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ManOfDairy
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Name: Ben
Country: United States
State: Virginia
Birthday: 5/31/1985
Gender: Male
Interests: Anything and everything, but in particular farming, science, technology, philosophy, politics, theology, exercising, psychology, socializing, and of course dedicating my life to serve God.
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  dairyfarmer200
Member Since:
1/21/2005
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| Marhaba,
Ana fi l'Beit Sahour (I'm in Beit Sahour). I'm writing this from my host family's computer. Everything is going well, and I'm enjoying my time here.
So far (and this is a very short list) we've seen the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Valley of the Kings, a Coptic Church built in the 3rd century, the place where Jesus supposedly lived in
Egypt, taken a faluka ride on the nile, climbed mount Sinai, snorkled in Sharm El Sheik, took a ferry in to Jordan, waited on the ferry for a long while because 5-6 people on the ferry were wanted criminals, walked through the city of Petra, slept in the desert at Wadi Rum, ride on camels, mine was going wild and tried to throw me off, crossed the Jordan river into Israel, saw a little bit of Jerusalem and then moved into our host families in Beit Sahour.
My host family feeds me really well, and I'll probably be putting on some weight because all we do is watch tv and eat food at my house. They have a 4 year old daughter and a 7 month old boy, Nicole and Ghassan respectively. Nicole has more energy than I've ever seen in a little kid and she's a lot of fun to play around with, even though she doesn't speak any english.
For those that wanted to know about the website for this trip, you can
find it at http://www.emu.edu/crosscultural/middle-east06/ There's already
some pictures and a journal entry there.
I must be going, but your more than welcome to email me. Your prayers
for the safety of our trip are also appreciated. | | |
| CHRISTMAS BREAK!!!! And in less than a month... EGYPT and then Jordan and Israel and Palestine and then Greece and then finally Rome. I am so impatient, I have waited for soooo long and now it's almost time. I am going to miss so many people when I'm gone. Have a great break everyone and have a merry Christmas.
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Day 2 of DC. We got to talk to a homeless man named Michael.
This guy was sitting outside of a Mexican restaurant. He asked me for a couple
of dollars, but I had only a twenty dollar bill. I asked what he needed the
money for and he replied that he needed 3 dollars for the homeless shelter. I
started talking to him; he was an extremely outgoing and talkative guy. He was
quite friendly and he seemed deeply appreciative that we stopped and talked to
him. He’s been homeless for a couple of years and seems to have gotten used to
it. He had to go to the homeless shelter, after a passerby just slipped him a five
dollar bill, so my time with him was cut short. However, he introduced us to
one of his friends.
Edward was the man that he introduced us to. He was a
60 year old man whose been living on the streets for 3 years. He gets a
disability check from the government, but he can’t find affordable housing. So
the same park bench, all covered in garbage bags, has been his home for the
whole 3 years. He has never done drugs or alcohol and he says that he never
will. He won’t go to a homeless shelter because the beds that they supply are filthy
and possibly wet and it would be all too easy to contract a disease from being around
so many people that have such poor health. We got to talking about politics and
he obviously has had a lot of time to think. It seemed apparent that few people
will take the time to listen to his ranting. Our subjects then moved around a
bit and he mentioned something about Christianity and that topic interested me
a little bit more than what the country can do to solve it’s economic problems,
so I pushed for that one. He was a bit reluctant to talk to me about this
subject, which seemed strange since he definitely didn’t have any reluctance towards
fully expressing his opinions earlier. So we talked for awhile about this
subject and he explained to me most of what he believed. I won’t get into all
that he believes, because I’m afraid that I would not do him justice. I found
it interesting how his thought process seems to be a combination of a hardcore
conservative and many eastern religious ideologies, which in many ways tend to
conflict with one another. He strongly believes in God and Satan (and some
other things that I feel are really skewed), but he believes that truth comes
from within and nowhere else. He was unwilling to even begin to think that
truth could come from anywhere else, say for example from God. He unfortunately
has completely hardened himself against any other way of thinking, believing so
firmly that he is completely right and that there is no possibility that he
could in anyway be wrong. I could have spent hours, days and years talking to
this man, but I had to leave to catch the bus back home. He was very friendly
and compassionate and I truly enjoyed talking to him. | | |
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Homelessness.
