May 22

May 22

            I prayed last night that the Holy Spirit would help me be more like Jesus.  I long to be more like Him.  I long for less of me.  It’s the only way I’ll ever truly be happy.  To be more like Christ is to embody the fruits of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  I’ve got to keep in mind that God is all about our character-growth, or, more appropriately, our complete transformation – conformity to Christ in every way; absolute surrender.  On the one hand I pray for help to be more like Jesus and then I get perturbed and upset when He answers my prayers.  Silly.  Lord, help me.

            Today was another typical day in Egypt, which, I might add, is characterized mainly by inconveniences, annoying people, hassling, and honking.  We’ve barely had a moment’s peace.  We’ve barely had a moment completely to ourselves.  We’ve barely gone through a day without being misled, ripped off, and lied to.  CHARACTER GROWTH.  God keeps answering my prayers.

            Today we decided we would go see an English movie in theatres.  There are numerous cinema complexes in Cairo but only a few of them show movies in English (with Arabic subtitles of course).  I wanted to see Marvel’s The Avengers and figured I would be deprived of new movies for a year so I was adamant about seeing the movie.  We google-mapped the location of the theatre – only about 4 km from our hotel.  We crossed a bridge over the Nile, got led toward a theatre (the wrong one) by another self-proclaimed ‘tour guide,’ and subsequently wound up at an ‘Egyptian Market,’ which is really just a store with a bunch of ‘authentic’ Egyptian paraphernalia like small statues and papyrus paper (for tourists).  The ‘tour guides’ and shopkeepers are always in league it seems.  Anyways, rather than getting cornered in the shop, we briskly made our escape.  We wound up at a theatre and discovered (upon inquiring at the ticket booth) that there were no English movies.  We asked where our theatre was.  “You must take taxi.  Very far.”  So google maps failed us yet again (directions were correct, but impossible to follow in this crazy city).  We took a taxi to the right theatre.

            We took our seats.  We had to move (they have assigned seating).  The movie started.  The movie stopped.  The previews started.  The previews stopped.  In fact, the power for the entire cinema complex blacked out.  We sat in the dark for nearly 45 min with a bunch of noisy Egyptian teenagers flashing their cell phones here and there and giggling and pushing each other around.  It was a mad house.  Then the movie started again – part way through.  I figured we would just have to imagine the beginning.  And then, the movie started!  It was difficult to hear because the sound was turned low and it was hard to focus on the screen because the 3D was wonky but we made it through the movie and I think I understood the plot. 

            We went to Gad again for dinner.  We got our pictures taken with the manager and some of the employees (because they asked).

            Leah suggested we should hide in our small hotel room for the remainder of our time here.  I’d like to think that’d be a good idea but then we’d probably miss out on all the character growth God’s still got in store for us.