FYI...

Just thought that all of you in WI should know that it's a pleasant 72 degrees fahrenheit here in Pune, India and by the beginning of next week it's supposed to be over 100.  I've heard that it's been cold there.  Is this true?

WHAT UP? from the opposite side of planet Earth!

Well, the classroom (lecture) phase of our school has ended and we are now in the outreach (in-the-field) phase.

RECENTLY... We were just in Jordan for 12 days helping out a few churches and visiting several orphanages. It was really interesting to be in the Holy land, where the dominant religion is now Islam. The people in Jordan are very friendly and easy to befriend. We ate SOOO much food while we were there. It was delicious! I just want to affirm that arabs are not all terrorists, despite popular belief in America. I was treated with great hospitality and respect by both Muslim and Christian middle-easterners.

CURRENTLY... Now, we are in India for a little over a month. We had 36 hours of travel. Going to the Airport in Jordan, 6 hour flight, taking a 6 hour taxi to Pune. Waiting 6 hours for our bus to Goa. 10 hour bus ride to Goa WITH A CRAZY BUS DRIVER WHO PASSED EVERYBODY AT NIGHT ON MOUNTAIN ROADS. Although at the same time, I was impressed with his driving skills. I was NOT impressed with the Bollywood movies that played the ENTIRE 10 hours. The driving is CRAZY here. It's a whole different world here from the middle east, where I'd been for the last 3 months. AND CERTAINLY a different world from the US.

We drive past slums all over the place. People living in tents and make-shift shanties in fields or in forests or on the side of hills. Hygiene is terrible and the water they use for daily stuff is not good. My heart breaks as I see the way they live. It also breaks as I learn about the caste system of Hindu society, where people of the lowest caste are called "untouchables" because touching them is said to defile members of higher castes. Also, they are said to be in the lower caste because of sins in past lives, so it is supposedly their own fault. This division of Hindu society into castes runs SO deep that even when churches are planted they have not been able to mix castes. They have only found success in planting single-caste churches. I guess thousands of years of tradition will take a little time to overcome, even inside the church. In the slums you find people picking through garbage, pooping/peeing everywhere. Not all places are like this... there are tourist places and also cities that look just like American cities (except ALL the people are Indian and everything is cheaper and the cars/motorcycles are crazy). SOOO interesting! Also, there are only like 7 fat people in the whole country of 1.2 billion people. Everyone is so skinny and they eat rice and curry ALL THE TIME. I write this having had curry and rice for the past 4 meals.

A COUPLE CYPRUS TIDBITS... I had the opportunity to pray with a cameroonian man named victor who was orphaned as a child, and later kicked out of his country for political reasons (he didn't elaborate). He poured out his heart and longing for his country. His only hope truly is the Lord and he doesn't know when/if he will be able to return to his country, but in spite of that, he trusts in God. Amazing faith.

During our weekly outreach/evangelism we talked with several Bangladeshi Muslims on the streets of Cyprus. I learned that their name for Jesus sounds like "Jeezu". They believe in Jesus, but only what is written about him in the Koran. It is also very difficult to hold conversations, because their english is only okay. It's also interesting to note that almost all of the Bangladeshi's we've met are in university for hotel management. We have had several conversations with a group of them. Some of them have even come to our open meetings. They are very proud of their country and love their country, but they are also aware of its problems. In Cyprus, I have met so many refugees and asylum-seekers and immigrants and people on the street that would love to come to America. It is their dream to go to "the land of the free."

List of things I loved about Cyprus:
traditional Greek and Cypriot food made well (you will find a lot of lousy traditional food as well)
the amount of international people (i.e. people not from Cyprus) you meet in the street and at church
the weather
the history
the beaches
the easy-going nature of the Cypriot people
ASKING MY GIRLFRIEND TO MARRY ME THERE!!! And having her say "YES!"

List of things I missed from home while in Cyprus:
YOU GUYS!
free refills
large meals
cheap food
central heating
efficiency
reliable electricity
reliable internet
reliable plumbing (in many places around the world, including Cyprus, Jordan and India, people put used toilet paper in garbage bins next to the toilets, rather than in the toilets. weird, eh?)

SHE SAID YES!!!! In your face single life!

