Back to the World : Cairo, Egypt

Camels herded together at the Camel Market.

            When I was home I was made aware in an even bigger way of how many of you are behind me, and daily lifting me up in your prayers.  This was a wonderful realization, and I thoroughly enjoyed sharing with you what God is doing because of your support for me. I feel that it is unfair of me to neglect in constantly sharing with you what I am experiencing since you are just as much a part of this as I am.  So please forgive me for my previous lack of communication, I am going to try to do much better this year.

            I arrived in Cairo, Egypt on the second of January after a very restful time home. I was also very excited to get back to my other home that is my school family. The first few days the airlines lost my bag, but I heard many of you where praying and 2 days after my arrival at 3 am my friend John Paul was awakened to pounding on the door . . . and the arrival of my bag! We have spent the past few days adjusting to the culture and the new time zone. Friday morning we where able to go to the camel market, it was very interesting to see. It was the beginning to see a large part of the culture here in Egypt. For the most part the people where very friendly. My friend Morgan and I where invited in for tea, and we where both offered five camels for a hand in marriage . . . . We now pretend we have doting husbands awaiting us at home.

            The next day we all piled into two vans and headed off to see the pyramids and Garbage city. The pyramids where interesting enough, considering they where built thousands and thousands of years ago. But what I really enjoyed was Garbage city. This large area of Cairo, is where all the garbage of the city is taken and sorted. The streets are lined with bags and bags of garbage. But the people are very proud of what they do. At first I was not excited at the prospect of visiting this place because the smell is not pleasant. But as I walked around with my friend Ellie, my heart felt warmed to these people. Not long after we had walked we where quickly invited into a house of two young women and their children. Their smiling faces as the talked to us excitedly in Arabic, as if we may understand.

    Grandmother, baking bread in a small house in Garbage City.

As they ushered us into their house there was a lady making bread in the stove, but they quickly led me into the adjoining room where there was a young girl on the bed with a broken leg. We were given permission to pray for the healing of this young girl Amira. Although with the language barrier we where not quite sure they fully understood what we where doing. But shortly after we prayed, they took out these large posters of paintings of Jesus and marry, and where pointing and trying to explain to us.

Garbage city is largely made up of Coptic Christians. A religion I don’t fully understand, but I think it is a lot like the orthodox religion. I do not know what their full understanding of Jesus is, but I think they did understand our prayers. After leaving this small flat in Garbage city with giant pieces of bread, I felt extremely blessed by their hospitality and a love for the people of this city. I hope to have a opportunity to return to this city and revisit that family.

Young Christina saying goodbye in Garbage City. 

Tomorrow we begin school, a week on the Pentateuch. The last of our school is finally arriving and we are ready to hit our studies again. You can continue to pray for the finances, as several members of our school are in great need. As well as God will have divine appointments with every person we come across. I am very excited to see what will happen this month.