Mar Ha Ba

November 17, 2007 Friday

Mar Ha Ba,

This letter has been a little hard to think about writing. I haven’t known how to start or really what I want to write this time. This past week has been very emotional for me. Sometimes I feel like I am watching someone else live my life and I have been removed from the reality of what’s happening. I’m not sure why I have felt some uncertainty, or why I have not looked forward to writing this week’s newsletter. But, like with anything we don’t feel like facing it’s time to just DO IT!

I’ll start with expressing my love and appreciation to the Lord for His “Tender Mercies”. Even with the news of my Dad’s death and the struggles that I wrestle with being so far away and not being able to do anything to help….. I have felt moments of peace and love. What a blessing! This week has been full of many wonderful opportunities for us as Humanitarian Missionaries. The Lord is constantly reminding us of how much He has His hand in this work. We have been working very hard on several projects and trying to get them approved through proper channels so we can actually get them completed and working to serve the people. The Orphanage has finally been approved and we are so excited about it. This Orphanage is in a mountain area called Anjara. The building has just been completed and now we will help with furnishing it for the young girls that will be living there. The girls are currently living with the Nuns and the numbers are increasing with each month. So this will be a wonderful thing for both the Nuns and the girls. A few weeks ago while we were visiting we met a young 16 year old girl, Kristine who just arrived from Amman. She was brought there because her American father had abandoned them and her mother died. She looked scared and angry. We went back this week and met with her again and she was doing much better. We used her to translate for us because she speaks a little English and the Nuns don’t. Father Hugo speaks a little but he is out of the country visiting his family in Argentina for a month. The next project we just got some approval on is a big water project in the North Jordan valley. We have met with many different people over the last month trying to get as much info as we can to get the right people involved. We got a call last week from Dr. Malkawi. He is a Professor of Geotechnical and Dam Engineering. He also is Vice Pres. of Jordan University of Science and technology. He had heard about us and wanted to meet with us. He speaks very good English and our visited was great. We discussed our interest in doing a water project in Jordan Valley and asked his opinion on a professional level. He was very encouraging and stated that the area we are considering is in great need of clean water. The area is very poor. He then invited us to the MENA Water Conference that is being held with Germany and the Middle East. He is the chairman over the conference and thought this could be very helpful to our work. So it looks like we will be sitting in on a 3 day conference this week with water specialists from Europe and the Middle East. So we will act like we know what we are doing. Dad has been reading and studying up on “Water”. We have had so many different opportunities and many varieties of projects to work on. We are learning a lot about a lot of different things.

We are meeting tomorrow with several different Societies to get another Goods Container and another Wheelchair container together. Hope we can have some success in getting this one through the Ministries this time. We should, because the elections will be over. YEAH! I am glad it is almost over. I don’t think this place could hold any more signs or posters. It is so unbelievable! There is not a flat surface in all of Jordan that does not have a poster stuck to it!!!!! We’ll have to send some pictures.

We are starting to teach some English classes to a private school and one of the Universities in Irbid. We enjoy this! We have met so many wonderful young people. They teach English grammar in the schools here but most of the children and young adult don’t have much opportunity to speak it. So we teach Conversational English and work on their pronunciation.

HAPPY THANKGIVING! It’s so hard to believe that it is almost the end of November already. We will be cooking a big Thanksgiving Dinner for the American Peace Core workers here in Jordan. They are so excited. Many don’t have much contact with civilization. We thought it would be around 35 but last count was 65! OH my! What have we gotten ourselves into? It has been interesting to try to find the ingredients for a Thanksgiving meal. Many things we will have to be very creative in coming up with something.We’ll give a report next week. Think of us while you eat that delicious Thanksgiving meal. We’ll think of you!

Well, I feel much better! Thank you all for the support and words of
encouragement. We love you all!

Love, Your Jordan Missionaries