You may have heard about fighting in our city on the news.  It’s true.  But we are all fine.  I went to class today just like normal.  But in talking with my teacher who is from the affected city I realized a bit of reality in this country that I had only heard about before…  The government does not love it’s people.  It lies.  And it will do anything to stay in control.

pray for our nation, our city…

for peace, instead of war, instead of blood-shed

for forgiveness, instead of keeping grudges, instead of revenge

for love, instead of hate, instead of closed eyes

for salvation, instead of destruction, instead of death

for Jesus, instead of the kingdom of darkness, instead of life without him

I’ve always been a bit ambitious. I mean, I’m quiet enough and I seem indecisive and I’m not really the aggressive sort (by any means), but I’ve always been one who is up for adventure. Even when I’m afraid inside it has rarely stopped me from jumping off thirty foot cliffs or driving in the snow to Niagara Falls for the day or moving to the Sahara desert to try to save the world. And deep down inside I’ve always believed that I was invincible - I never believed that I was the sort of person who could fail or burn-out or even struggle very much. I’m learning new things about myself these days. I’m learning about weakness.

There’s this thing called “culture shock” that happens to people who move to new countries. I’ve read about it in books. It has to do with the deep value, belief and custom differences of a new culture in contrast with your own. Honestly, I didn’t believe this culture shock was something for me. It was something that bothered other people - people who weren’t laid back and weren’t flexible and who didn’t really feel called to their new country, people who didn’t love others and didn’t try to see them as God did. I was quite sure that culture shock happened to people who weren’t me. And even now, I hate being labeled and I’m going to tell you I’m not in culture shock, this is just “minor cultural disagreement in my brain”. But I was certainly wrong to think that learning a new culture was something that could be done without cost.

It’s hard to explain culture shock unless you’ve tried to live in a new country before, but I’m going to try to give you a glimpse. From my journal this week…

In my heart there is a growing resistance, a rebellion to this country that is brewing right beneath the surface. I moved here with the full goal of contextualizing and becoming completely adapted to this culture in ALL things except for the essential faith issues. And the first few months of living with a poor host family were enchanting and fun, even if difficult. But with understanding Arabic the enchanting ease and innocence faded away and eight months into Arabic without being able to really communicate made all the fun fall away. And so we are left with only the difficulties. And in the strangest situations I feel rebellion in my heart.

The people here are very opinionated – they are always filled with demanding advice: “Sit!”, “Eat this!”, “Lay down”, “Get out of the sun, you’re too hot”, “Don’t wash your hair so often”, “Don’t wear that shirt”. These and a thousand other daily commands make me want to scream, “I’m 25 years old, I can take care of myself, how do you think I made it this far in life? Leave me alone!” And then I want to do the opposite of what they said.

Part of this is a simple linguistic problem. North African people seem to me far too direct - there are many direct commands, and very little politeness or asking. They don’t ask, “Can I have 10 pounds?”, but instead, “Do you have 10 pounds?” - the giving part is assumed. They don’t ask, “Can you bring me a cup of water, please?”, they simply shout, “Hey girl, bring me some water!” In English we use many cushioning and polite words. In Arabic, there is no “would you”, or “could you”, or “please”, there’s just “do this, this way, now.” This is simply a language usage difference.

There is also a more sticky cultural problem. In America we are polite because to infringe on someone’s independence or self-competence in decision making is a serious crime. Even a small child is assumed to be independent and therefore would not naturally serve a parent – so appealing to niceness by being polite is necessary. Independence has little value in Africa. You are first a member of a group (namely your family), and the group matters much more than yourself. People are not independent and do not strive to be independent, and independent person is selfish and strange. Dependence upon one another is essential. Group decisions and deciding things for others is quite normal. And so to decide for someone that they are not comfortable or not full after eating or too hot is not unnatural. In their perspective you are actually thinking quite highly of a person to look out for their needs and make sure they are comfortable and happy. In America a high value is to trust people to generally take care of themselves. At most, in America, we offer things, not command them. Instead of demanding, “Sit!”, we offer, “have a seat.” Instead of “Eat!”, we ask, “would you like some more?” We always leave the decision up to the other person not assuming we know what is best for them.

