Because Emily P was ill, I stood in for her today and helped Emily W with her class, she teaches Grade 2 and 3 so this was really great for me to have the opportunity to be involved in the teaching of the children again. The class were a class of 50 children and they were pretty crazy! Enthusiastic maybe the word I would use for them although crazy or mental fits the bill better! They are full of energy and it was a real challenge trying to get them to settle down after break for the English lesson, this would be hard enough at home with a class of 50 kids never mind with kids who don’t speak English. So my discipline and teaching strategies were stretched to the limit today!!

It was fun, we taught them new Bible songs. The story was Jesus calms the storm…. and boy did we really need Jesus to come and calm the storm in our classroom! He did – eventually! He just needed us to be faithful in the task first!

By the time lunchtime came I was so hungry! Perhaps because I had used all my energy trying to control the energy in class! Lunch was superb! It never ceases to amaze me the food that we receive from the mothers and fathers of the church family.. there is always a feast, usually chicken with rice and nuts, salad, yoghurt, zukini or courgettes stuffed with meat and rice and much much more. For dessert today we had home-made ice-cream. It was amazing! Then as if that wasn’t enough we also had cake, biscuits and sweets served with chi and nana ( tea with mint) and Ahweh ( Arabic coffee). I usually always have Ahweh – it is sooooo good! I really want to bring some of that home… it is great! No wonder we are so tired all the time… we eat so much!!

After lunch we came home and started prepping for tomorrow and Wednesday… normally we have a snooze or a rest.. but today we didn’t we just got stuck in to the work. So praise God he gave us the strength we needed to continue without a rest since we started the day really tired.  The rest of the evening consisted of devotions, dinner and debrief. We are studying Matthew and it is really good. We read a chapter everyday and study it, God is showing us new things everyday and usually what we have studied as a team in our team devotions or personal devotions is what has been preached on in church or mentioned in worship or at prayer times before summer school! So this is good. God gives us fresh eyes to see and fresh ears to hear what He has to say to us daily.  We are learning new things everyday and this is strengthening us as a team. PTL!

So now it is about 11pm, it’s been a full and packed day for all of us, I am tired now but it’s good – hopefully this means I’ll sleep right through the night, maybe even through the call to prayer! Who knows! Next time I blog  I’ll let you know!!

Pray for Emily that she makes a speedy recovery and can continue to teach and work with the children, I know she is frustrated because she has missed out on one day. Continue to pray for us. We really feel the prayers of all of you and it is wonderful…so keep them coming!

Speak to you soon!

Love in Him

Stacey :0)

So the day started with a trip to Mount Nebo, the place where Moses was shown the promised land before he died. We stood where Moses stood and saw what Moses would have seen, and it was such an incredible sight, I loved the whole place. Even Aaron was buried somewhere there apparently. Dan was even kind enough to point to the place out to me, which appeared to be over a dodgey looking wall, so I stood on my tip toes admiring the site in awe, only to discover during debrief at the end of the day that actually he was joking, and couldn’t believe I took him seriously. Thanks Dan. We met some Fijian men too whilst we were there, and it turns out they work for the UN, serving in the army in Baghdad. They were the friendliest people.

Next we went to the place where Jesus was baptised in the Jordan River. The spot isn’t in the Jordan River anymore as it changed course, and the site has mostly dried up except a little water to preserve the spot. We were able to go to the actual river too though, and I dipped my foot in. Some of us actually got into the river up to their thighs (the boys) but it was so muddy! I couldn’t believe how narrow it was and how close to Israel we were. We saw a baptism taking place on the Israeli side and were so close we could have reached them in three arm lengths. Oh, and gosh, the heat there was so intense, sooo intense. It’s been hot here, but this was beyond bearable.

