snow day (otherwise known as inclement weather day)

we went through our regular (although slightly off) routine this morning of waking at 5:20 to turn on the water heater, going back to sleep for another 23 minutes, jessey getting an idea of what breakfast will be (which today was nothing), jessey getting in the shower, jeff stalling getting out of bed, getting dressed, etc. it has been raining the last three days now, and the land has needed it. we live in a desert, and this rain will provide the sustenance the land needs in order to produce its vegetation this year. the rain is also good for flooding low-lying areas or flat roof tops due to a lack of proper drainage, which is due to the fact again that we live in a desert, so why plan for rain?

our roof

i mentioned that we had nothing to eat this morning, so i set out ahead of jessey to get some 25 cent falafel sandwiches, clad in my shirt and tie, khakis rolled up, and flip-flops (i learned yesterday that my galoshes are very uncomfortable, so i went for the traditional summer rain in illinois option despite the fact that it was barely 40 degrees outside). upon procuring the sandwiches, i met jessey, who wanted to stop into the bakery to get some bread, which cost us another 50 cents for a fresh baked loaf (a real bank-breaker).

we hailed a taxi and began a slow and unsteady drive to khelda, the neighborhood we work in. on the way, the taxi driver deduced that we were headed to a school, and informed me that the radio just said there was no school today because of the weather. i looked around and thought this had to be a joke, seeing as it was simply raining. however, when we got to khelda, literally the moment we got there, it began snowing.

it BEGAN snowing at 7:30am, but the kingdom had already cancelled classes due to the weather. the snow was heavy-ish, but not sticking. i still couldn't believe it, being from illinois, that school was cancelled, so we continued on to our school like good teachers should. the driver was insistent about there being no school, so i asked him to wait while we found out.

sure enough, no school. i took this picture when we got home of the "inclement weather" that cancelled school today. i still have no idea why, but i do know that i am thankful for one extra day of weekend.

providence, rhode island

it's been a long time since we left jordan (17 days to be exact) and we are ready to return, outside of the whole packing and flying 12 hours thing. it has been great to see old friends, talk, eat vegetarian food, and play the wii fit. we are super pumped specifically for matt and ali who are officially engaged and getting married this summer. YEAH!

one very cool thing has happened in the last two days. we have a car here that we still have tons of money left to pay on. we've been hoping, praying, and trying to sell this car for the last 3-4 months with no potential buyers. yesterday, a family called and wanted to look at the car for their daughter. after driving the car, she wanted to buy it. the dad was hesitant about the process as we don't have the title since we still owe money on it, but he slept on it and gave us a call this morning confirming the sale. we are dropping it off to them tomorrow, along with paying it off and getting rid of our last significant piece of debt. the praise be to God.

as we see it, the same God who delivered his people from slavery, parted the Red Sea and the Jordan River, has placed us where he wants us in Jordan, confirming it through relationships and jobs, and now with this final seal of approval by selling our car during an economic downswing, just 4 days before we return to Jordan. wow.

how's that for providence, Rhode Island?

god save the queen (or at least give us a king)

i was thinking/talking the other day with a friend about all of the problems in the world...he said he couldn't really feel too much for either side of this conflict in palestine because if it weren't for conflicts of the same nature, america wouldn't exist. he said that what is going on is exactly the same as the settlers killing off the natives in the americas way back when...pushing out the weak in order to establish a new kingdom/country/government/etc. the difference, he said, is that we get to see this unfold so we think poorly of it.

i began to see his point (however classically conservative it was).

but then, i remembered that this world is not as God intended it to be. i remembered that empire/kingdom/government/president/czar/dictator/terrorist was not how things were meant to be. i remembered how the original israel once followed God as King. he was their lawmaker, their champion, their hope. he delivered them from slavery and extinction in egypt, and even while they didn't trust in his deliverance, he stayed with them in the form of a pillar of clouds and of fire. he had the "promised land" in his hands, willing to let his people take seizure of it, and they were too afraid. they didn't trust in his provision. so he let that generation die in their lack of faith in their King.

he gave them men of faith and wisdom to judge between them, to interpret his law, and to be his voice to his people. he knew that israel's faith was not strong enough to simply trust his goodness, but he was still the King. he was still the governor. he was still the sustainer, provider.