There is also more variation, personality and independence allowed in America. In America everyone is encouraged to “be themselves”. In Africa everyone it is essential to conform to the group, no one wants to stick out. Here everyone has insistent advice for you as if you are a complete incompetent idiot about how to do everything – the only correct way to wash clothes or cut potatoes or do anything. And there is little allowance for there being more than one possible way to clean clothes or cook a meal. In fact the tricky factor of Islam is that most ‘other’ ways of doing things are not just different or strange, but they are actually wrong, dishonorable, sinful. If you set into the bathroom by your left foot instead of your right you have sinned. If after taking off your shoes you leave on the ground upside down you have sinned. If you pluck your eyebrows the wrong way you have sinned. If you kill a spider that has not first bitten you, then you have sinned. There are not ‘different’ ways of doing things, there is only a right way and a million wrong ways. And everyone has their own opinions.

Unlike in America where I can wear many things and people think I look good there are really only about two color and clothing options among my clothes that won’t bring harsh criticism. And the negative criticism is the final factor – it’s not just the insistent advice, it’s the criticism that people in America would not allow in the open for fear of crushing someone’s self-esteem. “You look very ugly in glasses.” “This tea is terrible – you don’t know how to cook a thing.” “If you were fatter or whiter or your hair was different you wouldn’t be so ugly.”

And after eight months my rebellious heart cannot hold it in anymore. “Why is it important that I iron my clothes?” I demanded from my teacher today, and it was so strong that both he and I were surprised at my resistance. “It’s just a part of the culture you have to adapt to,” he said. And in my heart I hated this country. It is harder and harder to not snap back and blatantly reject them. It is hard to not rebel. It is so hard to go from being an independent American to living in a dependent family. I’m so tired of people telling me what to do and what is best and how I feel and what I think and especially what I want. Because my whole life those were things I decided, and here people are deciding them for me in a thousand small things everyday.

And no matter how often I tell myself or how hard I try, I cannot see it as love. I do not feel loved when I tell my host family that I’m not hungry and they drag me out of bed at midnight and force me to eat a sandwich, and on rebellious nights when I refuse they simply set the sandwich in my bed with me. I do not feel loved when I have food in my mouth and they ask, “is the food not good, do you not like it? You’re not eating.” I do not feel loved when they say, “You cannot wear a blue headscarf with a blue skirt, everyone will think you’re ugly.” These are all ways they try to love me, but I do not feel loved by it.

But this is not an “essential faith issue”. I’m supposed to adapt and become African. And I have not at all. In fact it’s worse now than in the beginning. Independence and my heart culture just don’t want to die.

CORN growing in our guest house yard.

The other night we had our first major dust storm since I’ve been in Africa. It was really fun for the first minute. And then it wasn’t fun anymore for the next hour and a half of dust storming. But that night the weather was very very cool, so in the end we didn’t even mind the clean up. Anything to lower 110 degrees is always appreciated! There was just lots and lots and lots of dust. I want to try to show you just how much dust.

here you can see the dust storm coming - the clear air versus the storm:

lots of dust.

really…lots and lots of dust…

more dust…

you know how in America if you leave something for about a year it gets really dusty? We ate on these dishes for dinner just two hours before hand. wow.

Here are some things that I used to think were strange…and I don’t anymore:

- Laying down in my bed to go to sleep at night and finding a knife.  I have to say that in America if I went to bed and found a sharp kitchen knife in my bed I would be a little freaked out.  Life it ordered very differently here – beds are not just beds.  During the day beds are used as:  beds, chairs, kitchen tables and counters, storage places for important documents, drying racks for wet clothes and dishes, piling places for clothes, baby play pens…it’s very multi-purpose…

- Leaving 52 hours late to go to the grandmother’s house.  Everyone always told me that people in Africa (and most non-Western cultures) think about time very differently.  And they’re right, I just didn’t realize HOW differently we really think.  Last week my host family was going to visit their grandmother.  We were going to leave for her house Sunday morning, very very early.  In actuality we didn’t go until Tuesday mid-morning.  That’s TWO whole days of sitting around and hearing “oh, we’re leaving right after tea…”.  It’s just that no one said which of the seven tea times during the day…

-115 degrees.  I distinctly remember this time in high school watching an Animal Planet show about Africa.  They showed a group of lions laying under a tree panting, and the tv show host commented, “in mid-day here it’s 110 degrees in the shade.”  I remember my whole family sitting in our living room discussing what 110 degrees in the shade must feel like.  Well, as of this week I know what it feels like.  It’s warm.  Uncomfortably so.  And you sweat a lot.  And days of just 100 or 103 in the shade are starting to feel really nice and refreshing.

