My Favorite Christmas 2009 picture

This is Hannah Grace watching Winnie the Pooh for the first time. It's her new favorite, and I'm so glad that it wasn't one of the items stolen out of our luggage!

By the way, for you observant readers, I have no idea why the camera is set to the year 2025. I'm not even sure if this was taken with our camera--we had a little mixup since our camera and my mother's are identical.

Staying Busy

I wasn't able to post anything last week because there just wasn't time to stop and write. Here are a few highlights from the last few weeks along with prayer requests:

Students
Last Wednesday I took the children to our English center and showed the young women how to make authentic American style pizza. They learned some important techniques, including cooking the meat before putting it on the pizza and using seasonings in the sauce rather than spreading ketchup on the pizza dough. We had a fun afternoon and the pizzas turned out great.

Visitors
The previous Wednesday I had to skip my usual afternoon at the English center because of a visit from our company's member care department. There have been some changes in the structure, and this was a "get to know you" visit from our new representative.

Volunteers
We also had a week of business training seminars assisted by a group of four volunteers from the US. Randy has been involved in those meetings most of the week, and we both attended a banquet for the participants last night. We enjoyed sitting across from a young engaged couple who are both believers. My biggest disappointment was that the couple that I most wanted to spend some time with were unable to attend. They are not believers, but are very open and interested. Please pray that we can get together with this family in the near future.

Holidays
It's the holiday season here. Today is 8 March, Women's Day. It's a little like Mother's Day, but honoring all females young and old.

The big holiday, though, is the Persian New Year. The season officially began on the last Tuesday of February, with children ringing doorbells and leaving their hats at the doors. People put candy, nuts, fruit, pastries and/or coins in the hats. Everybody is busy cooking baklava, boiling eggs and making decorative trays of wheat sprouts. I'll write more later about some of the superstitions surrounding the holiday.

Andy & Emerald update
My main goal right now is to keep in contact with Andy and Emerald. I sent her a text message congratulating her on Women's Day and she called back immediately. We had a nice, friendly conversation--no strain or tension. Our biggest hurdle is Andy's job. He works seven days a week until 7 PM, and he doesn't allow Emerald to go anywhere except school without him. Now that the weather is improving and the days are getting longer, I hope to invite them over for a late dinner after he gets off work one evening. Please continue to pray for open doors, and that they will turn back to Christ.

Ashura

Our next door neighbor brought by a gift of lentil, bean and corn stew today. Her explanation was that today is the anniversary of their imam's death. I had totally forgotten about it, partly because the Islamic calendar is lunar, which means that the dates of religious holidays are different every year.

Today is important for Shia Muslims as they commemorate Ashura, the death of Imam Hussein over 1000 years ago. Many devout men will go to the mosque and beat themselves with chains until they shed blood, to demonstrate their grief.

The significance of this date is that it marks the split of Islam between Shia and Sunni, an event that still has great impact on world events. Much of the violence that you read about in Iraq today has its roots in the death of Imam Hussein and the division of the Islamic world.

May God open their hearts to the One who died so that they can be reconciled to Him.

One interesting side note: an acquaintance of mine who is not a practicing Muslim told me that the stew actually originated with Noah. There is an old tradition predating Islam that when Noah and his family left the ark and came down Ararat, they only had a handful of dried food remaining--lentils, peas, beans, and corn.

Christmas, New Year's and Astrology

Every year, we have the same conversation with our newest friends and acquaintances. "Why do Americans celebrate New Year's Day on December 25th?" They see our Christmas tree and decorations, which look very similar to their New Year's tree, and get a little confused. Of course, we're happy to explain that we aren't celebrating the New Year, but the birth of Jesus Christ.

The celebration of New Year's Day on January 1st was introduced here by the Soviets. Although I've never seen anything that would officially confirm this, my guess is that the Communists encouraged a huge celebration of the New Year to replace the Russian Orthodox celebration of Christmas. Santa Claus, decorations, trees, lights, and a feast are all part of the New Year tradition here.

Since this is the crossroads where east meets west, there are also some deeply-rooted eastern traditions that are important at this time of year. Over the last week, Julie and Hannah Grace have been given several stuffed mice. Why? Chinese astrology is a major part of the celebration here, and this is the year of the rat.

This morning I saw an interesting headline in the newspaper that underlined the incredible foothold that astrology has in this part of the world:

"Children born during the Year of the Rat to mothers who were born during the Year of the Cat will have problems."

May God open their eyes to His word in Isaiah 40:26,
Lift up your eyes on high
And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing.

Merry Christmas!

Kevin, the future history professor

Sean still loves puzzles.

Hannah Grace showing her new baby to Granny and PawPaw

Thanksgiving Pictures. . .A Little Late

We've had a rough couple of weeks since Thanksgiving due to a stomach virus going around. Then, it's been busy as I've tried to catch up. At any rate, here are a couple of pictures from our student Thanksgiving dinner.

