Kayla Balangue

Team Middle East’s final wrap up from leaders, Rose and Eva:

We’re headed home at the end of a long, long day. Though visiting the Dead Sea was not part of our original trip plan, there was a free afternoon between church and our flight that became available for us to take one last big excursion out. This addition to the schedule not only required coordination, but an uncertain amount of energy. Against a relaxed afternoon at the apartment or a little exploring of downtown, traveling to the Dead Sea sounded the most depleting before a big day of travel. Despite these risks, Rose, Kayla, Alina, Eliza, and myself tenuously agreed to take on the adventure while the rest of the group had a familiar meal and saw some local sites after church. 

It takes about an hour to get to this side of the Dead Sea and in many ways it was like taking a trip to Lake Tahoe; the drive was beautiful, the lake is famous and not overrated, and it helps to have some insider info for the best experience. We found ourselves at a Holiday Inn unlike any other. Our driver negotiated our way into the best buffet lunch we could have imagined, then we were escorted to the changing rooms and then found our way past the multiple pools down to the access-point-beach-type-thing for the Dead Sea. 

Amazing is an understatement. We were delighted by our buoyancy, we were enamored by the hazy desert beauty around us, we were smitten with the amount of luxury 20 JD got us at the Holiday Inn. Though the joy abounded, we all really missed our friends and wished they were there with us. 

The camaraderie on this trip has truly been a highlight. Pretty much everyone arrived two weeks ago barely knowing one another. It had been a significant concern of mine that we missed the full group bonding experience through the semester, but as usual, my worries were blown away by the goodness of God. 

Our friendship with one another is just one of the ways that my expectations were proven inadequately humble. I witnessed students not only open up to, but embrace a culture that none of them originally signed on to visit. I witnessed them expand their own talents as they hosted summer camp in spite of their own exhaustion. I witnessed their encouragement for each other and their enthusiasm for trying new things and meeting new people. For some, it was the first or second time out of the US, but all behaved like seasoned travelers, asking great questions, recording their own reflections with diligence, and caring for others with various tonics and medicines (I personally benefited from each of their savvy packing). 

So, visiting the Dead Sea was the perfect way to wrap up this life changing trip in my opinion. It perfectly captured for me all that I have gained in traveling with these students. 

Thank you for your generosity in prayer. It was evident everyday that we are cared for by our gracious God. Please continue to pray for the library, its small but mighty staff, and the many lives that they touch through their willingness to serve. Pray for their health, the health of their families, and for a restful season of Eid al-Adha. Continue to pray for the students as they process their experiences. If you can, meet with them, I know they would love to tell you every detail!

Much love, Eva.

Hi everyone,

Marhaba! مرحبا

Rose here. We are finally back in the USA (with all of our luggage) after 36ish hours of travel, and I am above all things so deeply grateful for this group and opportunity. Our group did the lion’s share of hustling through airports, and everyone had a fantastic attitude! Go team!

One of the most rewarding things about this trip on the whole has been seeing each student grow in massive ways over the two weeks we were together 24/7. Each student brought a separate and beautiful presence to the group, and I’m grateful for each one. The politics of this region are extremely complex, and talking through the complexities with the students was a highlight of the trip for me. Cultural differences in this region of the world can come across very harshly to a group of almost all women, and the treatment of women was very difficult for many of us Westerners; approximately 97% of the country is Muslim with approximately 1.8% of the population Christian. This means people have a different way of interacting with each other. Every student on this trip behaved with consideration and kindness to everyone they met, and I was proud to see them take initiative both while working in the library and outside of it. Every day of this trip brought new joys to me, and the biggest low many of us had was leaving. Returning home from this place was difficult as I felt as though everything I had set out to do was unfinished, and the new connections were hard to leave; I know many of the team cannot wait to return.

