Fullness

As I alluded in the end of my post about my first year, things began to grow in scale in my second year in Cairo. When people ask "how is Egypt" it is a very difficult question to answer because there are so many answers. It's always changing. It’s hot most days. It’s busy. It’s a growing experience. It’s a generic “good”. Really the only way to describe my time here is full. Life here is full.
I came back in August from a month at home to begin my new job. The church was beginning an intern program for our development and outreach ministry. D&O concentrates on meeting the tangible needs of people outside the walls of the church. I was to be an intern in this program, but I was also to be the Lead intern. This meant that I would not only be working directly with one of our outreach ministries but I would also be responsible for the personal development of the other interns. It’s sort of a first among equals type of position.

In the months that followed life filled up.

My five interns arrived and I was searching for the best way to lead them as they went about deciding how to best serve in the vast and needy community of Cairo.

I decided that my main focus and outreach would be to start an ESL tutoring program at a Sudanese refugee school. I was meeting with administrators, creating curriculum, teaching classes of beautiful children, and trying to find a way to make it all sustainable.

I was taking between 6 and 12 hours of Arabic classes each week.

Me and a few other people from the church were creating the beginnings of a new young adults ministry in the church. We were planning events and scrambling at services to get e-mail addresses from every 20 something we saw.

I started a small group for young adults.

I was leading a small group for the youth.

I was helping facilitate a seven week training for small group leaders among the adults in the church.

I was eating, breathing, not really sleeping, running, planning, dreaming, and flying. Life was full.
My responsibilities had gone from few to many, my small group of friends had exploded into a wealth of new relationships, my knowledge of this fascinating place was overwhelmed, and my brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare. Fullness brought new challenges. New challenges required more of me. More of me required more of God. There was no room for the insecurities that had caused restriction in the past. There was less time to deliberate and more need to take risks. There were new failures and new victories. There were peaks and valleys, some lasting months and some lasting minutes. It was sometimes good and sometimes bad and always life.
It remains that way. Life is still full. I’ll be leaving in June to return to the states and as I see my time here coming to a close I feel a need to consume all the fullness that is in this here. I want to suck the life out of this place.

I want to find better ways to teach my refugee students and a way to make sure that when I leave someone is there to take my place.

I want to enjoy every difficult and joyful growing experience with my interns and learn what it is to give my life for them.

I want to create a community of hope where broken and lonely young adults can find life within the body of Jesus.

I want the youths I mentor to be able to pursue God on their own and in their own unique way. I want my friends to know each day that I love them.

I want to possess every laugh, thought, and song fully in its moment. I don’t want to force life but to pursue it. Life will always happen on its own. I can’t control it. I can only take it in it’s fullness and let it wash over me. I want God to take all I have in this life as His own and make it complete in Him. He is the fullness I feel here. I want my life to be His. I want my life to be full. To pursue life is to pursue Him.

A few photos of the youth intern days.....

DJ White Gravy....my greatest incarnation

Rob and Rob

middle schoolers

i really like to hear myself talk

dude stuff

The Youth Staff: Kelly, Kelly, Travis, Andrea.

My first year. A small tree with a lot of fruit.

My first year in Cairo can best be described as a small tree that bore a lot of fruit.
I had one main focus and that was the youth ministry. I had a few friends my age and that was mostly the youth staff. Some things were big such as the family of seven that I have lived and a city of 20 million people like Cairo never lends itself to simplicity. But in comparison to this year life was simple. It was year that tore down a lot of preconceived notions of others and of self. It was a year that opened up the possibilities of new gifts, like a flickering passion to teach and the occasional new word in a foreign language. It was a renaissance for old passions such as loving people and helping them find the freedom to become completely themselves. It was a year of planning and programming and throwing it all out the window so that God could do what He wanted. It was year where 4 people found a family in each other. It was abundant but simple. The lessons were simple but hard. I was simple but overflowing with life. Maybe the past just always seems simpler. We forget the details and the bumps that have since been smoothed out. And so I remember it as simple, as a small spring pouring forth new water. But the fruit would fall from the tree, the spring would cause a flood, and a wild jungle oasis would grow in the middle of the desert, exploding with life from it's simple beginning.

An Oasis of Refuge and Renewal

The church is called Maadi Community Church or MCC. MCC exists to serve the spiritual needs of ex-patriots living in Cairo. We currently have around 50 different nationalities represented in our congregation of 1,500. To say it is a unique place is an understatement. Not only do we have people from many nations but also many denominations and every imaginable walk of life. We have wealthy Texas oil men, refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, Egyptian nationals, diplomats, single mothers, students, widows and orphans. All are in need of a home in a harsh place in an obviously fallen world. All are Saints. Each one is a blessing.

We meet under a tent, on Fridays. We have a service with African style worship where dancing and yelling is encouraged. People cook for other people's kids when they are sick. We have guards posted outside 24 hours a day. We're always understaffed. We've planted 4 daughter churches in Sudanese refugee communities in Cairo. We baptized 6 youth at a service in February. The government spies on us. When I first arrived we were trying to relocate. It hasn't happened yet. A month after I arrived our senior pastor died in a tragic accident. That still hurts. Last year one of our staff confessed to stealing money from the church. He’s still family. Our acting Senior pastor and our Small groups pastor are both leaving in a week to begin new ministries. We don’t know how on earth to fill their shoes. We’re facing new hardships daily. We’re being pruned. But more and more people are coming to sing under our tent every week. We’re not a perfect church by any means but we keep finding that we’re God’s church and He loves us a great deal.

http://www.maadichurch.net/Home/tabid/77/Default.aspx

How did I get here?

I graduated in December of 2005 with the plan of working for a few years, saving some money and moving overseas for some time. A few months later, as I was wasting away interviewing for jobs I didn't want and doing part time jobs I wanted even less, my friend Travis Black called me to ask if i would be interested in moving to Egypt for a year to be a youth intern at a church he might be working at as the youth pastor. Egypt had never crossed my mind and was nowhere in my plan and after the first phone call I pretty much dismissed the idea. A month passed and another phone call came. Travis would be the youth pastor at Maadi Community church and he wanted me to move to Egypt to work with him. It was March at this point. I had not found a job yet, I wanted to live in the Middle East, I wanted to do youth ministry, I wanted to work for a church as diverse as the one he had described. Plans changed in a matter of days and in July of 2006 I came to Cairo.

Catching Up

I figured a good place to start would be to give a folks a brief summary of what I'm doing and how I got here. I'll use the next few posts to tell that story. If you want the short short version I've been living in Cairo for a year and a half doing a number of different things at an international church. Life is full.

Ahlan Bienvenidos Welcome

I've started this blog in an attempt to keep people back home more up to date on what is happening here in Cairo. I'll try and get my first post up by the end of the week. As of right now all you need to know is that i'm in love with the song "the man in me" by bob dylan.