Well, i am back in good ole' Cairo. It was nice to have a week of not hearing the sound of a million cars or people shouting in the streets. The past 6 days were very eventful:
After an 11 hour car ride and many stops, my group finally arrived to our site in the desert. We were greeted by Beduoin men who had set up our tents and started a fire. We had an amazing dinner, while being serenaded with live egyptian music and dancing. serious dancing. It was classic and i have never laughed so hard watching an egyptian. We woke up the next morning with our faces and bodies completely covered in sand. Then, we got in the car and spent the day going to different Beduoin villages. It was such a cultural shock to see how these people lived and what they call home. But, we had such a fun time just playing with the kids and speaking with them using the little arabic that we know. We again had amazing food. Egyptians seriously are so hospitable.
The next day was my favorite day by far. We rode camels for an hour and a half! This part of the desert was beautiful and we stayed there until late in the evening with the Beduoin men from the first night. The whole sky was covered in stars and we took a 25 minute walk through the desert to get to our car, with the crazy men singing and playing the instruments. probably will never have a moment like this again in my life.
So, let me quickly just tell you about our driver. His name was Fadre. He was obsessed with shooting pigeons...so obsessed that while he was driving...he would have one hand holding his gun and the other holding the steering wheel. Whenever he saw a whole bunch of birds he would stop the car, stick his gun out of the window, and shoot at the birds. ha. He actually got a couple of them and then he would get out of the car and bring them back. We ate some for dinner. definitely interesting.
Onto the rest of the time:
The last couple of days we spent in an Egyptian village. We stayed with a family from the church. This is when we finally were able to do ministry and evangelize because an egyptian policeman was with us for the first couple of days so we were not allowed to do anything that had to do with Christianity (because it is illegal to evangelize here). It was so hard to leave this village because we felt so welcomed there. It was such a warm and hospitable place. We were surrouned by farms and animals. When we would walk through the village, tons of people would just invite us into their homes to visit. I probably had 5 cups of tea in one day.
So, overall...it was a great 6 days. Im still dealing with the language barrier. I just hate how i cant sit down with people and hear about their lives because it is hard to just communicate here. But, i cant change it. im just learning to embrace this experience. So there you have it!
2 1/2 more weeks in cairo and then i leave for israel! Its crazy that this experience is coming to an end. hope you are all doing well! have a great day.

Hello! So it has been a busy past couple of days. My team leaves for the desert tomorrow. We have an 11 hour van ride. We are staying in the desert for 3 nights and then will go to the another city to do some church ministry. I will have to write about more details when i get back next weekend.
So, Garbage city housecleaning this week was an interesting experience. Me and one of the guys from my team cleaned a bedroom. We pulled the blankets and boards off the bed and under the bed was every kind of trash you could ever imagine and tons of rat poop. There was a huge pile of trash between the wall and the bed.....so i decided to take on the challenge of sweeping it all out. As i swept...something in the pile started to move..and it ended up being a HUGE rat. The rat ran out but there were still a whole lot of little rats. The guy told us we had to kill them. I was thinking in my head, "does he want us to kill it will our hands or something?" i had no idea what he meant and had no idea what to do. I ended up sweeping out the rats and then the guy i was working with would catch them in his hands (we had gloves on) and he would throw them really hard out the window against the wall. A total of 6 rats were killed. Definitely will be a story that i will not forget.
Another night we had a ministry at a church and in the beginning of the service all of the lights went out. We ended up lighting a whole bunch of candels and it was so cool to have a service in candel light. We have been doing a lot of church ministry and just challenging and encouraging the Christian churches in Egypt. It really has taught me a lot. Im still working with the whole language barrier thing...but i know that it is good for me to experience.
Anyway, i need to get going but i just wanted to update you a little bit before i left for the desert. Here is a verse that encouraged me this morning: "My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God." prov. 2:1-5