A Busy Start to the Year

Like all of my past New Year's resolutions, my ambition to update my blog weekly has crashed and burned. I don't even have a good excuse :( So I will try and give as good of a recap as possible on the last couple of months... January was spent planning for our High School Retreat. We took around 35 students out to this little resort place on the Red Sea- It was one of the most relaxing and encouraging retreats ever. We talked about being disciples of Christ, and what Scripture says about it all.
The only part that was not fun about the retreat is that the week before I came down with Bronchitis...again...and had to go on an antibiotic (the Z-pak, aka zithromax)- which you can conveniently buy over-the-counter here for about $1- crazy, I know. So after taking that, I was feeling better, but then while on the retreat, I caught some sort of cold/flu virus on top of having the bronchitis. I was out of commission for a good 2 weeks when all was said and done. But now I am feeling back to normal. Here are a few of the pictures from the retreat:

Me and my sister Courtney :)

Of course no youth retreat would be complete without an 80's dance party!
Me and Abby getting ready to go to the party
A group photo after the dance party on the last night
Marie and Petra- two of the girls in my High School small group (Marie is from the Philippines and Petra is from Holland/Germany)

So after the retreat, things died down a bit. And this past weekend, I was invited to go with one of the families and a few friends to Dahab- a little resort town on the Red Sea!!! It was absolutely beautiful; the perfect getaway! All we did was lay out, do a little snorkeling, and play scrabble :) Although the others who were certified also did some scuba diving.

Here's a map, so you can have a better idea of where we were (Cairo is in the upper left corner), we drove there- it took us about 6 hours...Here are a few pictures:

A group photo at one of the scuba diving sites (The Blue Hole)
Tamara, Micaela, Nathan, Hans, and Brandy

This is the view from where we were laying out-- not everyday you get to see camel caravans going by as you're laying out on the beach :)

Another view from where we were laying out.

The week before we went to Dahab, Amy's parents came for a visit, so we went on private dinner boat one night with a bunch of families- one of my favorite nights in Cairo thus far. Here are some pictures from that:

Two of my favorite Cairo moms, Tamara and Sheryl

The ROCK group
(the AMAZING people I'll be working with next year!)
My two bestest friends: Brandy and Amy
(they are the reason I'm still somewhat sane :)

Brandy and Micaela (she's in my 8th grade small group, and pretty much the most amazing person ever!)

What an amazing blessing to be surrounded by such a wonderful community of believers! God has been so incredibly faithful to remind me daily of His provision for my life... and that He has called me here for such a time as this; and Lord willing, I will be spending many years to come serving Him in this place :) Thanks for all of your prayers and support! I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the incredibly supportive community back home!