I love the vibrancy and electricity of the atmosphere in the Middle East; seeing the students absorb this and engage with the culture in their own ways was very rewarding to me. I love how many of the world’s largest religions and different people groups with incredibly rich heritage can all interact with each other in one small space—it makes for the most wildly alive place I have yet to visit, and sharing my passion, experience, and understanding for this region with our group was amazing. The phrase “Middle East” can sometimes come with an unfortunate unspoken stigma that conveys terrorism and violence, and I am looking forward to seeing these students return to their own social contexts with a new understanding of what life looks like in this city as a Christian and a new voice to advocate for our Middle Eastern neighbors. If you can, please sit down with them and ask to hear their experience! I’m also happy to speak with anyone about it.

At this NGO, there is a careful balance of grand hospitality amid stringent limitations: this seems to be the way of the Middle Eastern people in this country. Kindness amid political and religious landmines, discussing topics of faith while maintaining strict adherence to the laws against evangelism, offers of showers and washing machines amid unforgiving water conservation, invitations to stay at homes that may or may not be able to host us. Balance is everything. The people who inhabit this country are very hospitable, and this NGO is a direct reflection of that amidst the community. There is seemingly an infinite number of connections they could make to other resource sharing institutions in the region and around the world, and this all takes time and trust. This area of the world is very relationship centric, and those working in this NGO are seeking to build long-term relationships to support and grow this community in a nation filled with many people who have lived lives of hardship, poverty, and sometimes the atrocities of war. In this NGO in this city, there are more opportunities than there are people able to execute, and this fuels my (and some students’) desire to return. I know I will be back here (inshaAllah). 

Excitedly awaiting my return,

Ma’ salama!  مع السلامة   

Rose

Team Middle East landed safely in California on Monday night right around midnight, and even got to see some firework shows from the plane! Thank you to everyone who has prayed for this team before, during, and now after their trip. The Lord was clearly using this team for his glory and work in the Middle East.

Please continue to be praying for the Middle East team as they recover from jet lag and may experience reverse culture shock as they come back to their lives in the US. Pray that the team would lean into God as they process their time spent there and that they would be encouraged by how God is continuing to work in their lives here and in the lives of people they met in the Middle East.

Make sure to ask your team member about their experience and how you can be praying for them and supporting them specifically! We thank you all!

Hi folks, Kit here (or, Kayla P. to my friends and family reading from back home) with one of our team’s last updates! We are nearing the end of our time in the Middle East and I have to say that we have been quite busy! I feel like we just got here yesterday, but at the same time it also feels like we’ve done enough activities at the library to fill up a month. Many of us also had summer classes that started at the same time we left on our trip, so we didn’t find much solace in the due dates looming over our heads on top of work at the library! I can’t wait to get home, see my family, boyfriend, and dogs, and take some well-deserved time off from summer school work. As much as I enjoyed working with the children at space camp, I think I had the most fun when I got to take an “introverting break” and reshelve or organize books. It was very much needed!

We had a fun-filled day touring historical Christian sites on Friday. Thankfully, we were able to wake up at a reasonable (read: cockroach-free) hour and hop in the vans for the 45 minute drive to the River. I don’t want to speak for most of us, but I think this was the most anticipated stop on our trip—especially since the River is the place where Jesus was baptized. It was really cool to see the cross-shaped basin at the bottom of the marble staircase and think about what it would have been like to see the Holy Spirit descending upon the open space and hearing God’s voice declare Jesus as His son. We then moved down the walking trail to see a Greek Orthodox church with many pretty mosaics and stained glass windows. At the front of the church were the well-preserved bones of an unknown saint who, according to the tourist next to me, “had a really great set of teeth!” We then finally reached the actual waters, where we had the opportunity to step in and wade around in a small, roped-off area. Although we didn’t get to touch the water at the baptism site, getting into the water at the bank was still a highlight of my day. I learned that a lot of people have this on their bucket list, so I consider myself really lucky to be able to enter the historical river and leave my footprint there. I don’t think the weather was that hot, but our sweaty selfies in the car afterwards would say otherwise. Rose told me that because we were almost 2000 feet below sea level, despite the mild weather we’ve been lucky to experience up until this point, the air density makes the sun feel so much more intense. We’re not really strangers to that kind of thing in California, though! 

