Day 3 (Part 1)

Santa Clause with the children in the deaf school

Egypt vs. USA... we were defeated 5 to 3

"What are ya'll doing here????" Small world. We saw the Viscomi's in the market.

We had a full day today and were blessed by the Lord over and over. Our first stop was a deaf school in Cairo. We were able to tour their facilities and spend time with some of the students during their Christmas party (Christmas is celebrated on January 7th here). It was an incredible time of communicating using only body language. There was a real sense of joy in the room. After we finished the tour, we hung around the campus long enough, that we were eventually challenged to a soccer match. Our team put up a tough fight, but were in the end, defeated by the Egyptians. Our guide for the day, Fazi, then took us to experience lunch near the Bazaar (or market) in Cairo. We not only experienced Egyptian pancakes (resembling quesadillias more than pancakes), but on a short walk after lunch, we also ran into the Viscomi family--a small world it is after all!

See more photos

 The team is downloading photos to Picasa web right now.

To see them all go to www.picasaweb.google.com/helloheald

let me know if you can't see them.......Cathy

Day 2

Visiting the Pyramids

Camel ride

All the kids

Mr. Welborn...oh I mean Santa Clause with the kids

We began our day early, meeting at 8:00 to pray for our day, and then we went to tour the Pyramids and Sphinx. We were all in awe as we viewed the Pyramids, rode camels, and walked deep into one of the pyramids to view a tomb. After our morning of sight seeing, we had lunch on the Nile and then went to the church to meet with sponsored children from slum areas. We were blessed to be able to sing Christmas songs, have David share the Christmas story, Kelly share her testimony, and watch Miller come out dressed as Santa to help distribute gifts. It was a great opportunity for the team to be able to interact and play some with the kids. After a short rest, we then returned to the church for an orientation to Egypt and the church. We learned many things about how the Lord is working in lives of people in the Middle East and Egypt. The church we are working with has a wonderful vision for growing the Kingdom. We finished the evening attending an Egyptian church service, where Len, Miller, and Daryl had an opportunity to help serve communion. Once again, we enjoyed a Lebonese meal around 9:30--struggling to stay awake (we are still getting over jetlag).

Day 1

Lunch on the Nile

Touring the church

FREEZING Germany

Reuniting over dinner in Egypt

Eleven of us made it to Cairo on time, greeted in the Airport by our host Ehab and his team including, GiGi, Sammy, Ramaz, and Lindsay. After settling into our hotel, we enjoyed getting to know the team over our first Egyptian meal. It was a feast! Ehab continually warned us that all of the food on the table was just the appetizers. We managed to stay awake all day, and also were able to tour the church in Cairo, as well as sail on the Nile River while we awaited the arrival of the rest of our team. Due to a very crowded airport in Atlanta, and an overbooked airplane, six of our teammates did not make our first connecting flight. This was dissappointing at first, but by the grace of God, turned out to be an unexpected gift. Instead of enduring a full flight for eleven hours to Cairo, they were able to reroute through Germany, their flight having many empty seats, which was a huge blessing. This allowed them to arrive somewhat more rested. We finally all reunited Saturday night around 10:00 over a Lebonese dinner (Egyptians traditionally eat meals around ten or eleven). The rest of the team was introduced the Cairo hospitality team, and we all shared stories of our experiences our first day in a new culture.

1st team arrived too

Hamilton & Cha just emailed me that they arrived & have email service.

They have had a chance to rest in their rooms today. Pictures may arrive after Daryl gets there with his photo card reader for the laptops.

2nd Team on the way to Cairo

The 2nd team went into Dusseldorf, Germany for breakfast and to walk around. They arrived back at the airport and should have taken off around 9:30 am(EST) for Cairo. I haven't heard from the 1st team, but Daryl was going to call them before taking off. Hopefully they can take over this blog tonight:)

Thank You Lord!

Daryl just called after being in line for a couple hours working on this one.

The 2nd group will fly to Germany and then to Cairo arriving about 12 hours behind the 1st group. We are thankful for the answer to prayer - he had a very helpful guy behind the counter!

So they leave for Germany at 4:50pm Friday & arrive in Cairo at 7:30pm on Saturday.

Thanks for praying for them:)