Mission to the Czech Republic

"Decisions are hard because the choice of one thing means the death of something else. "

...or so I was told recently. Decision-making is one part of life that I never seem to get along with very well. Fortunately God has been teaching me about it a lot lately.

"God cares more about our daily decisions than He does about where we are." -my roommate

"You can choose to be happy wherever you are." -also my roommate

"While many of us long for God to give us a map so that we can simply follow it, He instead gives us a compass that points the way." -Erwin McManus

" What we continually ask for is to know God's will for our lives; what God offers us is His wisdom for our lives." -McManus

"The problem is not that we don't know what to do, but that we don't do what we know. The key to the future is obedience. When we submit our lives to what God has made known, the future becomes clearer." -McManus (I really like this guy, if you haven't noticed)

"When God is you desire, you can trust the passions of your heart." -McManus

In the chaos that has bombarded my thoughts this week, I am reminded that one of God's greatest gift to us is Himself. Whether I go to Prague, Greenville, the moon, wherever, He promises He will go with me. In fact, He is already there, taking care of things I may not ever know about. It's easy to think that if you choose the "wrong path," that you have royally screwed up and will suffer the consequences forever. But I've begun to realize that wherever I am, God is there, and I can continue growing and abiding in Him. And He will somehow get me where He wants me anyway. I'm really just amazed right now at how blessed I am, at how fortunate I am to even have options like these. To have options at all.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the free will God gives us. Sometimes it unnerves me because I have to make decisions using whatever knowledge and wisdom I have and then take responsibility for those decisions. A friend recently mentioned how yes we have free will, but God just puts us where He wants us anyway. These seemed like to conflicting ideas, but then I thought, maybe free will is the freedom to choose to allow God to send you wherever He pleases.

So that's where I am this week. I'm going to walk down the open doors as far as they go, knowing that God is right there beside me.

Wow – what a vacation! I’m still marveling at how this is the third country I’ve been in today, and how I’ve been up for twenty hours already as I write this. It’s been an eventful week to say the least, but I made it home in one piece!

Ben and I got to the airport on Wednesday to find that our flight was cancelled. After a minor panic attack, we were relieved when they put us on a direct flight to Cairo later that night. Upon arrival at Cairo we waited in the longest customs line ever, mostly due to my inability to stay in one line (think the beginning of Office Space), then around 3:30am we stepped out to experience this crazy city for the first time.

Cairo is a fascinating but exhausting place. I strongly believe that it should have a slogan that says “never a dull moment,” or “never a quiet moment,” or maybe just “look out.” It’s never a bad idea to say a prayer before you get in or near a car. And once we made it to our airport “shuttle” I found out why. I was a little unnerved that there were no seatbelts, but quickly realized that the old car probably wouldn’t go fast enough for it to really matter. During that drive we got to see some of Cairo’s most beautiful landmarks at night: its mosques. They are everywhere, their minarets towering over the rest of the buildings; stunning when lit up at night. When we stepped out of the car we were just in time to hear a mosque call for the first time. It’s quite haunting, and during the day it’s so noisy you hardly notice them. It was an interesting reminder that we were now in a Muslim country.

We finally got to bed around 5am with the intentions of sleeping until about10, but I was wide awake at 8 due to the heat, the light, and the noise: car horns. I have never in my life heard that many car horns at one time for such an extended period of time. They use them non-stop, and I’m not exactly sure why, since traffic laws seem to be non-existent. After lying there for a while I discovered that with enough imagination, the horns sound like a distant jazz band. However, the jazz was loud enough to keep me awake until Ben woke up and we headed off for the first stop on our little adventure: the Egyptian Museum.

I never thought I would actually stare into the face of King Tut’s mask. We saw his sarcophagus and probably hundreds of artifacts found in his Tomb. We wandered through room after room of stone slabs with hieroglyphs so well-preserved they could have been carved yesterday. I was glad to have Ben there to educate me on the Egyptian god’s he’d been reading up on. We saw mummified animals in all shapes and sizes, sheets of papyrus, and statues until we’d had enough and went on a trek to find lunch. We quickly figured out that Cairo is seriously lacking in two things: ATMs and restaurants (this I do not understand…), and we needed both. Our search took us to the other side of the Nile before we finally found both inside the Marriott Hotel. We also noticed along the way the abundance of police in the streets. They are everywhere; they guard that hotel with their life. They are stationed on practically every street corner and have parts of the sidewalk sectioned off so they can just sit behind these booths. I couldn’t decide if seeing uniformed men with guns every few hundred yards or so made me feel better or worse.

The most exciting (and by exciting I mean terrifying) part of that day was learning how to cross the street. As mentioned above, traffic laws to not appear to exist in this city. If you want to cross the street, you basically just close your eyes and start walking (well, that’s what I did) and pray you don’t get hit. We tried to use the locals as shields whenever we could, but it was still nerve-racking every time we tried to cross. One wonders how more people don’t get injured. We had one driver who insisted on driving about 500km in the left lane, only moving into the right lane if a car was coming, and constantly passing people on blind hills. And we actually did get into a minor traffic accident in a taxi (we were fine though).