Our next stop of the day was Mt. Nebo, a stark change in elevation compared to the River valley. Our fieldworker, J, told us that no less than 200 years ago, they would have walked the distance from the River valley up to the top of Mt. Nebo—2,680 feet above sea level; meaning the net difference in sea level between the two sites is about 4000 feet! I barely made it when we walked 10 miles in Petra, so I can’t imagine traveling any further than that on foot like the people in the Bible would have. Speaking of the Bible, the biblical significance of Mt. Nebo is that this is the location where Moses first stood at 120 years old to look over the Promised Land. Our group certainly loves 0.5 group photos, so we had to get a photo with the view and the abstract art installment of Jesus on the cross that stands at the top of Mt. Nebo in 0.5, of course. 

After Mt. Nebo, we were greeted in Madaba with tea, tea, and more tea. I think I probably drank at least 6-8 cups of tea while we were there, and that’s even more than how much water I had for the day. Madaba is a historically Christian city, which was mentioned in a few places in the Old Testament of the Bible. In Biblical times, it was a Moabite border city controlled by the tribes of Israel. J knows the people of Madaba very well, including our servers at lunch, who had to get in on the 0.5 action too. I tried liver for the first time, which has the texture of ground beef. It was very flavorful and definitely (surprisingly!) my favorite part of the meal. While we were at lunch, we got the great news that our luggage had (finally) arrived at the library after 9 days of waiting. Of course, it had to be while we were gone! The crisis was averted by field worker M, who accepted the luggage delivery at her apartment. After lunch, we visited Y’s shop. Y told us that his family has been in Madaba since 1908, and his shop began selling locally handmade works shortly after that. Y told us that selling handmade products from this country helps give back to the woman and families that made them, keeping them employed! I could tell that Y simply radiates a humble kind of generosity that only someone who knows he is giving back to his community could own. This country places a huge emphasis on local products as well as handmade, and I noticed that in my time at Jerash as well as the second place we visited. This was M’s mosaic shop, though he also owned two or three other storefronts with the help of his brothers. M walked us through the process of making a mosaic piece and told us that only 1/10 pieces clipped from a large stone will end up in the final product. He also taught us to differentiate between man-made mosaics and mosaics created using machines, the quicker, and unfortunately, more profitable way to make mosaics. One of his hand-made pieces cost 150 JD compared to what you could have bought it for in Jerash or Petra at 30 JD. I ended up falling in love with a black iris mosaic—which just so happens to be the national flower. Now, not only can I hang this up and remember my trip, but I can hang it up and tell a story along with it. I see the allure of all the relationships J makes with these local shopkeepers and I already know I will want to return. On our way back to the library, we went to a place ironically called Black Iris that sold lots of Dead Sea beauty products, where B gave us this fantastic lemon tea. I didn’t end up purchasing anything there, but B gave us gifts anyways, demonstrating the hospitality of the culture here once more. 

Our long day came to an end and J surprised us with mosaic mugs from M’s… yet another way I can remember my trip! Thank you J, for having us over for showers and laundry and “cap-o-cocoas” while our water was out! I won’t forget the conversations we’ve had and the time we’ve spent with you, and I can’t wait to use my new mug for a good “choco-cuppa.” Thank you for hosting us! 

We tucked into bed for an early morning—although J said we could sleep in until 8:30, field worker M had already told us to be down by 7:30. Despite being down there 2.5 hours early, prep for the huge book sale never actually ended, as we were constantly working to improve the appeal of the books for sale and rotating out books from inside to fill empty shelves. Rose and our new friends JT and JS built and rebuilt plastic shelves and there were waaaaayy too many youth books for Shaynna, Sharon, Alina, and Eliza to fit on one bookcase. The start of the day was busy, but that had died down by the middle of the day (1-3pm) and people trickled in and out at their own pace. While I was sitting outside and manning the book sale station, I met a man who had just moved to the country with his wife and son. I’m not used to being approached by men in this culture, but I was also really happy that I got to have a conversation with him as if we were locals. In fact, in my experience here so far, it seems like anytime we are just working in the library and we aren’t with J, the locals here believe that we’re locals. They don’t speak to us in English because we’re American, they speak to us in English because almost everyone here speaks English. J and M then helped that man set up a membership with the library, as I had seen a few people do throughout the day, so I’m assuming this book sale not only helps clear out the surplus of books, but also helps bring in new interest, regulars, and relationships to the library. By the end of the day, we had sold almost 400 books.

