October 5, 2007 from Robin

Mar ha ba,

Keef ha ik….how are you? My, how this week has flown by! Our weeks are so mixed up. With Friday being the Sabbath and the weekend starting with Thursday evening, and then Sunday being the beginning of another work week…. We don’t ever know what day it is. But we stay busy and keep going in one direction or another. We feel we are finally getting a little more comfortable with the NGO’s we are meeting with. We had a wonderful day yesterday visiting. The first Society we met with will be the head NGO of the Wheelchair container we are bringing in. In about 2 weeks we will have 250 wheel chairs delivered and they will be distributed among 15 other designated societies throughout the area. Each wheelchair has an individual waiting for it. Except, we keep a few on hand to have when the need arises. There are so many people here in Jordan that are crippled. When we walk along the streets we often pass people (it has mostly been men) with no legs at all. They use their arms and hands to pull themselves up and scoot along with flip-flops in their hands so the palm of their hands will be protected. It brings tears to
my eyes to see the conditions that some people have to live with. There is such a demand for wheelchairs. The church has a wonderful program all over the world to distribute wheelchairs to the needy. Each container that comes in has 250 wheelchairs with 5 different sizes. We are trying to get another Container project ready to submit and hope it will be here in December before Christmas.

As we walked to church today we were listening to the Catholic Church bells chime. It was a beautiful sound. I’ve never heard the bells ring with such melody. The morning was beautiful and sunny with just a hint of a cool breeze. It was beginning to feel a little like Fall. Yeah!!! We looked at each other and commented on how much we were going to miss sitting on our front porch in Kentucky and watching the leaves turn. But we are excited to be here. We continued to walk along in the street; Yes, we walk in the street, because the sidewalks are usually piled with dirt, rocks and are rutted up so bad that it is impossible to walk without breaking an ankle or something. We looked up and what do we see coming toward us? Goats! Lots and lots of goats! The herdsman was bringing them right down the middle of the street. It’s something you see everyday here. But, I must admit, for a while I wasn’t sure if they were going to let us share the road. As we passed Dad shouted out “Keef hal ik” and he answered back “Kway-is” which means “good”. We swapped smiles and walked on! Just another day in Jordan! We love it! We are looking forward to conference this weekend (Your weekend, ours will be over) Oh well! We are leaving tomorrow to go to Amman to The Center for Cultural and Educational Affairs under BYU. It is the umbrella that the church operates under here in the Middle East. Every year BYU students come to the Middle East to study or for other reasons and it is through this Center that they operate. We have a satellite there so we can get conference. We will stay with the Bradford’s who are the Center’s Directors. They will be leaving next month. We will miss them. Since we are 7-10 hours ahead of you, we will have our first session starting at 8 p.m. Saturday night, the 2nd session will start at midnight and the Priesthood session at 4:00 a.m. Sunday- We are excited … an all night broadcast! Yahoo !!! Then Sunday we do it all again unto the early morning hours of Monday. We will be think of all of you while we watch conference and eat our M &M’s. It’s family tradition! Got to keep those going. Now, I just have to go on an M&M hunt to find some. But if we can’t find any please eat a few for us, OK? I WILL be thinking of each and every one of you as I sit there. Send me some “Brain waves.”

Today in church Dad bore his testimony in Arabic. I was so impressed! He actually sounded like he knew what he was saying. He’s something else! We have been asked to help in our little Branch of the church here in Al Husan. Dad is working with the Branch President and I’m helping in Primary. It is very challenging. The Jordanians have a different mind set in how they raise their children (or at least in this area of Jordan). They allow them to run and play during the meetings or in any other place you might see them. We have to lock all the rooms while we are in sacrament meeting because they are allowed to roam throughout the building and the outdoors. During primary we have to have someone sit in front of the door so they don’t escape and wander off by themselves. They are very active, as you know children can be. The hard thing for me is I don’t speak Arabic, YET. Notice I said yet! I’m trying to learn. I have felt impressed to concentrate on the music. Music certainly is the universal language of the world! The children have had very little exposure to the primary songs. We don’t have them translated in Arabic yet. So it is a huge job finding the right words in Arabic and match it to the music. I am learning my first two songs in Arabic to help teach the children. I have NO musical ability! Today I sang the Popcorn song to them with all the motions. They loved it. They followed with the motions and said… “Arabee, Sister Robin. Arabee.” They wanted me to teach them it in Arabic. It is so frustrating! So I will work on that. Miracles? I’m praying for a miracle! I didn’t think I had much to share this time. It’s a good thing uh? We hope and pray that all is well with you. We absolutely love your emails. It helps us keep going! Thank you so much for all that you are. We’re so grateful for the prayers that are said in our behalf. We have felt the power that comes through them. It is such a blessing to feel the strength of the Lord as we strive to do what we can to serve these people in Jordan. We feel very humble in this undertaking and know without a doubt that the Lord is moving this work forward and we are trying to keep up. Keep praying! We sure love you! :-)

Love,
Your Jordan Missionaries

Quote for the week: Emily shared this with us from the Relief Society Broadcast. I wanted to pass it on. (we haven’t gotten it here yet)

“Don’t pray for the task equal to your ability, but pray for your abilities to equal your task.”
Pres. Thomas S. Monson