May 18
The
days are starting to hazily blend together, and we’re both getting tired of
traveling. It’s fun and incredibly
beneficial with regards to expanding and deepening your worldview and
perspective, but it’s also draining and sometimes a little lonesome. It’s difficult to really invest in
people’s lives when you’re constantly moving from place to place. Relationships make life rich, and
relationships take a lot of time.
You can’t invest the time if you don’t have, and you’ll never have it if
you don’t stop moving. The desire
of our hearts is to live out the Great Commission. The Great Commission commands us to make disciples, and like
I said, this can take a lot of time.
So, all in all, we feel incredibly blessed that God has allowed us to
travel, experience new cultures and countries, learn about the world, and learn
about ourselves, but, we are thrilled to
know that we’ll be in Tanzania shortly laboring alongside fellow brothers and
sisters for the cause of Christ…
Took
a train today to Cairo from Luxor – 12 hr. train ride. The train broke down a couple times so
the journey was longer than expected.
People got angry and there were a few minor outbursts between passengers
and railway employees but we’re fairly accustomed to this now (we’ve now
witnessed more than several rowdy, heated, animated confrontations since we
arrived in Egypt). Aside from
that, the train ride wasn’t too bad.
We rode ‘first class’ this time.
On our way to Aswan from Luxor and vice versa we took the third class
train – garbage strewn all over the floor, people spitting on the floor,
windows open, vendors selling their wares at every train stop – and it was a
great experience, but we decided it was too long of a trip to Cairo so we opted
for ‘first class,’ which might have passed as third class in Canada though I’m
confident people wouldn’t be smoking and spitting tobacco-laced lugies on the
floor.
On
the train we met a lively young boy (maybe 10 yrs. old) who sat near us and ate
continually until he finally fell asleep about an hour from Cairo. He was traveling with his uncle who was
sitting somewhere in another car.
His uncle checked up on him occasionally and pacified him with chips,
pop, cookies and the like but I think the kid was still a little bored so he
frequently paced the aisle from car to car and also attempted many MANY times
to strike up conversations with Leah and I. At the end of it all (and the end was a LONG time in
coming), we learnt his name (Muhammad – which is easy to remember, especially
considering the fact that this seems to be the name given to literally about
half the males born in the Middle East).
We also learnt that he is a friendly, smiley, playful little boy and we
were reminded yet again that children are pretty much the same the world
over.
We
arrived in Cairo (it’s a mad house!) and took a taxi through a turbulent sea of
honking vehicles downtown to an area where there’s some hostels and
hotels. Leah checked one while I
stayed with the bags in the car to make sure our taxi driver didn’t leave us
stranded and bag-less. Her report
was unfavorable (dark, dingy, and creepy), so we jumped back in the cab and our
driver honked his way through the chaos and brought us to another place. Yes! We found a decent place and crashed.
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