer request

Hey everyone. You may have heard about the mistaken identity discovered 5 weeks after the car crash at our school. It's been on the news pretty much all over the world. You can read about it here. You can also look at the blog that the family has been keeping to update on the recovery of the girl they believed was their daughter. It's pretty incredible the number of comments on their posts in the past 3 days. I know the families could use your prayers. Please pray for their friends, as well as the Taylor community as we continue to grieve the loss of our friends.

I love you all. peace.