So after a late lunch and a short rest we decided to go down to the Grand Bazaar to check out the over-priced tourist traps. We hadn’t been out of the taxi for twenty seconds when a guy approached us offering to show us to the “real” markets. Being a little ignorant, a little curious, and not wanting to act like jerks in front of each other or anyone else, Ben and I soon found ourselves being led through the backstreet slums of Cairo. He took us to an “authentic” papyrus shop (and who really knows at that point) but we did buy some painted papyrus, and then went to the spice market. Eventually we made it back to the tourist bazaar and entertained ourselves by speaking in Czech and Spanish to confuse the hustlers.

The next morning we piled onto a bus with five other Americans, a Scot, and an Australian girl and settled in for a four hour ride out to a desert Oasis. After a quick lunch at a really nice (well, nice for the middle of the desert) little motel-type place, we switched to jeeps and then really set off for the desert. We drove for a long time and eventually stopped in the Old White Desert. I never knew the desert could have such a changing landscape. The White Desert is named so because of the white limestone rocks you can see in every direction. Likewise, the Black Desert is named for the black volcanic rock scattered over the sand. The White Desert is full if fascinating rock formations. After a short break and some pictures, we headed off for the New White Desert. We also learned very quickly that when Mohamed, our driver, says “ready?” that you have about .5 seconds to secure and valuables and find something to hold onto because you are about to either to flying down a sand dune or up a rocky hill (which, in the jeeps, were an absolute blast). He drove all through the White Desert, racing the other jeep at times, and finally came to a stop at a place that to me looked like any other of the sections of sand we’d passed, to set up camp.

So we camped in the Sahara Desert, sleeping out under the stars after our guides prepared an amazing chicken/rice/potato dinner cooked over the fire (how do you make fire in the desert? You bring along wood and lots of fuel!). It was a little hazy so the sunset wasn’t as spectacular as I’d hoped, but the whole place was still so breathtaking that I didn’t care. About 30 minutes after we’d all turned in for the night, the wind started to pick up. A lot. At one point I sat up and couldn’t see anything but a sandy haze. So at first you think, wow, a real sandstorm. Then you realize you are sleeping outside and you think, crap, a real sandstorm. The sand started swirling everywhere – there was no escape. I had a sub-zero sleeping bag and was trying to decide if I’d rather be hot or sandy. I finally went with sandy and tried to rig everything so I’d stay cool but somewhat clean. I think I ended up wrapping my head in my fleece. Regardless, we all woke up just covered in sand. I still feel like it’s in my ears/eyes/hair/etc. But for the sunrise, it was worth it!

On the drive back we stopped at a few places. One to look for the “desert rose,” which I believe is actually steel, but it looks like a flower. Another time to see alabaster stone – it looked just like those geodes you crack open with the crystals inside. Finally we hiked to the top of a hill in the black desert with a stunning view of the surrounding area. It was a long, hot drive back, and we felt pretty gross by then, but I would like to point out for those of you who know me well that I successfully managed to travel to and from the Sahara without getting sunburned!

We drove back to Cairo in the jeeps and for random reasons Ben and I had to separate, and I ended up waiting with our driver in a coffee shop for the other jeeps to arrive. There haven’t been many times when I’ve felt that uncomfortable, that out of place. At least when Ben was around people knew we were tourists but generally left me alone. But you put a random white tourist girl into a coffee shop with an Egyptian man, you sure get some stares! I did notice one particular difference while I was in Cairo, which I’d read about in the guidebook, and it was that men often don’t look women in the eye (or maybe vice versa, or both). Any time we talked with someone who didn’t work directly with tourists on a regular basis, they would usually greet Ben with some cheesy line like “nice to meet me,” and then they may shake my hand but would usually drop their eyes or look away. Often I was just ignored.

So anyway, that night we found dinner with the help of Rosalind and Carrie, who had been on the tour with us and knew at least what area to look for restaurants in. The next day was pyramid day – finally! We decided to pay a little extra for a guide (which we later regretted – Ben could have done a better job) and started off at Saqquara and Memphis, to see the oldest stone structure in the world that’s still standing – the Step Pyramid. We got taken, for the third time that trip, to a papyrus shop and once again left with something. By now we’ve seen papyrus demonstrations so many times we could probably teach it ourselves!

We finally made it to Giza to see the only one of the seven wonders of the ancient world that still exists. And they were extraordinary. The pyramids are absolutely enormous up close. One can only imagine the skill and labor it took to construct them. We even got to go inside one of them – it was stuffy and hot but it was amazing to imagine pharaoh’s being laid there so many thousands of years ago. The sphinx was nearby, and it was smaller than I expected and definitely deteriorating, but impressive nonetheless.

We did have the “camel incident” while at Giza, which basically involved me stupidly getting on a camel (ok, the guy did sort of push me on, too), and taking a very unwanted camel ride. The pictures look great but we weren’t thrilled when they tried to charge us a bunch of money for us. That night we decided against a Nile cruise and opted instead for a dinner on a boat on the Nile that wasn’t actually moving but did have an Applebee’s (cue the Hallelujah chorus here). We went to bed around 8:30 and got up at 12:30am and began the long journey home. It was hard leaving, as it always is when I go somewhere new, and I hope to go back someday and go to Sinai and Luxor, and go down the Nile a bit. But for the time we had, I was very happy with what we did. Still can’t believe I was in EGYPT!!!