Carrie arrived in Cyprus Saturday afternoon at 4:30. We toured around Larnaka in the evening, visiting the downtown area, an ancient medieval fort, and enjoyed a traditional Cyprus dinner before finally ending the night back at the school. It was wonderful to be reunited.
I told Carrie that I had an exciting date planned the next day so she had to get to bed, catch up on sleep, and be ready for an early morning. We headed out Sunday morning in a rental car to the city of Agia Napa, a beautiful coastal city on the south western side of Cyprus. After a day of beautiful beaches, vibrant blue water, huge caves, and tall cliffs, we ended up in the perfect secluded area on the edge of a cliff just as the sun was setting. We had just gotten to the spot when Carrie asked if I had locked the car doors. I found this to be the perfect excuse to leave her where she was and head back to the car to get a bouquet of flowers, my guitar I hid from her in the trunk, and a ring . After returning with everything, I got out my guitar and played for Carrie the song that I wrote just for her (I know, I'm SO romantic!). My crazed nerves along with Carrie's happy tears, made it almost impossible to sing and play, but somehow I finished the song. So then I kissed Carrie, put the guitar away and told her there was one more thing I wanted to do. I made her stand up and I got down on one knee. After some touching words I will spare you from (Yes, I can be serious and mushy), a few tears from both of us, I asked her if she would be my wife. She said YES! WOO HOO!

Carrie will be with me until the 27th, and we have lots of fun things planned to do and see on the island, as well as celebrating our engagement, and just enjoying time together.

Happy Jesus' Birthday,
Stuart AND CARRIE

An Iraqi Refugee in Cyprus

A few weeks ago, during our weekly outreach into the community, I met an Iraqi refugee named Joad. He was very friendly and very talkative. When I told him I was an American, I said, but it's OK, we can still be friends. He agreed, saying that it's all political and that the governments and the media of both of our countries practically try to make us hate each other. So, we had a really good chat for over an hour in the street. He told me and my other friend that it was really good just to be able to talk with someone about all the hard things that are going on in his life and have someone to listen to. Foreigners to Cyprus from the middle east are usually not treated well and not given equal status to natives. This man was very intelligent, friendly and his english was quite good. He told us he believes in God, because of the amazing intelligence and beauty and design he sees in nature. However, he said he was not a muslim nor a christian, because he says that religion has caused SO much hurt and pain and destruction in the world. He mentioned all the civil wars between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims as well as Christianity and the Crusades. He poured out his heart about the deaths of family and friends and the terrible destruction that has ravaged his homeland. He was lucky/smart enough to get out of Iraq before the war.
Pray that we meet him again and have a chance to hear more of his story and introduce him to Jesus, not a religion.

The Way of the Burning Heart...

Now is the shining fabric of our day
Torn open, flung apart, rent wide by love.
Never again the tight, enclosing sky,
The blue bowl or the star-illumined tent.
We are laid open to infinity,
For Easter love has burst His tomb and ours.
Now nothing shelters us from God's desire --
Not flesh, not sky, not stars, not even sin.
Now glory waits so He can enter in.
Now does the dance begin.

         - Elizabeth Rooney, from "The Opening"

My travel ADVENTURE to Cyprus... WOW!