The library seems to have a unique way of bringing many cultures together, which isn’t something I saw very often in my two weeks here. One of the questions that man asked me was “What kind of community do you serve?” and I didn’t immediately understand what he meant then, but I get it now—the library is here to serve locals, Americans, and any people from all over the world; visitors, residents, friends, and strangers, and unite them by offering “reading for all.” 

Ma salama, everyone! See you in a few days! <3

-Kit (Kayla P)

Hey y’all! Lyss here, this past week in the Middle East has been such an amazing time. At the library we have been helping run camp for the local community of kids. A general run down of what we do with the kiddos is we wait for them to trinkle in, play games or play an ice breaker, have a story time for the littles and fun space facts for the big kiddos, play minute to win it games, participate in a main craft activity, break for snack (of course!), and then play more games until we run out of time together! Wednesday and Thursday of space camp were so much fun. I enjoyed reading a story to the little ones where I feel the most in my element since I have teaching experience and am a teacher. Being animated for the kiddos and engaging them into a story about space was a highlight for me. Another highlight I had from camp was when I got to read aloud 10 crazy space facts for the big kiddos and had them move around by walking over a line to a true or false/yes or no side of the line when stating facts. The facts I read to them on Wednesday were SO INTERESTING! One crazy fact was “there are more trees on earth than stars in the Milky Way” (like WHAAAT?!😮 That is crazy, but cool!). One thing about teaching is that everyone is learning, both teacher and students. One last highlight of space camp for me was the many small conversations I was able to have with the little kids who range from age 6-9 (they are my favorite age group to work with ❤️). The life and excitement they bring is always a highlight of my day and the reason why I enjoy teaching kiddos! ☺️

Something that has been huge for me during this trip has been the teaching experience that I’ve gotten to practice  in a different context, different setting, and totally different location with a different student demographic. One thing I have learned about myself as a teacher during space camp has been no matter where you are, classroom management is KEY! I have felt so honored when my co-teachers (Emmalee, Kit, Eliza, Sharon, Alina, Kayla, Shayna, and Sharon) stated aloud their appreciation of me being able to quiet the students in fun ways and when needed cause I saw the stress on their faces when the kids got rowdy (attention grabbers, if you know you know!). Not to pride myself in any way, but it was a cool moment where my group affirmed my skills and capability of the educator that I am and reminded me how far I have came in my journey as a teacher. I was in some ways able to be a leader and speak some teacher tips to the girls I ran camp with and it was humbling to have a reflective moment of “woah what I’ve learned from other teachers I am now passing down and teaching myself”. One thing I’ve enjoyed about this culture of students is that they are so smart and creative! It has been so fun asking questions to these kids and them knowing so much, even them teaching us some of their own language! 

This country for me has been such a beautiful and unique experience. The history that this beautiful country holds literally puts me in such awe that I really do fall more in love with the experience. One of my favorite things about this place has been the people, they are SO relational and genuinely sweet and hospitable. The food is immaculate, truly chef’s kiss to every dish I have had on this trip! My most favorite thing about this country has been our visit to Petra and Jerash and that’s solely because they’ve been outside adventures that have allowed me to literally walk on history. In Jerash we got to walk the city ruins of Roman architecture and it was beautiful. It amazes me how humans back in the day were ever able to build such intricate architecture with their technology in their time and stand thankful being able to say I’ve witnessed and walked across that creation. My heart has been filled with such awe, love, excitement, and amazement and I know that as a believer it’s an encounter that I’ve been asking for! I’ve learned that our God never stops amazing me! I am going to miss this beautiful culture so much, but will forever hold this experience near and dear to my heart!