i remembered samuel, the last judge of original israel, who was a lover and firm believer in the goodness of God as King. i remembered how the people asked him for a king of their own, to be like everyone else. i remembered how he took this petition to God himself, not out of desire for it, but out of a fear that his people were going astray. and God said, "Give the people their king." no amount of exhortation from samuel could steer the people away from their desire for a king (not the slavery factor, not the tax factor, not the war factor)

this was the end of israel's subservience to God. they came under the headship of a fallible human, many fallible humans. they put their trust in man's system more than they had in God's plan. they loved themselves more than they loved God.

we still do. we love our presidents, our dictators, our kings, and our leaders. we believe that God has put them in their positions and that they will carry out God's desires for the world, even when they have different views and go to war with each other. if this weren't the case, if God (through Jesus) was still our King, and we still served him and honored him and trusted him in his goodness, we wouldn't see the genocide and war that is the direct by-product of mankind's system of empire.

this is why i hate what has happened and is still happening in gaza. i hate that we (humans) have played God in our world and messed it up so badly. and i hate that we have made God the culprit by smearing his name with our stupid empirical decisions, both personal, national, and global.

unintentional tears: part two

about one hour into our time at the protest, the prayer call went off at the mosque on the corner. those truly devoted to their religion stopped, in the midst of the protest, and prayed. they went through their prayer motions, various people taking on leadership roles to lead the prayers. a peace fell over the protest. i thought to myself, "maybe this will help calm this angry protest". i hoped.
not ten or fifteen minutes after the prayer, things became ignited again. the young man whose role was to continue to burn flags (or so it seemed) climbed to a new height above the street to re-ignite the protest, along with another flag. the crowd surged. the riot police pushed back. and another surge. at this, the police began the process of clearing out the protesters. this meant pushing, chasing, and some beating with billy clubs. we quickly moved to the corner, as young men began hurling rocks and pieces of broken cinder blocks at the police. emily was still taking pictures, and we didn't want to separate, along with the fact that we really did want to see what would transpire.

as the scene became more violent, we saw a smoking something fly through the sky. more and more smoke filled the neighborhood. people were running away with their faces covered by their scarves. we were clueless, until a painful stinging sensation surged through our tear ducts and our nasal cavities. tear gas.we started running with the crowds, and we inhaled way too much tear gas. barely able to breathe, we continued moving...i should say i continued moving. jessey was leaning on the hood of a car, trying to catch her breath. an angel, in the form of a palestinian protester, grabbed her, shoved onions up her nose, and helped her continue moving until she caught up with me. we had to go at least six blocks in order to get out of the tear gas infested area.

this impacted us in ways beyond words. we understood what it was like, on a small scale, to be "attacked" as innocent bystanders. we felt a deep sense of solidarity with the people of gaza, because just like them, we were forced to flee in the face of impending danger, having done nothing wrong. those who had incited the violence may have been deserving of some sort of forced submission, but most of us were not guilty of violence. we were guilty only of being present. as the death toll rises, we pray that a peaceable solution can be found soon so the violence will stop.

like a sore thumb (is how we stuck out) part one

our friend emily is a photographer. she is also insane. that's why we like her. she lost her memory card for her camera and asked if we had one she could borrow in order to go photograph a protest at the israeli embassy here in amman. we had one, and we were bored, so we decided to go be a part of what we hoped would be a peaceful protest of the horrors of this current conflict in gaza.

the scene was straight off the evening news...hundreds of palestinians and jordanians shouting in protest of the killing of their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and cousins in gaza. the riot police were in control of the crowd with their sheilds and billy clubs. on the side of the road were hundreds of styrofoam graves, a memorial to those innocent victims that have died in gaza. it was truly surreal. we stood, together, in silent protest, while flags were burning and people were suffering from group-think (the same kind that has caused many other groups of people throughout history to make stupid/irrational decisions).

to my left, an elderly woman shouted at the top of her lungs. everyone around us repeated what she said. she prayed from the q'uran. they responded amen. about 50 women across the street were singing songs of protest. a young man sat on the shoulders of a friend and led a chant. another kept burning flags atop various buildings, encouraging the crowd to shout in exclamation about the wrongs their people were experiencing just 90 miles away.
as i stood there, i wondered what people thought of us. if they were angry with us. if they were glad we were standing beside them. we represent america, and our country is in their minds a huge part of the problem. i wasn't worried. but i wondered what all of this shouting was accomplishing for anyone. regardless, it was clear how deep the hurt and the hatred is.
i wondered how will peace ever come to this region. i wondered what would happen next.