-Bolting the door to our house and then sleeping in the yard.  Nearly all the people I have met in this country are terrified of thieves.  I haven’t actually figured out if there are a lot of thieves in the country or if they just like to endlessly repeat every stealing story they’ve heard.  So every night my host family securely locks all of their very important possessions (like dirty clothes and broken dishes and worn out notebooks) into the one room of our house and we all sleep in beds in the yard.

And honestly all these things have become quite normal.  Yay for learning something in the first eight months.

‘Esau’ is the oldest child in my host family. Esau in the Bible is a strong person – he was the oldest but was often undermined by his younger brother, he was an animal herder who worked with his hands, he was tough, and he had a tendency to make quick and bad decisions. This is much like the character of my host brother.

Esau and our Eid sheep.

Leah, my host mother, gave birth to Esau when she was fifteen years old. In this culture sons are seen as a distinct blessing from God – every family longs for a son and I’m sure that all looked upon this family favorably when their first child was a son. As Esau grew up he moved frequently with his family – from country to country, town to town. After high school he followed in the trade of his father and became a skilled butcher.

Of all of the members of my host family I know Esau the least. I have actually never had a real conversation with him, never anything beyond superficial greetings. So I only know about him what I have observed and gathered from others – most all of which is events from the last six months.

Being a butcher is a good job – butchers have consistent work and make a decent amount of money. When I moved in with my host family in September, Esau left early every morning to work in another town and came home every evening with meat.

At 27 years old Esau bears a lot of weight on his shoulders – he is the responsible man of the house since his father, Leah’s husband, does not live with the family. This is not a symbolic responsibility. Esau is the oldest man in the house, he is literally responsible to make sure that his mother and siblings have food to eat everyday – without his provision of money and food they would not eat.

In September, Esau was making serious plans to marry. He had been courting a girl, one of his cousins, for awhile, and both families had loosely arranged that this should take place. He began to buy furniture for their new house – one of his obligations in marriage. Because money was tight he had decided to build a room within the current house compound and bring his bride to live with his family. This seemed suitable to everyone.

Then in October there was a problem, Esau’s father went into the hospital and needed an operation. Though Esau didn’t get along with his father and rarely saw him, everyone knew that Esau was obliged to help him through this crisis. So Esau went to the hospital in another town to stay with his father for a week. During that week his father sent him out to borrow money to pay the hospital bill. After leaving the hospital his father confessed to Esau that he had no money and he left Esau with a thousand dollar debt to his name, which he had no hope of paying back. After a few days the loaners also realized that they were not going to get their money back and they called the police on Esau. Esau could no longer go to work or leave the house because the police would catch him. For nearly a month Esau stayed at home. His mother would talk with him everyday, but she could not console him for what his father had done to him.

I do not actually know how or if this situation was ever resolved. I do not believe the loan was paid back, but Esau must not be as afraid of the police anymore. After awhile Esau met with his father to discuss his upcoming wedding. His father concluded that he didn’t think Esau should marry yet. He should stay home and take care of his mother and siblings. Esau didn’t like this decision, but he complied. When money got tight at the house he sold all of his furniture and gave up on the wedding. Leah tried to reassure him that things will get better, after a few years he can get married.

Esau does not interact with his family very much. He and his brother only get along sometimes and he has little in common with his sisters. He talks to his mother, but even those are mostly pep talks from her so that he will be motivated to work and provide for the family. He is more of a loner in the house. I see only the outward reactions, not his inner feelings. Esau has angry outbursts, he yells and has broken a couple tables around the house. One day he was so angry that he left the house in a hurry on his motorcycle, he was so upset that he wrecked outside of the gate. He walked back in with his leg and arm bleeding and laid down on his bed, went to sleep and never said a word to anyone. Sometime after October Esau began to drink. He tries to escape reality in the same way that his father does.

Esau has good ideas, he often comes up with new plans for work and to change things. But nothing ever seems to come together for him, his father often seems to sabotage things in one way or another. His motorcycle that he had wanted for so long had to be sold when the family ran out of money. Esau has a good heart. He cares about his family, he just has trouble providing for them.