-Alyssa

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Hey everyone, Eliza here! Wow, I can’t believe how quickly our time in the Middle East has passed. Surprisingly, I have been spending most of my time with the kids at space camp. I was definitely expecting to be helping more in the library, but I have found myself loving the kids so much that I just want to be with them all the time!

Our last two days of space camp have been so crazy. On day 3 of space camp, I definitely loved just talking and getting to know the younger kids while they painted their book bags. A few of the little boys and I  were just talking about little things but I’ve learned that just giving them all your attention when you talk to them is so powerful. They teach me how to be patient and the importance of being fully present. Not only does that help you build a relationship, but it allows you to really learn who they are. Another thing that really touched me on day 3 was when one of my new friends, we’ll call him T, had asked me, “Why weren’t you here yesterday?” I had only gotten to spend one day of space camp with the kids by this day so this really revealed to me how much the kids actually care that I am there with them. Even though I didn’t think that they would even remember who I was, that one question made me realize that these kids truly value each of us as their teachers. We and the older kids spent the rest of our time making galaxy slime, playing card games and just talking about anything and everything. I absolutely love just getting to talk to the kids. They love the attention and I love giving it to them.

Day 4 was our last day of space camp. Today was such a bittersweet day for me. While I wanted space camp to end because it did get very draining, I didn’t want to stop building relationships with the kids. By day 4, a lot of them have remembered my name (a personal goal of mine) and they look forward to seeing us at camp each day. I didn’t want to lose these friendships I was building. But we had a great last day. Filled with games, crafts and lots of water, I had a great time with them and I think they had a lot of fun, too. The highlight of day 4 for me was getting to take group photos with both camps. After all the ups and downs that we had throughout camp, it felt like we accomplished so much more than just finishing a week of activities. We had built new friendships, learned new skills (we all definitely had to grow in patience and kindness), and overall I feel like we each grew in some way over these past 4 days. That moment of taking the photos with the kids felt like we had done so much in so little time. I loved everything I learned from camp and from the kids this week.

Through this experience with the kids, I have learned so much about myself. As a teacher, I realized how much I actually enjoy spending time with kids. While I prefer working with older kids, I definitely have found that I can work well with all ages. Prior to this trip, I didn’t think I’d be so excited about just being with kids but they really showed me that I truly do love just building relationships with them. I also learned how to be disciplined as a teacher. It was definitely a challenge learning how to discipline kids as a teacher and not as an older sister. When they aren’t your own younger siblings, making sure you’re in control is a little bit harder… But in those moments, I learned how to speak and react differently. In addition to growing as a teacher, God also really built my faith while I worked with these kids. Even though we don’t get to really talk about Jesus or God explicitly, we get to show Him through the way we interact with them. One thing that has stood out to me the most is that I’ve had so many conversations with kids about how much they really, really like us and really, really want us to come back next summer. I kept wondering why they keep telling us that they like us so much. But then I realized that it’s because God’s love is truly prevalent in our actions. It has taught me that God moves in ways we may not always see. The way we live our lives for God is so important because He will use you in other peoples’ lives.

My time here in the Middle East has been so life changing. While I absolutely love all of the amazing food, visiting beautiful sites, and getting to learn about all of the history this country holds, my favorite thing about this place is the people. Before coming on this trip, I prayed that God would open my heart more to the people of this country and to the Middle East in general. God definitely answered that prayer. Meeting so many people and just learning more about the culture, I have found myself wanting to serve the people here more and more everyday. This country is filled with so many loving people and also people who need love. I used to have so many assumptions about the Middle East. But now that I am here, meeting the people, and getting just a taste of what life is like in Middle East, I really don’t want to leave. I am so thankful for the time I’ve had here and for all the new experiences and new friends! I definitely will be trying to come back here as soon as possible!! 

-Eliza