After that we headed straight off to the Dead Sea Spa Hotel for lunch. It was a massive buffet, which was great, but oh my, the desserts were more like tiny works of art! They were canapé sized, so a couple of us may have had a competition to see who could eat the most… I had 9. I think I won. Next we changed and went straight to swim in the Dead Sea; it was such an unusual sensation to be floating like that! They had ‘Free Mud’ too, so I did the thing and smothered my arms and legs in that. Being quite a clean person, I actually enjoyed it! Once we’d exhausted the excitement of the sea, we went to the hotel pools and just relaxed for the afternoon. Oh, and Rachel, Reti and I taught these Arabic girls to swim, which was nice!

When we got home, Reti sent George, Stacey and I for chicken. If I’m honest, I couldn’t understand how we would be eating dinner, I was convinced no one would be hungry after that lunch, but they insisted, so we went. Turns out it was just a decoy, as when I got in and they sat me down for dinner, the lights suddenly went out and there was this whooshing noise and fire in the other room, and they came in carrying a massive gateaux with what I can only describe as actual fireworks sticking out of it. I was so excited! And they had all bought me a beautiful set of hand-painted, Arabic coffee cups, which was so wonderful as I had been searching for the perfect set to buy, and they had found one for me! They had planned all this without me knowing, and it was the most wonderful surprise, it just made my birthday so special.

So a massive thank you to all of my Jordan family who made my day so lovely, and special greetings from me to all of my friends back home.

God Bless,

Emily P

After resting, we headed to Rainbow Street to the books@cafe bookshop where we had a great lunch.  It was really good. We had food that was not so Jordanian and more like food from home. So this was nice for a while. The cafe was cool, very retro and I had the most amazing brownie! It was full of chocolate, nuts and chocolate fudge stuff topped with chocolate ice cream… it was delicious! Or as they say here in Jordan zaki! We had an adventure getting there though, Emily, Rachel Dan and I were in the same taxi on the way there and the taxi driver did not speak a word of English and between us we had about three words of Arabic, the taxi driver didn’t have a clue where he was going and by the grace of God we found the others in the taxi ahead of us. I quickly memorised the number plate and told Dan to watch out for them so he could signal to the taxi driver that we should just follow them! Halas! We got there in the end and had a great lunch!

In this photo – George, Dan, Courtney, Emily P, Emily W.

In this photo – Stacey, Rachel, Reti.

Unfortunately during lunch, Emily started to feel unwell. She had a really high temperature, a really sore head and felt a bit dizzy. Reti decided it was best to take her home and left Dan and myself with strict instructions in Arabic for the taxi ride home! Before heading home we went to the Jarrow ( pronounced Yarrow) Markets. This was good, us girls had a good time shopping while the guys chaperoned us around – they clearly were not made for shopping!! Anyway it allowed us the opportunity to buy a gift for Emily P for her birthday while she was at home with Reti. A good time shopping was had by all – well maybe not the guys!! But we had fun none the less!
The taxi ride home was interesting again.  Dan and his teamers got into a cab at least 10 minutes before us and they managed to get home after us! They ended up outside of town, almost on the other side of Amman! How they managed that I have no idea but the expressions on their faces were priceless when they got back to base! I on the other hand, although totally stressed out at the thought of coming home in a taxi without the security of Dan or Reti who have a little more Arabic than me got on actually surprisingly well! I managed to describe in Arabic where we wanted to go and he understood well enough to get us home.. well Rachel and I managed to between us translate some words to get us home…. really it was just by the grace of God I think!
So Friday was a good day! The evening consisted of a light dinner for us, since we were stuffed from lunchtime, devotions and debrief and an early night for our early rise on Saturday. We are off to Mount Nebo, Bethany beyond the Jordan or the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. I personally cannot wait to float in the Dead Sea again… I loved it last time and I’m sure it will be just as awesome this time around! Watch this space for more of our adventures and thoughts of this.  Emily P’s birthday is Saturday (tomorrow) so hopefully she’ll be well for this. We did pray about it so I’m sure God has heard and will heal her.

Keep praying, we covet your prayers for us.

Every blessing,
Stacey x

My class are very basic beginners, I am sure that means they have also borne the brunt of many jokes or teasing about how stupid they are – or a common call name here is donkey, so I am sure many of them have also been called that in their lifetimes. I have grown to love them and am praying they will discover just how precious they are.

