Ab Hinc (and a Summary)
This is the update letter I’m in the process of sending out. It is a short summary of my trip and what I learned.
Upon my recent arrival home from a summer that will undoubtedly remain one of the more remarkable ones of my life, it seemed of the utmost necessity that I write to you who enabled it. I can not thank my supporters and prayer partners enough for their kind contributions, words and intercessions. My summer, as I have said, was nothing short of incredible, and I imagine it would be difficult, if not impossible, to fully relate my experiences. However, I will write some account of it here and of course would love to tell you more in person if ere the opportunity arises.
My journey began the 19th of June, when I arrived alone in the Orlando airport, after my first time flying completely alone. I took a tram to baggage claim, then traversed the airport to find the group of greeters who took me to the Lord’s Boot Camp, a swamp in Merritt Island, FL. The prospects of enjoying what was to be my two weeks of training there were dismal, indeed. And I won’t lie, the days I spent there were very unpleasant. Bearable, certainly, but not nice at all. We lived in two man tents, a short hike away from the big top canopy where some of our classes and evening services were held. The heat and humidity were intense, and of course air conditioning was a luxury we did without. Walking alone was cause to sweat. Mosquitoes were unavoidable. Everything on your tray was to be eaten. Days saw us up around 5:15 each morning. We had 5 minutes to get ready and be in the center of our team’s camp. By 6:02am we were running the OC (obstacle course) which includes climbing a mountain of tires, scaling a 25ft ladder and half-pulling, half walking up a sheer 12ft. wall, among other things. I didn’t mind it much- you might even say I began to enjoy it in a sick way- save for one thing- the rope swing over a muddy moat of water called the “slough of despond.” For whatever reason, I fell in each and every day, which guaranteed I would be caked in dirt and pretty wet until afternoon. After the OC was breakfast, then a half hour for personal devotions. After that, two hours of classes/preaching. Then came classes including block-laying, concrete, wood construction, layout, trusses, puppets, music, and so on. Time was always in short supply. An hours worth of free time was allotted in the afternoon, but if you had an SB (“special blessing- a sort of demerit), you spent your free time working. Often, a whole team served one for the few mistakes of a slim minority. Absolutely everything is designed with purpose, and many of the lessons learnt were essential in my team’s success on the field. I suppose we all learned the lessons we needed. Some needed to know how to “rough it” (have you ever washed your hair in bucket of water stinking of sulfur and swimming with tadpoles, and considered it heavenly?). Some needed to learn to deny self (the OC is nigh impossible to complete without teamwork). Some just needed valuable instruction, or a combination of all these things. For me, boot camp was getting accustomed to hardship, foregoing independence in a world where the only choice you have is how much kool-aid you want, and evaluating self. On a side note, one really cool event was when the whole boot camp of a few hundred people raised almost $30,000 to go towards AID’s Orphan Units for Sub-Sahara regions of Africa. Our gift was generously doubled, which means $60,000 is now effectively providing the gospel and medicine for thousands.The two weeks of Boot Camp ended with a candlelight commissioning service on a Friday night, after which my team climbed on bus, drove several hours to Miami, and spent the night at the airport. The next day, we left at 5:00pm for Paris, and after a while there we flew to Cairo, where we arrived Sunday evening. We drove all night to the orphanage in Assiout, and arrived around 5:00am. Since we needed to adjust to the time zone, we had some peanut butter and bagels and were resolved to stay up for the day, which we spent doing laundry and unpacking. Amazing how fast clothes dried on the lines! And the water in our buckets was so clean! We also spent the day making sure we were caught up on our memory verses (there are 40, one for everyday on the trip, plus time for review). They must be recited word perfect, King James, with references. Our time in Egypt was amazing. I got to know each of my 29 teammates, and we became very tight knit. We worked very hard, waking up around 4:50am each morning and mixing concrete until around 3:00pm when the sun began to reach its worst. Even still, while working we often endured temperatures around 107 degrees. The process of mixing concrete in somewhat painstaking and requires a lot of muscle. It begins with 3 massive piles: one of sand, one of rock, and one of 100lbs bags of cement. At the orphanage, we used large metal frames to maintain the right proportions of each load: 1 part cement, 2 parts sand, 3 parts rock. These ingredients are mixed with shovels as people rotate around the pile. Once thoroughly mixed, manageable piles are made, holes are dug in the centers and water is carefully added and mixed until the proper consistency is reached. The concrete is then put in pans which haulers would carry to the location being worked on. The segment must then be skreeted and floated to force the rocks down and give a smooth finish. This all must be done quickly so things don’t dry out too fast, and each segment must be finished before you call it a day. You can imagine the accomplishment we all felt when we discovered we had laid down over 5,000sq.ft.of concrete.After a days work, we had free time until 5:30 for dinner. The first thing we did was to take