In December I had a Christmas tree at our house. Esau’s father, John, on one of his rare house visits accidentally broke the lights on the tree. Everyone was devastated on my behalf. One evening I came home late after having called my family in America on the phone. Esau and his brother were sitting by the Christmas tree beaming with excitement. Esau had searched for and bought new lights for it. They wanted to make sure that I had a nice Christmas.

I feel for Esau. He wants to get married, he wants to start his own life, but he bound by tradition and obligation to take care of his mother and siblings. It is a job that his father neglected and it has fallen on him. But instead of making the best of things Esau often chooses to escape. The pressure is often too much for him and he has no one in his life to turn to.

Esau and his brother. In the background are the bricks that were to be used for he and his bride’s new house.

My former youth pastor emailed me this week. He wanted to know how I am, how I really really am, not just how my blog says that I am… I emailed him back and really laid it all out there. And now I’m going to steal my email from him and share it with you all…how things really really are…

Things have been really hard the last two months here. I can’t really give you a reason for why, but it’s been a lot harder than before. Our team has had a lot of changes the whole time I’ve been here, but especially recently. We’ve also had some disagreements and misunderstandings which have been a struggle to work through. I think it’s evening out a bit more.

Arabic is hard. This is nothing new…I knew before I came that Arabic was hard, but it is a daily fact of life. It is hard everyday. It was at the beginning when I didn’t know anything, it’s hard now that I can have halting shallow conversations and understand some deeper things but cannot respond in words. Arabic is hard. And it’s going to be a long long process still.

The other day I was walking down the road in a long skirt and long sleeve shirt with a head scarf and it was about 115 degrees and dusty and some guys were busy yelling about me being a foreigner and I caught myself telling God - “you know, I’ve been here seven months and I don’t really love North Africa that much yet, I could still leave and never look back and never cry much.” And I heard God ask me - “but do you love me?” And I’m not in North Africa because I love it so much, but I’m still here because I love God…and that’s reason enough.

Living with a host family is wonderful and hard. They are sweet and take care of me and feed me and try to convert me and teach me Arabic and about North Africa and how to cook local food – and they give me many many things to think about. Three days ago my youngest host sister who is eight came up to me and excitedly told me that she and her sister (who’s 11) want to be circumcised in 25 days. And this country rips my heart out. I don’t know what to do with that. In some ways they’re making progress - female circumcision is illegal now and my host mother hasn’t had any of her girls circumcised because she herself is and she thinks it is terrible. And then you get 8 and 11 year olds coming home from school wanting to have it done themselves. And even though my host mother doesn’t agree with it she will probably allow it because it is still such a noble symbol of modesty and submission to God.

My host family learns from me - my very presence in their house (or rather I believe Jesus living through me) is a challenge to their faith. I always write in my journal every night and they all thought it was strange at first, but I didn’t have the Arabic to explain. So the other day Zabuha asked me again what it was and I said it was like a letter to God everyday. And she asked what I told Him and I said ‘everything’. And she was amazed and told her family. And they were all amazed because it is unthinkable in Islam that you could really talk to God - or that he would care. Islam is just about doing rituals to please God, but there’s no personal element of God knowing and loving and caring about individuals.

They watched the Jesus film the day before yesterday - and they liked it. But I can see in their hearts how hard a decision would be. And I feel for them - I do. I cannot imagine what it would be like to choose a way of following God that is different than everyone else. Choosing salvation through Jesus would essentially be saying that every person they have ever looked up to in their entire lives, every mentor, every teacher, every ancestor, and EVERYONE they have ever known was wrong about the most important thing in life. It takes a lot of courage and conviction to believe that everyone you know is wrong and this foreigner you met is right. And beyond that, it would really cost them everything. We get off easy in America. Because of that there are many half-hearted church attenders. But here it is a serious choice. It is truly like the story Jesus told of the kingdom of God - a man found a treasure in a field and in great joy he sold everything he had to buy that field. It would cost my family everything. And I’ll tell you something, I am daily convicted by the Spirit about whether I truly believe that Jesus is worth it - if I really believe that he alone is enough. Because there would be very little in terms of ‘blessing’ (at least as we think of it) to follow Jesus here - there would be serious persecution, immediately - no waiting for people to be mature believers.