Photo my class including two Arabic helpers.

Today we are also saying goodbye to Destiny.  Her 10 days with us seem to have flown by but we have appreciated her enthusiasm, experience (she was on last year’s team) and strength in prayer. We miss you inti!

Photo  team – Stacey, Dan, Destiny & Emily W.

We have a full weekend lined up – some relaxing stuff and tourism as well as church, but you’ll read more on that shortly.

Keep praying,
Reti

Reti gave me the opportunity to sleep in today which I welcomed with open arms since the past few nights I haven’t slept so good. I’ve been up for 2 and 3 hours at a time, usually just in time for the call to prayer which keeps me a awake a little longer again. So to have the opportunity to sleep in a bit longer was really excellent.  Plus I had lots of washing to complete from Tuesday. Tuesday is our washing day (or maybe I should say our laundry day – just in case you think we only wash on a Tuesday!!) I am official ‘laundry lady’ so I had the task of doing the washing for the team… I have never seen so much laundry.. so much so that our lovely contemporary twin tub decided not to work and produce a strange burning rubber smell. So I decided that enough was enough and perhaps I shouldn’t use it just in case it exploded or something. So as frustrating as this was I had to stop my lovely laundry and then continue it again at the guys house while everyone was at Summer School. So it was good for me to sleep in but it was equally good for me to have the chance to finish our laundry.  I managed to hang it out on the guys’ roof and figure out how to work their lovely new washing machine – it was like a dukebox it had a play and pause button, it was so fancy I was expecting it to start singing and dancing, it didn’t do that but it do the job I was asking it to do – eventually! I’ve never prayed over a washing machine before so this was a new experience for me! Every day is a new experience here in Jordan!

I arrived just in time for the end of the craft class. It was great to see all the children both boys and girls sitting in their classes sewing little purses/wallets.  This activity required a lot of concentration so therefore the children were unusually quiet and this was great!  When 12noon came and the children were dismissed, we, the team and the Arabic helpers had our debrief and lots of praise and thanksgiving was given to God for the fantastic day that everyone had! The previous day had been a challenge with some of the classes and with some of the children but today seemed to be really great. The lessons went really well and some of our team had the awesome privilege of being able to pray with some of the children in their classes. Dan had the opportunity to pray and speak with some of the M children about Jesus and he was rejoicing at this as were we the team. This is why we are here after all, we are here to bring glory to God and affect the lives of the children in our care for Jesus. So praise God Dan and some of the rest of our team were given the opportunity to do so! Please pray for more opportunities like this, especially for opportunities with the parents of the children too. We believe God is the God of the impossible and for some of the families we are working with, this idea or concept of Jesus is impossible. So please stand with us in prayer for these things. God is good!

Today we had a great lunch with one of the families of the church whose children come to summer school, the food was amazing and the fellowship was awesome.  The children are delightful and their parents have such gracious, loving and kind hearts! We had Egyptian food, so this was a new experience for some of us… but a good one none the less. Much fun was had by all and we enjoyed a time of singing too. The children impressed us with their really good English in singing the songs that we had been learning at the Summer School so this was really lovely to see.
In our time of fellowship with the family each of us on team had the opportunity to share what brought us to Jordan and why we are here and what our hopes are for the future so this was really nice to be able to do this.
After this the others went to afternoon classes with Reti and I went home with Rachel, Chrissy and Dan and we had to prep for the next few days of school.  Prep was difficult today we all found it a challenge and very difficult to concentrate, I was glad that I had rested and was able to look at their planning with a fresh mind but planning was difficult today.  So we spent some time in the evening praying about our classes and praying for each of the lead and helper teachers.  We are trusting that God is going to give us clarity of mind and a supernatural ability to work through our tiredness to teach with great enthusiasm.. so watch this space for good testimonies regarding teaching on Thursday!

Yep so once again, our days are PACKED FULL! There is always so much to think about and to do.. we need more and more energy for our task.. so please stand with us in prayer again and again for more energy, more grace, more love and more of Jesus for the rest of the days that lie ahead.
We are all growing to love this country and the people in it. God has really given us a heart of compassion for this place. Praise God for this.