showers. Cement contains lime which can be poisonous to the liver, and it was good to get that film off in the cold showers. After that I typically caught up doing my laundry on the roof and then recited that days verse. If time then allowed, I went to visit my friends the Egyptian girls. I usually saw the ones my age, and they would teach me Arabic through their own broken English. They were always so excited for us to visit. We saw them at church services also. My team led 4 of them each week. We would sing 4 or 5 songs, and then had 2 people give testimonies through a translator and 1 person give a brief message. Sometimes after we would visit with them, but most often we would return to our quarters for team devotions. This was always a special time for the time as we sang songs together, prayed, and had a team member give a testimony.Some things we also regularly maintained were personal devotions for half an hour each morning after breakfast, and library after lunch. In library we could select a missionary biography from a large box of books and read while the leaders had their daily meeting. I read 5or 6 of these and learned about some very diverse and interesting people.Egypt was not without its plagues. Nearly every team member had a bout with a cold. My own lasted nearly the entire time I was on the field, with varying symptoms. The girl’s dorm was also infiltrated with bed bugs. It took a couple days for us to recognize that the increasing amount of red dots were not mosquito bites from Florida. Alarmingly, we looked like we had chicken pox! When the cause was established, all things were evacuated to the roof and our dorms were sprayed with pesticide. We washed everything, and I am glad to say that the bed bugs were eradicated and our bites diminished, although I still have scars. The boys may have been pleased that their building did not contain the bugs, but they were soon afflicted with scabies, which were promptly treated. Despite the trial, I’d say the team took it all in stride. We had fun of it and I will never take heedlessly the old saying “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”When the time came for us to bid goodbye to the Lillian Trasher Orphanage, which we all came to love as a second home, it was not with out a good bit of sorrow. We promised to write our friends. My especial friend, Fozea, burst into tears the last time I saw her, knowing it was likely I would never see her again in this world. Upon our arrival to Cairo we checked into a hotel for our two nights and a day of sightseeing. We had the privilege of seeing the Great Pyramids. We were able to go inside the second pyramid of Giza, and to ride camels nearby. My own worthy mount was named Michael Jackson. It sort of ruined the authenticity of it all, but whatever. We also were able to briefly visit the Cairo museum which is simply packed with thousands of artifacts. That afternoon we visited an Egyptian street market, which was insane. The narrow streets were crowded with wares and salesmen, snaking alleys contained a vast array of little shops, and of course, the price was negotiable on anything you saw. It was a good place for souvenirs, to be sure. This day was very nice, as the only other things we had seen outside the orphanage compound were some caves where it is said the family of Jesus took refuge for a time, a graveyard where Lillian Trasher is buried, and the governor’s yacht on the Nile (he lent it to us for a few hours as a gesture of thanks for our work at the orphanage and the goodwill that it represented).Upon leaving Cairo we flew to Paris, and from the airport bussed to Switzerland for Debrief. There we had a few classes on presenting our trips, quizzed with other teams on our bible verses, and got to spend a few days just being with our own team with the realization that in a few days we would never see most of them again. Our time in Switzerland ended in the city of Lucerne where we shopped a little for chocolate and Swiss knives, saw the famous Lion of Lucerne, and enjoyed the beauty of all that we were surrounded by. After that came the Paris airport, where we began to say our goodbyes. My team surprised our main leaders, Mike and Michelle Myers by giving them over a $100 from our own spending money so they could treat themselves to a dinner out when they got home. We were so appreciative of them! By the time we got to our termination point in the JFK airport I had to say a quick goodbye and prepare for my flight home. It ended up being delayed until 11:20pm, so I spent some of that time with 2 teammates were at the gate next-door. And then, before I knew it, I was home once more, at about 5:00am.After two months away from home, I’ve had some assessing to do. What have I accomplished? What will I take from all this? Well, from this mission trip I can not tell you that we saw one soul actually saved. But our circumstances were unusual. We were not a strictly evangelistic team, and we were working in a Christian orphanage located in a very Muslim country [with prayer call five times a day if we needed the reminder]. I believe that the labor we did was a work that will enable that orphanage to continue its work with the door it already has. The work we did would have taken the orphanage over a year to complete, at the very least. What is more, we were able to be good testimonies to the orphans, and we have the added advantage of continued correspondence. The trip also had an incredible impact on as I saw their strength also. I have learned from them and the orphans a certain triumph that I have rarely seen before. I am honored to have been a part of God’s work this summer, and I thank you again for making the venture possible. God bless you as he has me-
In His Service,
Wendy Elizabeth Greve
