So much to say, so little time!
I will write again once i'm settled back home.
It's been a thrilling last week here.
Clinic, sunday school, library, pyramids twice, dinners, friends (who have become my new family <3), shopping, markets, packing, museums, etc...
It's so hard to believe that tomorrow night i'll be flying out of this wonderful country that i've come to love and heading to....Turkey! then London. Then to my beloved NYC and all those i've been missing :)
Please pray that some things fall into place. In the three short weeks i have at home i've got lots to do and lots has to get ironed out. My board exam for school, a trip to DC for a few days to get a visa, 5 days in Orlando with my bestest friend, family things, trying to see people, shopping, repacking, new immunizations, etc...
Once i get myself all settled in i'll write some sort of reflection about my time here. Right now i'm just in the middle of cleaning, packing up, and praying a million prayers that i don't get socked with this 500 dollar fee i'm anticipating with my extra bag and a "heavy" charge on atleast two of them. Hmm. I bought about 25 books while i was here. Perhaps that did me in ;)
But anyway...i'll leave you a link with a bunch of new pictures. I'd post some but the uploading process takes time that i don't have at the moment.
http://community.webshots.com/user/ldynicole9


It has truly been the experience of a lifetime here. God blesses us in ways we least expect. The people i have met and the places i have been have impacted me in ways i can't even describe. I have aquired a new family. I have experienced a culture and a people that have changed my outlook on a great many things. I have seen God in ways I have never seen Him before. I have discovered that some of His plans for me were not quite the plans I had, yet as they unfold my heart is overjoyed at what is now before me.

The adventure has only just begun :)

Signing off from Egypt,

Nicole <3

Sometimes...there are no words to describe the beauty and the majesty of God. These are pictures from Mount Sinai. Yes, we climbed it. We rode camels 2/3's of the way up in the pitch black and i just stared in awe at the scene around me. At the sky that was glowing with a display of stars unlike anything i have ever seen before. I looked around at the majestic mountain all around and tried to truly take it all in. Understand what had occured in this very place so long ago. The path that Moses took, the trek the Israelities made. The very steps they once took out of Egypt, i was taking today. We began the trek at 2:30am, and for atleast 2 hours i just sat on my camel (not gonna lie...i was a little nervous to be on a camel all alone that was climbing up a mountain in the pitch black darkness of night, but hey maybe i'm braver than i thought!) and the tears just seemed to keep flowing. It was so real. God is so real. I dont know any other way to describe it. I wished i had pictures or video to capture the journey up at night, but i realized i'd much rather just have it in my heart. Me and God had some serious talks...discussed some big things...i needed peace, guidance, wisdom...and i think he needed me to be in a place where i could just sit and listen. It was the most amazing night of my life.

We did end up climbing up on foot for the last 2 hours or so. Originally we were told it would be about 800 steps. Well, by steps they meant loose jagged rocks, and by loose jagged rocks they really just meant the mountain. And of course i was ill prepared with my cheap 10 dollar "oh-i'm-just-going-to-leave-these-in-egypt" sneakers that were not exactly great for climbing. And taking into consideration that i haven't worked out in about 23 years and have zero mountain climbing experience, Mount Sinai in the dark was a bit of a challenge ;) But it was fun, despite the occasional embarassing slip or tumble! My 9 layers made for good padding ;) We made it up to the very top to watch the sunrise. Talk about amazing!!! Just sitting admiring the most breathtaking scenery ever. I felt like nothing could ever compare. By the morning we were pretty tired and thought it would be nice to take camels back down, despite warnings that it wouldn't be a great idea. What could be so bad? Well my friends, i would soon find out! While the ride up was not terribly uncomfortable (just a little nerve-wracking wondering how this camel just wouldn't wander off the cliff since no one was guiding it and there wasn't a light in sight!), the ride down was incrediblyyyyy the opposite of anything remotely resembling comfort. Not to mention my camel got away and was a bit of a speedster...so i learned really quickly had to control the camel on my own. The Beduoin man who owned the camel made zero effort to chase after us. He just laughed as i got further and further away! And of course demanded a tip at the end (ohhh, egyptians!!). But me and Thundercat (my camel) had a good time. I took some pretty funny video footage of myself trying to navigate my downhill journey on Sinai. Over all, an awesome experience. I would recommend it to a friend ;)

and for all my history/Bible buffs...we took a hike into one of the valleys (where we spent the night with a beduoin family who played music for us, gave us tea, etc... totally cool experience!) the day before the climb up Sinai. Along the way we say the rock which is believed to be the rock that the water came out of when Moses struck it. There are 12 fissures in it, said to be for the 12 tribes of Israel. Also, we saw what is thought to be the burning bush. The bush was uprooted a very long time ago, and replanted in a nearby area, but inside of the holy room of the St. Katherine's monastery on the mountain, where we had stayed. So that was very very cool to see. We stood by the Red Sea, and i imagined what it must have been like to experience the power of God part such a mighty body of water.