One of my Arabic teachers at school is a Muslim background follower of Jesus. He is one of only a handful of believers from his entire people group. He has been thrown in prison and beaten, he has had assassination attempts against his life (some of which very nearly succeeded), he has been blackmailed against his congregation, he has been betrayed, he once translated the entire book of Mark into his local language only to have it burned before his eyes. I’ve never met anyone quite like him in all of my life. And it’s not that everyone else I know is unwilling to suffer for Christ - I believe that many people that I know would be willing to - it’s just that none of them have. No one else I know has ever been pushed to the wall as hard as he has, and I see in him a level of faith none of the rest of us have ever had to nurture. And it reminds me that this whole following and selling everything for Jesus idea is really really worth it. It’s real, not a joke or a game – because this teacher has suffered much for Jesus and yet he loves Jesus more than I do.

That was a lot of things… and it doesn’t seem like they’re about me, but they are because I have to deal with all of them in my brain. An amazing amount of my time is spent just thinking and analyzing and trying to figure out what I believe and how I should respond. Here I just get confronted with a lot of things that I don’t in America. And a lot of them are critical faith items…

“When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb…” Genesis 29:31

‘Leah’ is the mother of my host family. Hers is a story of both hardship and blessing.

Leah and a daughter.

Leah proudly claims that she is from the North, but she has never lived there – she was born in the East. Her father was from Turkey and had three wives and about twenty-two children. Leah has an assortment of exciting childhood stories about living with her mother then running back and forth between her half-siblings houses. When Leah was about six or eight years old she was fully circumcised, according to tradition. Islam teaches that women are very sensuous and must be protected from carrying out their lusts – circumcision is the folk religion way of guarding a woman’s modesty (and if you’ve never heard of a girl being circumcised I promise that it’s even worse than it sounds). She went to school until about fifth grade when her parents had her drop out to prepare for marriage. School is unimportant for a girl, her father told her - it is better to learn to cook and clean well.

When Leah was fourteen years old her parents married her to a cousin, John who was twenty-three years old. She barely knew John but he was her father’s brother’s son which was (and is still) viewed as the ideal marriage partner in this culture. When she was fifteen she had her first son. Soon after this they moved to Libya for five years or so where Leah gave birth to three more children.

In Libya they lived comfortably, they had a simple but nice house and many clothes and nice things. One day when they were out a thief came and stole all that they had, including the family photos, leaving them to start their lives over with nothing. They no longer ever leave their house unattended – there is always someone home to make sure a thief doesn’t come. That means that if there is a family outing someone always has to stay behind.

Leah’s fourth child was a boy named Aladin. When he was a year and a half old he was accidentally electrocuted and died. Soon after that, in their sorrow the family moved back here, to their home country. I have only heard about this boy’s death from the girls in the family, none of which were born at the time, Leah has never mentioned it to me before. The death of a child is both heart-wrenching and tragically normal in this part of the world. Nearly every mother has lost a child or two to disease or accident.

After a few more years and another child in this country their family moved to Saudi Arabia for several years. Their life there was also nice – John made good money and they lived in a very nice house. After a few years there they moved back again to their home country.

It was around this time that things in Leah and John’s marriage came to a breaking point. Leah has never told me what her relationship with John was like in the beginning or middle, but I can guess based on what it is like now and what nearly every local marriage is like here. There was probably never a real ‘relationship’ at all. Marriage in this country is a set of roles and duties – the wife has children and takes care of the home, and the husband provides financially for the house. There is very rarely any sort of communication or life sharing. Roles in marriage are strictly limited physical things – there is little if any obligation (or expectation) of emotional support. This particular marriage broke because John was no longer fulfilling his role – he was no longer providing for his family’s needs.

Drinking alcohol is illegal in Muslim countries, but it still exists ‘underground’. John had drank their entire marriage, but it got severely worse around the last time they moved back to this country and their seventh child was born. Around this time Leah finally confronted John about not providing for his family and for causing problems in their life. Leah has told me, “I told him that if he didn’t care about our children and if he was going to be drunk around them all the time that I wanted him out of my house. I told him to go find another wife and to leave me alone.”

And he did. In Islam it is acceptable for a man to have four wives as long as he provides for them all equally. So John took a second wife and moved into a second home. He still provided for them financially, but it became less and less over the years. It has been eight years since John took a second wife. Leah and her children have progressively moved into smaller and smaller houses. They now life in a house with a large walled in yard, one bedroom, one small kitchen and two shaded areas. It is as simple as you can get.

