yesua

we celebrated christmas two days ago...just like you. we were privileged to share time with our arab friends on christmas eve, who cooked a meal for us (kufta (sp?) which consists of rolled meat and potatoes and tomatoes and onions). they are suffering, because their daughter is terminally ill with a brain tumor that has gotten worse in the last six months since her last surgery. it was difficult to sit with them as we considered her 2 year old life-light and what it means for them to possibly be losing a child. it was good just to be there with them knowing all we can really do is pray for them.

we then went to our friend doug and paula's house where we partook in their traditional mexican meal on christmas eve night. already full from our arab dinner, we still pounded down some guacamole, cheese, sour cream, lettuce, and bean burritos, followed by some cookies. we stayed the night at their place and woke up on christmas morning with "family". we had a christmas dinner with friends (10 of us) around a table, eating turkey, duck, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, apple pie, spinach-artichoke dip, and cookies. through much awkward conversation in their everything-goes household, we remembered jesus' birth and what it meant for us that allah was willing to to veil himself in flesh and become humble like us in order to give us the greatest gift of salvation from sins.

it is interesting being in a land where people don't celebrate christmas with people who aren't your family who are also missing their families. it was good. and as we considered our lives and where we were on christmas night, we knew without a doubt that we are right where we need to be. thanking jesus for giving us all that we need and for reminding us how precious and how fragile life really is.

you remind me of home

this our new place...for the next four months. our friends matt wickman and annamarie monkmeier (married, with different last names...freakin hippies) just had a new baby (blaze...freakin hippies) and migrated back to the states for four months to be with family and take a break from the middle east. they needed some people to rent out their place from them while they were gone, and we needed to move closer to work, so it was a win win. plus, their place is super nice, and we get to benefit from all of the nice stuff for a while. its a true gift. thanks matt and annamarie (and blaze)!

sacrifice (or happy holidays)

we walked out of our apartment and beheld a pool/stream of blood running down our outdoor staircase. the stench of blood and death were in the air as we heard our neighbors talking while slaughtering a ram/goat/sheep (not sure).

its the eid al adha, or the holiday based around remembering abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son (purported to be ishmael by the locals), and allah's provision of a sacrificial ram in his place. every year, muslims sacrifice a sheep/goat/ram as a rememberance and a duty to allah. they keep 1/3 of the meat for themselves, give 1/3 to extended family, and give 1/3 to the poor.

the parallels are hard to avoid. prophetic voices rang in my ears as i watched the blood sacrifice streaming down the stairs into the street, saying things of the blood of the lamb. but, i think the lesson to be learned here is completely different. its about sacrifice. true sacrifice.

when was the last time you saw a dead thing? or watched something die? or when was the last time you considered what God asked of abraham when he told him to sacrifice the son through whom he had promised to bless and multiply the whole world? and what the significance of blood is?

our brothers in the middle east know what it means to cut the throat of an animal and bleed it out, skin it, carve it, and give it away...not for sport, but for God. they are much closer to understanding what it really does mean to need a blood sacrifice for sin. in the west, we are insulated from this "barbarism". we are comfortable.

this is ishmael (i named him that as a sideways joke). he was sacrificed today. he knew it was going to happen. and he had to be dragged across the street and down the hill to his death. he wasn't willing. he was fighting the whole way.

this made me consider the willing sacrifice that was made for me. it made me consider all of the things in my life that i am unwilling to kill for his sake. it made me want to change, to make this christmas one of sacrifice and life-change instead of consumption and self-service.

counterfeit

i entered into the realm of counterfeit money the other day without knowing it. as you can see from the picture, the bill on the right is much smaller than the bill on the left. it was given to me as change at a store less than 50 yards from my house. its on normal printer paper that is crumpled up, but it was convincing enough for me not to think of it...until i tried to pay for something with it. i handed it to a sarfees driver as payment for our 40 cent ride up the hill, and he looked at it in confusion. he said, in arabic, "what is this? where did you get this?" i was confused and started feeling the blood run into my head in a sort of bewildered embarrassment. he told me it was not good, and showed me what was wrong with it (while driving - like lloyd christmas in dumb and dumber). i was confused and upset, since i had been duped. and now i have one less JD. i apologized to the driver and then laughed about how terrible this counterfeit JD really was. what a way to start a day of work.

american holidays in jordan

thanksgiving note #1:
jordanians (and for that matter, the entire world) don't care about thanksgiving as a holiday. they're thankful people, but they don't celebrate squanto helping the pilgrims learn how to live off of the land they stole from his people after they all died from diseases brought from the "old world". i don't know why.

thanksgiving note #2:
no amount of turkey, chicken, stuffing, salad, sweet potato casserole, apple crisp, apple pie, or delicious butternut squash soup can make up for the absence of our friends and family at home. not to be down on our friends here, but there's nothing like a game of apples to apples with ty, matt, ali, kent, nikki, lauren, phil, and chris. nothing. there is also nothing like going through advertisements with our family looking for those $3.00 flash drives at circuit city so we can get sweet stocking stuffers at christmas.
there's a huge, sad, gaping, hole of absence in our hearts (and specifically in mine (jeff)).