pop culture wars

i just stopped by yahoo! and saw the following big headlines:

Jennifer Love Hewitt splits with fiance'
Odd scene as appointee tries to take Senate seat
FBI plans large hiring blitz of agents, experts
Cities made from JELL-O and other unusual objects

and today's top searches were...from 1 to 10:

1. Rebecca Romijn (solid performances in X-Men...3 years ago)
   
2. Kelly Rutherford (whom?)
   
3. Jett Travolta (famously tragically dead child of John Travolta)
   
4. The Dark Knight (good movie...last summer)
   
5. Healthy Recipes (hummus and falafel anyone?)
   

6. Pat Hingle (whom?)
   
7. The Bachelor (seriously? people still care about this?)
   
8. Tax Forms (solid capitalism in january search)
   
9. Used Textbooks (in january?)
   
10. Hormone Imbalance (or...shall we say...slowly going crazy?)
    

conspicuously absent from the top headlines and the top searches? the fact that since i wrote my last blog (3 days ago), 200 more people have been killed in palestine. or the fact that today a 3rd UN school building was hit by an israeli attack today, killing 40 refugees. or anything pro- or anti- this current war in gaza. nothing.

i understand that bad news is hard...but this war is really happening. we turned a blind eye in the 1930s during the holocaust, in the 1980s during the aparthied regime in south africa, in the 1990s during the genocide in rwanda, and during this decade currently regarding genocide in sudan, and at great cost to us on a national and human level. let us not do the same today. be informed. seek truth. seek an historical understanding of this current, yet 4-century-long conflict.

i can't say i'm proud to be an american right now. can't say i'm proud to be a human being right now.

the struggle

some might think it was inevitable that something would pop off in the middle east while we were living here. i didn't give it a second thought. but now, in the midst of growing political and emotional tension, i realize how wrong things are and how much things need to change. i want to describe the palestine/israel conflict with a parable (thanks to my brother's college experience):
the guys, being macho as they are, decide to play a prank on the girls in the dorm. 4 of them break into the girls' upstairs dormitory, shut off the power, disabling all alarm clock and light functions, barricaded the front and rear exits, and wrote a tauntingly playful message on the floor in shaving cream (such as "got you"). a good joke, which royally ticked off the girls, who didn't wake up on time for class and couldn't get out of the dorm after their late wake-up.
the girls, being irrational as they are, decide retaliation is necessary. they decided, however, to retaliate over thanksgiving break while all the guys were gone. they got into the guys' dormitory equipped with WMD's (syrup, rotten fish, and birdseed). they poured the syrup all over the couches and the kitchen floor and then threw birdseed on the syrup. they threw birdseed all over each room, including into cd players and anything else they could destroy. they put the fish in the small refrigerators in each room in order to royally stink up the dorm. they ruined the dorms.

the boys annoyed. the girls destroyed.

this is the essence of the current conflict in palestine. hamas has been annoying israel over the last 5-10 years with consistent long-distance missle attacks which have resulted in a few dozen israeli deaths. annoying. terrible. and uncalled for. yet, in some ways, as you read the history between these two groups of people, its somewhat understandable when you consider how small the gaza ghetto is (360 square km for 1.5 million palestinian citizens). hamas is represented by the guys in this parable.
israel, represented by the girls, have unleashed an over-the-top retaliation on the people of gaza, without regard for who is harmed in their attack. to date, more than 430 palestinians have been killed in airstrikes...compared to 4 israelis in the last 2 weeks. its senseless. its emotional. and its uncalled for.
let us not blindly support the girls because the boys are bad. the boys are bad. their leadership has no regard for their own people. but the girls are destroying everything because of a few boys annoying (and terrible) actions. this is serious, and it affects many jordanians that are children of palestinian refugees from the israeli occupations of the past. i sit here 90 miles away from gaza and i wish this world would somehow realize that war results in death, destruction, and problems. may we find a peaceable solution.

(i'm no expert, so if this annoys you for its simplicity, please forgive me...something needs to be said)