My friend Holly and I pooled our resources (I don't have much in the way of Thanksgiving decoration) and we worked together to fix a traditional meal. All of the students were very hesitant to eat the canned cranberry sauce until they made the happy discovery that the red chunk on their plates was not beets!

We had a total of eight students show up. Several of these are very secular, a couple are believers and one shows some signs of interest. Whenever Randy has talked with Andy about spiritual things, this young man always seems to appear.

Please continue to pray for opportunities and openings.

Ramazan

This is an important month for devout Muslims. Many are fasting in hopes of making themselves more acceptable to their god. Here, where people are much more secular, the fast of Ramazan has about as much significance as Easter does for the unchurched in the US. I asked one of my neighbors if she were observing the fast, and she seemed a little embarassed. "Well, I'm a little bit sick and so fasting isn't good for me. Plus, I can't fast because of my job. People come into the store and want to buy vodka and if I were fasting, it would be wrong for me to handle alcohol."

Yesterday our landlady came by to pick up the rent. She has never seemed to be a religious person, and it never occurred to me that she might be fasting. When I offered her some tea she turned it down and said that she was observing Ramazan. Before she left, I asked her what the appropriate response is when you find out that someone is fasting. In this culture, there is a correct response to everything, and I realized that I didn't know what I'm supposed to say. She told me that when someone mentions that they're fasting I should say, "May God accept your fast."

That posed a problem for me. First of all, there is only one word for God in this language: Allah. To even talk about God, we have to take the time to define our terms. When I say Allah, I'm talking about the God of the Bible, not the god of the Quran. Secondly, I know that the God of the Bible is not going to accept their fast as a means of salvation. The polite response is not the correct response.

If this had been a situation where the landlady had plenty of time to sit and visit, perhaps it would have been possible to have had that conversation. As it was, she was on her break from work and was in a hurry.

There are many times when I don't feel at all uncomfortable using the polite blessings that are so important to the people here. When you meet someone with a child, it's exceedingly important to say, "May God keep your child." Even when I don't have the opportunity to explain what I believe about who God really is, it doesn't bother me to ask God to protect a child. I don't have any problem responding "If God allows it," when somebody says "See you later." That's actually a more Biblical response than what many of us would typically say. And there is even a sense in which I can pray that God will accept their fast in the sense that He accepted the good works of Cornelius before he came to know the truth of salvation by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.

Please pray that we will have wisdom to know precisely how to respond to our acquaintances and friends who are fasting--and those who aren't fasting and feeling guilty.

Student Party

Our biggest outreach during any holiday season is the student party. University students who study in our courses are invited for a morning of food, fun and games.

Most of the student parties allow us to share our holiday traditions with students. This party, however, is different. The students get the opportunity to share their holiday traditions with us. They prepared skits to show how the four elements--water, fire, wind, and earth--overcome winter and establish spring. We also cracked boiled eggs, which is what Sean and the young man pictured above are doing. The person whose egg survives intact is the winner and is supposed to have good luck, similar to our custom of breaking a wishbone.

It wouldn't be outreach if we didn't include some spiritual content. Since eastern cultures love proverbs and sayings, one of our favorite "games" is handing out slips of paper with the best Proverbs in history. The students are divided into groups and compete to see which team can read, understand, and explain to one of our team members the most Proverbs before time runs out. Some of the Scripture vocabulary is difficult for them, so they frequently wave down one of us for a little help. Even Julie was kept busy explaining the meaning of words like "haughty".

Please pray for our University Team as we look for opportunities to follow up on any seeds that were planted.

Happy New Year!

For thousands of years, the Persian peoples have celebrated the first day of spring as their new year. This is the biggest holiday of the year where we live and people have been preparing for weeks.

The four Tuesdays preceding spring represent earth, water, wind and fire. On these days, children drop a hat in front of neighbors' doors, knock and run. The neighbor puts candy, fruit, nuts, cookies or coins in the hat. As soon as the door is closed, the children grab their hats and go to the next door.

Fire jumping is another favorite tradition. This has its roots in ancient fire worship and is supposed to cleanse away the jumper's sins.

Food is important to any celebration, no matter the culture. Women get together (you can't cook alone, after all) and bake every kind of sweet imaginable. Many families will have guests several times during the last week of the holiday.

Superstition is part of everything that happens this week. The last Tuesday before spring is especially significant. Dreams are always important to the people here, but any dream they "see" on that Tuesday night has great meaning for them. Single girls in particular will use different methods of predicting their future on this day and night. One of the most popular and most-used methods of discovering what the coming year holds is eavesdropping at the home of another person. If you listen at their door and hear something good, you will have good luck during the year.

Over the next days and weeks I will be sharing about some of our activities during this holiday time.