I went to DC over the weekend and I meet several people that were homeless and
were living off the streets. I don't even know what to say. There's such an
immense contrast between the rich and the poor. These people have nothing. No
family, no food, no house, no job, no money, no respect, no hope, no one that
cares, nothing but their lives. It's so sad and depressing, no one takes the
time to talk to them, and no one bothers to care for them.
We talked to a guy named Bobby. A really nice guy that ended up on the streets
because his mother died and he got kicked out of his place. He started doing
drugs and got stabbed in one of the homeless shelters. He told us that he was
just recently saved at a local Baptist church. He's also been clean since April
3 of last year. He's waiting on a court date because he was arrested for
assaulting 7 police officers and was high on crack at the time. All he needs is
195 dollars so that he can renew his license to be a nurse's assistant. He
can’t get a job because he’s been arrested and because he’s homeless.
We talked to another guy named Charlie. This man was
the greatest, most amazing, beautiful and wonderful guy I’ve ever met. I want
to cry every time I think about him. If angels ever take the form of humans,
this man had to be one. Charlie was someone that was obviously ravaged by
drugs. He could not walk straight and needed a cane to get around. Charlie had
a terribly hard time talking; he was constantly drooling when he spoke. I tried
my best to understand what he was saying, but I found it rather difficult;
however, what I could understand from what he said was quite possibly the most
beautiful things that anyone has ever said to me. I’m crying as I write this.
We came across Charlie as he was walking down the street. We greeted him and he
seemed so pleased that we stopped to talk to him. We had just crossed the
street to go to an ice cream parlor and so we asked him if he could join us. He
gracefully declined, telling us that he couldn’t eat it, as the ice cream would
just melt as he tried to. He told us that he can’t eat regular food. As we
offered him our hands so that we might shake his, he instead taught us to give
pinky shakes. He then tried to give us money, asking us if we needed any to get
on the bus. We turned him down. Then, he complimented us, telling us that we
were such beautiful people. We were about to ask him to tell us about himself,
but he told us, and I’ll probably never forget this, “Don’t worry about me. Get
out of here and get on with your own lives.” Then he gave us a hug and we
departed from him. Why did I leave? I guess I left because I could see that he
really wanted us to live our lives and not to bother with an old man like him.
I could see the love in his eyes. He seemed to know that he didn’t have much
time left and I could sense that the only thing he really wanted was to see us
happy. This man was truly genuine. I wish I had never left, I wish I could have
stayed with that man forever. Once we got back to the hostel, I just cried and
prayed for this man.
That was the only some of what we did the first night. I’ll write about the
second night later. | | |
| I know that there are people here that are seeking to do God's will. I
wrote that last entry to express my anger with so many people on
campus. I find that there is so much overlooking that we do, we see
someone fall away from God and we just assume that it's just a stage in
their life and so we don't do anything. The problem comes from the fact
that we don't want to do anything or make time to talk to people.
Instead, I believe that we should make time to talk to these people and
ask God that we might be able to be there for them. What would you do
if you saw someone you know put alcohol, boyfriend/girlfriend, fun, or
they're mind before God? Nothing? If God doesn't want you to talk to
that person you should at least desire to and try to find ways to talk
to that person. Not caring and just assuming that God doesn't want you
to talk to that person is not an acceptable response as a Christian.
This is what love should be about, caring for their well being and
their relationship with God to the point at which you will go out of
your way and maybe even feel pain to teach them about Christ. Just
remember that Christ went out of his way and definitely felt pain so
that we would know his love.
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