Speak to you all again soon.
Love and blessing
Happy reading… and keep praying!
Praise God for all of you.

Stacey <><

After each teaching morning, we are invited back to a home of a church family for lunch.  We are constantly amazed at their hospitality and generosity.  Today our hostess is also one of the Arab team helping our school.  She fit over 20 of us into her small home and fed us a local fish & rice dish called sayadiyya (or fishermans meal).  This is a huge honour as fish is very expensive here. As we ate I noticed all the Arab helpers who came with us, took small servings of our meal and also refrained from taking fish onto their plates.  I realised they did this so that our hostess would have more than enough of the good food for us and wouldn’t be embarrassed by running out of food.  Each lunch with an Arab is at least a 3 course meal, Courtney and Emily insist we actually get 5 course.  The main meal, cake, fruit, tea or qahwe (Turkish coffee) and sometimes something else as well…. Often, the main meals we have been served here has more than one main dish; in some homes we have been served 3 or 4 main dishes as well as other side dishes or dips. In every case they have had way more than we can eat.  On a personal level it has been a challenge trying to keep my weight down, having recently lost 45kgs or around 100 pound or 7 stones, it has been hard balancing the heavy carbs midday – so I am trying to keep my night time meal down to a salad or just yoghurt and fruit.

After lunch sometime between 4.30 and 5pm, those who are lead teaching afternoon classes (Emily, George, Courtney, Destiny and I) go to prepare for our 5.30 lessons with my friend who is writing our curriculum while the morning lead teachers (Chrissy, Rachel & Dan) return to base with Stacey tp prepare for the next morning’s lesson.  Today is water day – so besides helping with prep Stacey also does the laundry for us girls.

I love my afternoon class.  I have 10 students mainly young girls: 13-17, who have very basic English.  I have been hugely blessed and encouraged by how much they have grown in their confidence in using English and also in themselves.  I love this sort of thing…they are blossoming….and God in his grace lets us be part of his transforming work.

When we return to base, Stacey also usually has a light dinner ready for us, we eat together have team debrief and then devotions.  But tonight we didn’t get to Devotions and sent the boys to their house at 10.30.

Every day is packed!  Our daily and weekly schedules are also packed.  It is a good thing, pray for our strength, focus and opportunities to rest.

Reti

The children came in full of joy, excitement and happiness. It was great to see their faces and see them eager to sing at assembly and learn in their classes.  For me, I saw some of the children that were in my Grade 3 class when I was here in 2008. So this was exciting for me, some of them recognised me before I recognised them which was a bit weird but cool that they remembered me and what we did in the class. One guy said; “Aah! You were the guitar woman and the Hokey Cokey Woman!” We did do a lot of singing with Grade 3 and I did play my guitar a lot. I also taught them the ‘Hokey Cokey/ because this was a good way to get them familiar with the body parts, arms, legs, etc and with commands like left, right, in, out, up and down etc. So at least they remembered something even if it was a bit bizarre!!

During team, the second week has traditionally been known as being the week where we are open to spiritual attack.  So we were all encouraged during the prayer times with each other and the Arabic helpers and leaders to pray for one another and to pray for protection which we did and will continue to do.

Emily P shared with me this morning about a strange vision she had around 3am.  She said that she woke up in the middle of the night, or in the morning about 3am and she was in a panic, she woke up in a cold sweat and felt scared.  She could see in the doorway a vision of a black figure, he was completely dressed in black showing only the whites of his eyes.  She was fearful of this person and said that this feeling was unusual to her as she is not normally a fearful person.  However she felt scared so she began to pray for protection for herself and for the team base and the guys and all that was going on with the Summer School.  The figure remained there and so she decided to go and close the door, then went back to bed but the strange figure appeared at the window again. He never entered the room, his presence was just there. After half an hour or so of feeling scared and praying on her own, she decided to wake Courtney and Emily W with whom she shares a room. They both prayed  with her for protection etc and eventually, Emily said the vision went away and she felt peace and was able to sleep again.

