Happy New Year!

To start things off, we'll go back to mid December, when the semester ended at school. We had a wonderful time of celebration! First we had a day of sports. The kids were all really into this. In this video you can see some of the children cheering for their team. "Mandella! Ohoh-ohoh."

The very last day of school was the closing ceremony. Students and their parents filled all of the seats and floor space of our Guild Hall. The students were given awards and performed dances. Here some of the children are in costume, performing a Sudanese wedding dance.

Before Christmas we spend some time preparing our worship space for the festivities. First, the congregation had a cleaning day. We came together to wipe away the layers of dust that inevitably covers everything in Cairo. In this picture Paul and some congregation members are working in the sanctuary. Then we had a decorating day. In addition to the usual Christmas decorations, we used the beauty of God's creation with a live Christmas tree and green leaves from the trees outside to spruced up our windows. For us living in the desert, green plants have become very, very beautiful indeed.

It is an interesting thing, celebrating Christmas in a country that doesn't. Unlike the US where stores and the media start reminding that it will soon be Christmas more than a month in advance, here it is mostly unnoticed. But still, Christmas in Cairo was wonderful. We had a beautiful Christmas Eve service with lots of hymns, some from the American tradition, some from other places. Paul attended a Christmas Day service for the Sudanese churches. The 3 hour service included lots of singing, preaching, and even baptisms.

Finally, we really celebrated New Year's in style. A church member lives in a very tall building. We joined her on her roof for a small party. We were on top of one of the tallest buildings in Cairo. We watched boats go along the Nile and the huge expanse of city lights. And then, it was New Year's and we were above all the fireworks. From up there, we could see them all around us. It was really amazing.