Leah had an eighth baby seven months ago. When she told me about this child she worded it much in the way that Leah from Genesis did – “God had mercy on me and blessed me with this child even though my husband does not care about us”.

Everyday is a struggle for Leah. She has strong faith in God, but she struggles to keep up with her daily prayers. She is always keeping in mind the thirty days of Ramadan that she could not fast last year because she was breastfeeding – and she is bound to the goal of making them up. Leah is tired. She has stomach pain and back pain but no money to go to the doctor. There is never enough money in her house for food – and she struggles each day to figure out how to feed her family. She works as much as she can – doing henna (a design women like on their arms and feet) and halawa (a way of waxing women’s legs with a sugar mixture) for neighborhood women. But because of the baby it is difficult.

Whenever I ask her how she is she always answers “Alhamdilillah” – “Praise God”. It is a cover because someone can’t say they are ‘bad’ and “Praise God” is vague. But sometimes late at night when everyone else is in bed Leah pours out her heart to me. She worries about her children and about food and about the future. She tells me she wants to go to America because there are too many problems here, but when we dig down to the root of it both her and I can see that it’s not “America” she wants, but it’s peace. “There is not peace in this country, there’s no peace in this house, there’s no peace in my heart”, she has told me.

And I hurt for Leah because if I were in her situation I think I would be doing the exact same thing. There is no way out for a ‘single’ mother in this culture. There are no other options. She is stuck in an endless cycle of trying to provide for her family’s needs while they daily come up with new and bigger needs.

Leah and her last child.

*not my host family’s story yet…but it’s coming, I promise.*

This is a story of injustice, of a world drowning in sin. It is a story you don’t really want to hear - your life will be simpler if you close your eyes and don’t read it. Last week we had a week-long prayer conference for this country and a teammate shared this story:

There is a local doctor who works with our aid organization in the west of this country - the region now famous for its war. And one day he went to a village to help a woman deliver her baby. Her labor was long and hard and painful, but she finally delivered a perfect baby boy. Just moments later their village was attacked by men on horseback. They ran into the house and grabbed the baby from his mother. They threw him into the boiling water that was for sterilization. And the baby died. And the attackers left.

And when we heard the story we all fell on our faces and wept. This is a nation of people sitting in the dirt and screaming for salvation. “Will someone, anyone come and save us? Will someone redeem us from these dark sins, from ourselves? We need a Savior. NOW.”

You should read my roommate’s blog, not just mine because we think the same and these are things difficult to put into words. Being in a country with everything stripped away you quickly realize that the ONE thing people are missing is Jesus. Everything else is just superficial. There is nothing, no one who can redeem this mother’s pain except for Jesus. No one. There is nothing that can cover such a great sin except for the blood of Jesus, the perfect one, God himself. And to imagine that this woman is commanded to love and to forgive her attacker is utterly ridiculous apart from the overwhelming love and grace of Jesus. I believe more and more everyday that forgiveness is not humanly possible. Forgiveness is only possible through the strength of God. Pray for this nation. Left to her own she will never stop warring. With the help of other nations she will never stop warring. Only with the wisdom and strength and love and forgiveness the size of God - only with JESUS is there any hope. There is no other hope.

“…while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.” John 7:37

I know I’ve kept you waiting for the stories. I’m truly sorry. While you wait here is a bit of adventure for you. Our trip to the pyramids and the Nile… Egypt’s may be bigger, but we have more!

our pyramids…

me on top of a pyramid.

the inside of a pyramid - hieroglyphics just as I had always imagined being inside of pyramids. It really fulfilled all stereotypes.

me sitting under a broom tree pretending to be Jonah, or Elijah, only there was a camel there so I didn’t really want to die, I was quite happy.

me on a camel. best day of my life, I’m telling you…

the Nile, from far and from close…

Over the coming weeks I’m going to try to write a series of eight stories for you.  These are the stories of each member of my host family as I understand it from five months of living with them. There should actually be nine stories, but I do not know the last one.  The stories are incomplete because I’ve gathered them through tainted observations and broken Arabic.  There may be inaccuracies as I see everything through American eyes and as my Arabic comprehension is still quite limited and as my family has only known me briefly and therefore only yet trusted me with pieces of themselves.  They are eight stories of brokenness.  I feel that by sharing their hardships you will understand this country better.  I hope that you will also see God’s love and offer of hope all the more clearly.