Just in general, our trip to Sinai was an amazing experience. It far outdid the African Safari :)

I'm heading to New York in less than a week! I don't know whether i am really happy or really sad! I suppose i can be a mixture of both. I am nervous that i wont fit everything into the three(ish) weeks i have at home. I am also nervous a little about having to adjust to another brand new culture. Bangladesh will be a completely different experience. And it will be longer. And it will be more taxing physically (monsoons, heat, etc...) and i'll be the only American/foreigner working there. So it will probably a season of "lonliness" or "solitude", which isn't necessarily a bad thing... I'll be living in a compound on the church grounds. But I am welcoming the experience with open arms. When I start feeling weak, small, and overwhelmed at the task i have undertaken...i just think about what a blessing it is to be able to do such work. And what an honor and priviledge it is. It is so humbling to feel like God has the confidence in me to let me do it. Sometimes I want to ask Him what on earth He was thinking. But lately I have been learning that life is a wonderful gift, and every day is an opportunity to do all that you can to honor God, to better the world around you, to enrich your life, to feed your soul, to take in the beauty of the people and places around you, to learn something new, to make someone smile, to bring light where there is darkness....


enjoy the Sinai pictures(and other assorted pictures....Orphanage Day, pictures from the office, Sunday School, scenery, etc...). Keep your eyes peeled for the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Those will be on the next post :)

ps- Everyone is welcome to come over my house next tuesday night. I'd love to see you :)

It's interesting what a little perspective can do.

Last week we travelled down to Assuit to visit the orphanage again for a few days (http://members.tripod.com/ltokids/index2.htm). This time we didn't make the long drive through the desert, we took a train for about 6 hours. It gave me a lot of time to just stare out the window and lose myself in my thoughts. Sometimes I think just sitting and having "thinking time" can do us a wealth of good. I realized a lot about what had been on my heart and in my mind lately, but i hadn't had the time to really address any of it.

I was just looking out taking in all that my eyes saw. Village after village...just a few people and their donkeys. Just a few little "shelters" made of cement, or sometimes just pieces of scrap metal thrown together. Sometimes the scenery would go on for what seemed like forever without any kind of "market" or anything coming into sight. I'd just see a few men toiling away in their fields, or women at the banks of the dirty river (creek?) gathering water in jugs they would carry back on the tops of their heads, with a flawless balance i've never seen any place else. Hours and hours of the same scene. People who seemingly had nothing but the clothes on their backs, the water/bread above their heads, and the donkeys underneath them.

Why am i different? Why do I not have to live this way? Could I live this way? If I was asked to forfeit what I have at home, could i do it? Or more importantly...could i do it with a happy heart? Sometimes it seems like the greatest sacrifice one could ever be asked to make. Why do i always think i am "better" than something like this? That somehow, i am worth more. That i can do more, that my life is more significant. Is it, though? Does God love me more? Does He hear us and love us according to our "status" in society? Of course the right answer is "no", but really if we are honest with ourselves, that is the attitude we carry around in our hearts.

As the hours elapsed, i just began to feel an overwhelming sense of the breadth of God's love. The infinite span it reaches. That the Lord of the Universe takes the time to be present in (seemingly) the middle of nowhere, among people that have no knowledge of Him whatsoever. His love has no bounds. It has no alternate agenda. It is not earned, and it is not given to us in a measure of what we have done for Him. I found myself in awe yet again at the love of God. At its simplicity and its purity. There is nothing I could have done to deserve it. The people outside of my train window...they are known and loved by God. It's not just the hairs on *my* head that are numbered, it's not just *my* tears that He knows, it's not just *my* cries that He hears, it's not just *my* life that He has a plan for, and it is not just *me* that He calls His child. It is them as well. This love extends to the most remote of villages, to the most lost of people. To the people that live here that stop everything to pray 5 times a day. That live under the oppression, fear, and shame that comes along with much of the fundamental Islamic faith. That still slaughter animals and smear the blood everywhere as a sacrifice to their god. That commit horrid crimes in the name of glorifying their deity. That use all of their resources to wipe out those that actively follow Christ. These people that in our eyes are so undeserving of this kind of love. Or these people that in our eyes are so easily forgotten. Or so easily overlooked. Or simply just not worth the time. But yet, He loves them in the same measure He loves me or you. Irrespective of who we are, what we do, and what we have. This love reaches every corner, knows every heart. Knows the innermost cries of those who will never have a voice. Who will never be "reached" by someone. He loves those who He knows do not love Him in return. He loves those that persecute His church. Can any other Love do such things? And how many times do I forget that I am just as undeserving of this Love as the lowest of the lowest? At times I just cannot wrap my mind fully around it.

I pray that you ... may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:17-19)


I am sad that my time in Egypt is quickly coming to an end. It took me some time to realize how dear this place and these people have become to my heart. Sometimes while you are in the middle of running around and doing what seems like a million things, you don't always take the time to reflect. You tend to be so busy trying to impact everything around you, you don't realize how much the people and places have impacted *you*. There is still much to be done here, and work to be finished, but i guess the reality that this assignment is not permanent has begun to set in.

I feel that i am at such crossroads trying to decipher what the next season of life holds for me. At one point it all seemed so clear and straight forward. It was logical and safe. But as i've been here and thus removed from life back in the states, i suppose my outlook and priorities have been changing. I think I have shifted my values a bit. Things I used to think were so important do not seem so important now. And things I was willing to leave behind or simply forget, do not seem so easy to part with. My personal definition of "happy" and "successful" have also shifted course.

It's not so much about what you do, as it is about who you are.

I am tired of trying to be defined by what i do. Or by what degrees I've earned. Or by who knows what about it all. I want to be defined by who I am. By the Love i have inside. No occupation, no accomplishment, no letters after my name could make me feel as honored as i feel when i know i am making a lasting difference in someones life. Love and compassion can not compete with worldly success, academic achievement, fame, etc... Often, this is such a difficult thing to admit.

Oh, it's been quite the journey thus far.






















[these are just some pictures from kozzika andnthe library last week... I can't find my little cord to get my newest pictures on the computer...but once i do i'll put them on here. Note the huge amount of stairs we have to climb to get to the clinic....and also note the POLLUTION in that one picture. Welcome to Egypt, my friends!]