Egyptian Craftmanship...The Finest Around

It has definitely been awhile since I've ventured to update my blog- There's so much to tell about since the last post, so here goes nothing...

Since June, my friend (now roommate) Amy and I moved into our own flat (apartment). It has been great to have a place of my own- granted, being that this is Egypt, we've had several technical issues with our "new" place... all 4 air conditioners have at some point broken-down, and then our "built-in Water filter" in the kitchen (that's probably older than me) started spewing water- and continued for about 5 days before we could get someone to "fix" it- and by "fix" it, I mean they shoved a stick and a rag down in the pipe to slow the flow of water. Needless to say, it's a constant adventure- but the good news is that I'm getting to develop my practical 'repair-man' skills, like changing fuses, unclogging drains, fixing faucets... I feel like these skills will for sure come in handy one day.
Speaking of Egyptian craftsmanship (or lack-thereof), after returning to Egypt from my trip to the States, Amy and I were invited to dinner at our friends Nathan and Jeremy's apartment. We showed up and they were busy making spaghetti with homemade sauce. As we arrived, Jeremy was attempting to light the oven so that he could make garlic-bread. He was holding the match up to the oven and Nathan was turning on the gas (you have to hand-light ovens over here). They had made several attempts with no success- and then, Jeremy reached in for one last attempt, at which point all of the gas that had built-up from their previous attempts formed a huge explosion, which set in motion a series of events that all occurred within about 5 seconds- Jeremy went flying across the kitchen, slamming into the cabinets opposite the oven (leaving the entire box of matches sitting in the bottom of the oven); the force of the blast knocked the oven off of its base, making it fall over forward, at which point the boiling water and sauce spilled all over the floor where Jeremy was sitting- giving him some pretty bad burns up his leg. The blast also was so extreme as to blow out 3 of the windows on the other side of the room (about 10 yards away). Needless to say, it was an intense few minutes leaving us all completely stunned. Looking at the aftermath, God was completely looking out for us! Jeremy had mild burns on his legs, but that was it. Here are the post-blast pictures:



On a completely different note... Work has for sure been good- we did a lot of planning and re-structuring this summer, preparing for the rest of our team to get here this fall- in September we had 3 new teammates arrive from the states. It has been a time of transition, but so rich and full of blessing- to see God's hand working in the midst of us. We had the Grand Opening of the Art Center last week (pictures to come). Around 15 kids showed up, and some of our international high school students from the American school taught them how to make these precious little origami people. The supplies that were donated from MBCC have been a total blessing! Because of those supplies, we are able to teach these kids how to do new and fun things that they've never been able to do before. I'll be sure to update more about work later this week!