...a whirlwind of events...

Yesterday was our first day here. During the day we went out to a beach and hooked up with a friend of our professor. I'll call him "O" mainly because I can't spell his name. O took us out on his fishing boat and we had a wonderful time marveling over all of the beautiful creation-really nice water. Later on, we went to another beach, found a Starbucks, and walked through a mall. Then the most amazing thing happened...

We were having shwarmas (Chicken sandwiches) on the beach at 10pm at night and O drove up with two other friends. He invited us to a wedding. A WEDDING! Picture this in your head....we drive about 10km and turn on a couple dirt roads. In front of this house is loud music and lots of dancing (men on one side, women on the other). I thought we were going to just watch the dancing the whole night, but we (just the girls) were actually invited INSIDE to meet the bride and her family. I wish I had words to express all the excitement...we must have been the only Americans let alone 'sisters' that ever entered their house. Henna on their hands, beautiful adorned with goreous fabics and gold...oh I wish you all were there. After "chatting" in limited Arabic and English and partaking of a very sweet liver looking in texture dessert-that's very expensive in this country, we were ushered outside for dancing to more loud music like Shakira. It was so fun. Some things are just so universal and need no language to understand them. Well this is getting kind of long...so I'll just tell you that the night ended with eating with more of the locals ("wedding food") inside their house until 2am. As you can see, Dad has given us experiences that are MORE than we can ever think, ask for, or imagine.

This morning we were able to find some other brothers and sisters and their "house". It was such an unexpected blessing to sing and lift our hands with others. It was also nice to see such diversity in the body (brothers and sisters from all different countries including many from India and the Phillipines) and hear what Dad is doing here. He's doing awesome things!

I had some time to p-walk with my roommate Jasmine this afternoon. Doing some battles in the heavenlies together...

Tomorrow we plan on going out farther on a boat with O to maybe see some dolphins and the next day we plan on going out to his family plantation. I can't wait to see orchards and get to know his family. Lift us up, especially the girls as we long for women to talk with.

:sigh: Well, that's all for now...I'm getting a kick listening to the owner of the internet cafe sing Savage Garden, Wham, and U2. Yes...all in the same playlist!

Thanks for the thoughts...We can feel them here!