thanksgiving note #3:
i have been sick for the last week with a cold that won't go away. it doesn't make me any more thankful, just more aware of how nice it is to be healthy most of the year.

here's our list of things we are thankful for this year:
1. knowing that good news is good news to everyone, no matter who you are
2. jobs (stressful jobs, but they are jobs, and they are good)
3. friends/family who got us here on their wallets
4. death cab for cutie (they've been waking us up for 4 weeks straight. thanks guys!)
5. sunshine
6. learning a lifetime of lessons in 3 months
7. our marriage and our friendship
8. God's provision
9. pizza
10. popcorn with hot sauce
11. new friends
12. our bed coupled with our computer and episodes of Alias
13. God's faithfulness, even when we don't have faith ourselves ("i believe. help my unbelief")
14. jafra cafe
15. you

teachery

some things you should know about our new jobs:

1. jeff has to wear a shirt and tie every day
2. we have to leave the house around 6:30am every day
3. it costs us 6JD a day to get to and from work
4. working together has ups and downs (the only down is venting about things that the other can actually relate to, which brings with it empathy but no pity)
5. the school is nuts-o
6. the 2nd graders are literally "of the devil"
7. jessey is determined to win the war with the children "of the devil"
8. we have found another source of darkness that needs light, and we get to shine (insha' allah)
9. we are legal residents of jordan
10. we now have a local bank account that has no money in it

there are other, much cooler things to say, but i can't say them without raising flags (if you know what i mean), so we'll talk in person about the other awesome things that have been happening. so, without further ado, these two busy people are going to grade papers.

worth more than at least a few sparrows

its only been an eternity (if by eternity i mean 4 days), but we started full-time jobs here on sunday at a school in amman. a member of the royal family runs this school, and by our contacts with the american community school, we found out that there was a desperate need for a couple of teachers to teach elementary health science, science, and math. in a whirlwind of 2 days, we received a phone call from the princess (who founded and runs the school) who offered us jobs, and then we went to her palace (?) to meet with her last saturday. it was kind of funny, actually.

we were picked up by two military officers (royal guards) who drove us to the palace to meet with her. we got a crash course on the curriculum and signed contracts, both of us, to be teachers at the school. it was the weirdest thing ever, and we can see allah's hand in all of it. i was deemed the health science teach and science teacher (teaching 2nd grade science and health science, and 4th and 5th grade health science). jessey, being the former secretary of the math club at greenville college, was deemed the 2nd and 4th grade math teacher. and we started the next day...completely and utterly unprepared. the meeting was weird because of a few things:
1. neither of us have our degrees in teaching, although jessey does have 3 years of elementary ed
2. the princess was dressed in a sweatshirt and sweat pants, with a pony tail, and is completely down to earth
3. we were at the palace of a prince and princess
4. they wanted us to start the next day
the pay is beyond reasonable, and we are also getting residency in jordan, which means we can stay in the country without having to worry about crossing borders and we can visit sites like petra for 1JD, instead of 25JD for "foreigners"...its a huge answer to prayer.

our first day was spent just observing classrooms, no pressure. at then end of the day, we were given our teacher manuals and the teacher who was covering my classes basically said good riddance and i was on my own. yikes. so, the life of lesson planning, grading, wondering what the heck we are doing, and trying to get the 2nd grade class from hell to stay in their seats and listen has begun. the good parts about the school can also be difficult...it will take some getting used to, but its a good challenge and these are good jobs. very cool. the best part is, out of 50 lessons per week (each student has 10 periods each school day), we only teach 13 and 14 of those lessons respectively. so, once we get settled in, this could be the graviest teaching job ever...outside of the principal being a real-life cruella deville who speaks very little english.

here's what allah has done, writing a story with our lives.

he saw in us two people who were crazy enough to move overseas without a clue as to what they would do, just knowing that that is what he required of them. he placed us, by his infinite wisdom, in a spot where we could start tutoring two boys early on...in second and fourth grade! he then placed us in substitute teacher roles, giving us classroom time with various ages of students. then, again in his wisdom, he connected us with another family, a rich one, to tutor their children (one who goes to the school we now teach at!). then english teaching began, requiring us to do lesson plans and be prepared for two classes a week. during that time, he allowed us to be tempted with money (see most recent blog entry) with a job that would reverse our marriage roles, with jessey taking on the role of the provider. this, i believe, was a test to see if we would jump at money, or consider what the ramifications would be for our relationship. thankfully, again in his wisdom, i had a lunch with my new mentor who challenged me to have a serious conversation with jessey about this. turns out, neither of us had peace about the job and decided that we should explore other options. it was at this time, that this opportunity came to us...to use all that allah has been preparing us for in jobs that will provide more than double what we need in our monthly budget...with six weeks paid off in the summer! our faithfulness has led us into two teaching positions at an islamic (yet open to everyone) school where we can have influence on the kids who will influence this nation in the future, as they are all from influential/rich families in amman (including a prince and 2 princesses). wow. its humbling to know that we are even worth anything to him, yet he sees us as invaluable to what he is doing in amman.

pray with us that we don't squander this opportunity and make the most of it, however long we are supposed to live/love people here...and that we get a hang of this teaching thing as quickly as humanly possible.