When Emily P shared this with me I asked her to share it with the team and with the Arabic helpers, leaders and teachers of the Summer School during our time of prayer at the end of the day because I felt as did Emily that perhaps this was a warning from God to really cover ourselves in the blood of the lamb and really ask God to protect us. We did this and we will continue to do so. And we would ask that you would also stand with us in prayer for protection too for all aspects of our work here.

Later in the day, we as a team in our own team devotionals and debrief spoke about the fact that we felt spiritual attack could perhaps come from within ourselves as a team and with the people that we are working with.  So we decided that during our devotional time that it was only right to pray against any attacks like this.  Dan reminded us that Jesus has authority and victory and we just have to claim this from within the team. We all prayed in the Arabic way ( this is where everyone prays aloud all at the same time.) God must have super hearing to deal with all our requests and hear them all at the same time! He is a mighty God so I’m sure He can cope with that! However we prayed for a long time and then some people as they felt led sang out hymns and songs of praise and worship to God as well as casting out anything that wasn’t of God with authority as He asks us to.

This way of praying is a little strange to me and I have to confess took me completely out of my comfort zone.  I was a little fearful during this time of prayer and became very overwhelmed by this feeling of fear.  I don’t really know why, all I know is that I need to ask God to help me to discern if my reaction came from Him and to help me pray in an unfamiliar way.  Perhaps it’s the Presbyterian in me! Once  immersed in Presbyterianism, it’s difficult to get away from that.  Not that I have never been exposed to praying like that before or people with visions etc, I have. I just know that what I felt was fear and lots of overwhelming emotion.

God is working His purposes out for us here on the team, He is speaking into all of our lives. I’m sure He is speaking into the lives of the people at the church, the children at the Summer School and the Arabic  leaders, teachers and helpers too. What we are achieving here for God is BIG! So we must recognise this and continue to seek a blessing on our lives and the lives of the children.

Reti pointed out to us that the vision that Emily saw stayed at the doorway. It couldn’t actually enter the room and so we should take comfort from the fact that God already has His hand of protection upon is.

We recognise God’s hand in all that we are doing…. but again we ask you to stand with us in prayer for the church, the children, the community and especially for us, the team so that as ever where there is unity, God will command a blessing and we will indeed be ‘Blessed to be a blessing!’

God is good! It is exciting! We look forward to see what God has in store for us for the rest of the week……

Watch this space……

Much love
Every blessing,
Stacey x

After school we went to Um Jaires’ house for lunch.  This was a FEAST!! The food was amazing.  I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much food in my entire life, we were all so full there was soooo much food! So much so that walking up the extremely steep hill ( also known as the hill of death to the team!) was incredibly challenging. I really thought at one point if we stopped I’d just roll back down to the bottom again… I was so full! But it was really great to spend time with each other and with Um Jaires and her family. She also invited a whole bunch of the Arabic helpers as well as  the pastor’s wife. So a great time of food and fellowship was had by all! It was great for Dan, Destiny and myself to be around Um Jaires’s family again, we’ve met them before and so when we go back to somewhere that is familiar to us and they recognise us that really encourages us too. Also it helped that we knew we would be encountering amazing food and the best home-made ice cream cake you’ve ever tasted –superb!

Late afternoon half of the team went back to the church to prepare for youth classes and Dan, Courtney, Rachel and me came back to the base to start prep for Monday and Tuesday of next week; when the work really begins.  We start on Monday with Grades 1-6. I am so excited to see the children in Grade 6.  I’m really hoping I recognise some of them as being in my Grade 3 class, 3 years ago! I am part of the welcoming committee on the door on Monday so I should start practising containing my excitement for them!!

Our days are filled with activities, meeting people and working hard for the Lord but with all this to do it means our days are long and very tiring and next week is going to be tougher on the team, more tiring, more activities, still youth afternoon classes and more prep.  Also the weather is getting hotter and hotter  which drains us quicker. Today’s high was a whopping 39 degrees!! So as these challenges begin to come upon us, please join with us in prayer for the team.  Pray for our protection, for sustainability and perseverance for the task and that above all else God will be glorified in all that we seek to do for the church, the children and for each other.  Pray that we are blessed to be a blessing!

