Out of touch

Just to let you all know that we are going to be out of touch for the next week and a half. We have an 8 day trek planned through the mountains and then a 3 day trip out in the Sahara desert. Thanks for your prayers during this time.

Some pics from Morocco

Here are some pics from Morocco so far:

The view from the beach where we hang out with the kids each morning and play soccer

The more bubbles that you can get to be in the tea glass, the better it is. Therefore pour from on high and hope that it is not too windy!

Essaouira in all its glory. Beautiful city and wonderful people. The old medina walls are amazing with all the cannons on them and all the lookout points and everything. A very neat ancient feel.

The view from the terrace of our new place. We can watch the sunset on the ocean from here and have our morning devotionals while we hear the waves crash in.

It's kind of a tricky situation to take pictures of the people that we are working with every day but as we get some of those, I will post. One very noteworthy item is that we were able to give away a good news book yesterday! Pray that He continues to cause breakthroughs in this country. Thanks for all your support, it means so much to me.

From the beaches of Morocco

Well what to say about the trip so far... It has been interesting all the times and at times kind of tough. I am super glad to have had my previous experience in Jordan to rely on at times. I think the culture shock would be a lot tougher without that. We are now in Essaouira, a small town of about 45,000 people that is situated on the ocean. A very popular tourist spot in the summer time, even so it is quite busy with people at this time of year. I really love it here if just for all the things that are different about it. It is an adventure being here and beautiful. We get to go to the beach every day to hang out with some local kids that we have made friends with and are teaching us how to play football. It seems that everybody here plays the sport and most of them start as soon as they learn how to walk. There is a shortage of soccer fields at the schools I guess so we find that the beach is busy with all ages of people playing soccer. There can be up to 10 different games going on at once. We have also been doing face painting for the kids, which was real popular. The other day we went around the medina (ancient parts of the towns) and handed out pastries and money to the beggars. That was an interesting experience, one of the beggars even tried to give me back my 5 dirham coin because he thought I had given him too much by accident (I think the regular is 1/2 or 1 dirham coins). The rest of the people on the team here are awesome and they are adjusting very well to the foreign culture. We are really starting to meet and hang out with a lot more of the shop owners here in Essaouira. A typical day will involve going around to have conversations with some of the more English speaking ones that we can find and having many glasses of mint tea (Berber or Moroccan whiskey as it’s called) that is sweetened with entirely too much sugar! We all love it immensely and make sure to try and brush out teeth at least three times a day. Our Arabic is increasing slightly but more so our French. Many more people speak French to us (as we are obviously tourists here and many of the tourists are European and speak French) than Arabic. Sometimes it’s a mix of French and Arabic with a couple of English words thrown in here and there. We have been blessed with a sweet apartment that we have all to ourselves for our morning meetings. And at a real cheap price, one of the advantages of coming here in low season. We head off to Marrakech in one week, where we are going to be volunteering at a hostel and helping them out with some new buildings that they are working on. Hopefully we will be able to get to meet some backpackers during that time. Would love to post some pictures, but the connections here are ridiculously slow most of the time and it is such a hassle. Will have a slideshow when I get back.

Good times in Morocco

All is well here in the wonderful city of Casablanca! We went to the market today and had a wonderful time visiting with one vendor that we ran into. He knew very good English and we sat and had tea and talked about many different things. Also our first visit to a hammam the other day (can't remember if I have mentioned that yet). Very similar to onsens in Japan but at least in these, we can keep our boxers on. A shortage of toilet paper here (actually there is none in the stalls) so we have learned to keep a steady supply on hand. We are starting to make some good friends here and are beginning to feel that we are accomplishing something useful. So much easier to believe that God has brought us here when the feelings accompany the belief. Thanks for all your "thoughts". We are probably heading to either Essaouira next or Marrakech. Will let you know what happens as it does happen. Visited the third biggest mosque in the world yesterday, just down the street from us. Very beautiful and took lots of pictures. It also has the highest minaret in the world. Quite dazzling. OK, time is running out, have to sign off. Take care until next time...

It's 2007!

It is now 2007 officially here in New Zealand and the first thing that I am doing this year is to get on a plane and head to Morocco! Super swell! I am excited but don't exactly know what to expect. We have one week of the six week trip planned out completely. We are going to be hiking through the Atlas mountains and staying with the local Berber tribes (Berbers are the local people that were here before the Arabs arrived). This is going to be a great oppportunity to see local culture and see some of the great scenery of Morocco. The last two days of our trip we are hoping to do a camel-back trip through the Sahara desert and climb on the huge sand dunes. During the month of January we don't know what we are going to do yet. We are hoping to find some volunteer opportunities to be able to work with and help out people.

As I am now going to be in an Islamic country-with all of the "freedoms" that Islam offers-please be considerate when emailing me. If you don't know what I mean, send me an email and ask me and I will tell you in more detail. Thanks for your consideration regarding this.

Also to let you know that I am now 3 1/2 months in on the Nazarite vow I have taken during the course of this school. Basically involves no shaving or trimming the beard, no drinking grapes, wine or any other product comes from the vine. More detail in Numbers 6. Take a look if you want. I am going to shave on Feb 24, the day of graduation. As always I will take pictures and post them before the beard comes off. It is getting ridiculously long right now and the moustache is really starting to get in the food ALL the time. I will be glad to get rid of it I think.

Hope you are all well back at home. Looking forward to seeing you and hearing from you when you get a chance. Please keep us in your prayers also. Finances and direction (especially for the month of January). Thanks very much. Lots of love from New Zealand and soon to be Morocco.