We are all looking forward to going to Jerash tomorrow to explore. Then we plan on having a chilled out weekend and restful Saturday and Sunday before our crazy but exciting week starts all over again. Pray for us, that God will renew our strength for the week ahead, since we are all tired after our first week.

Well that’s pretty much it from me just now….I had hoped to finish this blog before the rest of the team came back…… but oops they’re all back already and I’ve still not been for the shopping…. so I must go now and buy our eggs and ingredients for our dinner or else  the team might be after me for dinner!!! Aaaaarrrgh!

Must go for now….

Happy reading……

Speak to you all again soon.
Much love in Him
Stacey x

Today was our first day teaching, and it was certainly a busy day! We began our day at the church at 8:15, getting our classrooms in order and having a prayer meeting with the other leaders. It was great to get everything together as well as get in the right mindset prior to the children’s arrival. Group songs and a skit welcomed the children and then we were off to our classrooms! George and I had 8 children in our class, and they were so funny!

They were quiet, slow to warm up because we ended up with six adults in the room including us. It was a hard with the language barrier, but my main translator Lena is awesome! She is finishing up “high school,” (not sure how all the grades translate), is super sweet, and speaks English well. I already feel blessed to have her for my group – really the other teachers don’t know what they’re missing! Overall the day went well, I was glad to get in the swing of things. The first day is always the hardest getting some kinks ironed out and finding ways to make improvements. We had about 50 children attend today, and are looking forward to Him bringing more our way. Funny thing- for an activity we made fruit salad- really cut up fruit w/smoothies- and they were super cute! One of my boys was very meticulous in cutting his fruit and it made me proud.

For lunch we had a traditional Palestinian lunch at a friend’s house and it was wonderful. I cannot tell you the names of the dishes, but it was good stuff J We ate like true Arabs, which if you know what I mean you know that we are all half expecting to gain weight after this trip! I have never seen such true hospitality! You have to refuse them three times before they will accept your refusal. After lunch half the group went to teach the youth English classes while the other half of us went to work on our class lessons. It was nice for us lead teachers because we had time to just sit down and coordinate, talk about games and strategies. Since the girls’ house ran out of water Saturday, we showered at the boys’ house today. Yes, things have been interesting but we have been making do- mostly by hanging at the guys’ house. Devotions and dinner and we are all beat! Three more days of teaching, excited for what He has planned and how we can serve these amazing children! This picture is of our group fruit salad time- just excuse George’s head, and then of some of the children.

P.S. Emily’s muffin moment- during conversation at a friend’s house Emily heard them speaking some German and asked, “Did you just say Barbara Streisand?”  Good times …

J

I know it spoke to me directly since he preached on what I had written about in my journal and had prayed about the night before. We were also blessed with the opportunity to partake in the Lord’s supper with the congregation. It was very humbling to see the pastor serve his congregation by passing out the bread and drink himself.  It is a huge blessing to be able to worship and fellowship with our brothers and sisters here. They are great encouragers and examples for us.

After church, we took a trip to the car museum. We saw the many cars that the late King Hussein used during his reign.

It was nice to read about the history of the cars, but after about the first 10 cars I was done and ready to go. The boys seemed to have enjoyed this trip more than the girls. After the museum we walked quite a bit to Mecca Mall. On our way there we saw some Bedouin people from a distance. Very interesting to see this within a big city surrounded by malls and highways. This was fun for the girls…we love shopping! We bought a few souvenirs and ate western food. It felt nice to taste something from home. After shopping we went back home and did some lesson preparation for the first day of school. We had to do this at the boys’ house  because we were out of water. We had our devotions as well and ended the night with prayer for our first day of school. Every day is a new adventure for us. We wait in expectation for what God has planned and will do next for us and through us. Thanks for all of your prayers and support

Rachel