I took off from Oshkosh on Thursday morning Sep. 27 about 8am. I didn't end up at my destination until Sunday Sep. 29 at around noon. Carrie & I drove to Milwaukee and my flight to Charlotte went well. I sat next to a very friendly and talkative christian man who was delighted to hear what I was going to do.
In the Charlotte airport I had a conversation with a lady who had not only heard of YWAM but is a great supporter. She gave me a book she was reading, cuz she wanted to bless me with it. A pastor from Tennessee noticed my InterVarsity t-shirt and an encouraging conversation ensued. My flight to London went well.
In London I had to disembark and get all my luggage to go through customs. The English customs lady was not very happy when I explained that I was going for a school and it would be 5 months. She said 90 days was the limit for visitors. I knew that the YWAM people in Cyprus told me that they would take care of my papers when I got there, but this was not good enough for this lady. Cyprus is changing to be more closely aligned with Europe (ie using the euro$ sometime soon) and so the customs paperwork and my visa to our outreach destination in January will change and it will be taken care of as a group in January. To everyone traveling or doing missions or any business in London (or really anywhere overseas), I give you this advice - “Just say “I am a tourist staying for a couple of weeks thank-you. that is all.” I had 8 hours in London to kill before my next flight so I took a train to Brighton (pictures in my web album; check the link to the left on this page).
I must admit that I used to think that I speak English. This is not true. I speak American, an understandable and coherent language. The inhabitants of England speak this strange-sounding collection of weird phrases in an unintelligible accent called "English." Getting around the airport was confusing enough, but trying to figure out the train system was amazingly difficult. I ended up finding an American from Florida who explained to me (in American) how the train system worked and how to get to and from Brighton. However, the city of Brighton was beautiful and quaint and the whole area was very “British”. Also, I never knew how intimidating (yet also exhilarating) it is to travel alone internationally.
The flight to Pathos, Cyprus went well but I landed at 11 pm and it was Dark & Hot & No one spoke English!! The airport was small with only one runway. The cab drivers all just wanted me to get in but I just want directions to the bus station. It was hard to explain to them that even though it was 11 pm, I was not going to be staying in a hotel. Well, I managed to snag a map of Paphos from the Irish tourism booth. It turned out that the bus station that I wanted to reach to get a bus at 7:30 am the next morning was not as close to the airport as I had originally thought. It was probably 15 - 20km away. Mind you, it was only 11:30 pm when I found this out and I still had 8 hours to travel this distance, but I had one very large backpack, one medium backpack, and one large guitar case to take with me. So, I head off down this beach trail to try and find the bus station.
Let me say that this was the most beautiful part of my whole adventure. It was also the scariest. I literally had no idea where I was apart from this map I'd gotten 15 minutes ago from some bubbly, Irish tourism lady and the beach, which I assumed was the Mediterranean Sea. I also didn't know if what I was doing was illegal. And I didn't know if the beach was safe. And I didn't know if I were to get picked up by the cops or some zealous locals if they would even speak English. But, I can't complain, because the moon was full and the beach was empty. But, I was bearing my backpacks and guitar case which were, collectively, VERY awkward. The trail had the rocky beach on one side and barbed wire which lined the airport on the other. Planes would land and scare the crap out of me with their landing lights. I seriously thought one was the coast guard and it was going to find me and radio me in and then suddenly humvees roll up on the beach with spotlights. I had read about the country’s low crime rate which gave him comfort, but still this it's 2 am on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, noone speaks English and I read most of this on the internet!!!!!!! So then 10km later, 3am in the morning, walking by moonlight with extremely sore shoulders (in Stuart’s words) “I had difficulties with liquids - in & out”. I hadn't had anything to drink since the plane and I hadn't had a bathroom since the plane. So I looked for what the Cypriot people call a kiosk which to us is a convenience store. I did not want to get caught taking a leak. Then I found a store I could buy bottled water at, but I couldn't find a public restroom, so I peed behind a tree right next to a bus stop. There is a big difference between reading about adventure and finding yourself in the middle of the nite in a foreign country & carrying all you have into a crowded convenience store to buy water and the clerk just wants 50 cents and you hand her a $50 bill and she doesn’t get it. I had a difficult time getting thru the aisles in this tiny store with my packs and particularly the guitar which looks a little odd with the original duct tape around it for the airplane ride.
Once I got to the bus station, I had my first Cypriot coffee - black & very sweet. Soon it is 6am and there are a few women lining up at the bus stop. I finally got one of the bus drivers to say in broken English “Wait here - the Nicosia bus will come” - not very comforting. AT about 7:25 am a few WHITE people show up wearing butt bags and looking British and they all get on the next bus to Limassol together right at 7:30 am just as the internet predicted. The bus ride was pretty, but finally I could let down my guard to sleep - the bus contained me, the British tourists with fanny packs, a few elderly people, and one family in the back - pretty safe. The bus was really kind of a large van really. The streets are narrow and all the cars & trucks are small. We arrived in Limassol, then on to Nicosia.
Again, how do I get from the bus stop to the school. I knew that I would be staying in a church building. I had the address, but again I needed a map. I stopped in another kiosk to ask and the Chinese clerk who spoke very little English and she sold me a map, but there were 2 streets under the name of the street I needed to get to. Again the trip was double what I thought, but it was daylight and people speak English in Cyprus by day!

The next day we went to the demarcation line and went across. Nicosia is similar to Berlin, Germany -- there is a wall dividing the city (as well as the country) into two parts: The northern partand the Turkish Cypriot army is pretty laid back but the Turkish army (under orders from mainland Turkey) is rather militant and very serious. The Turkish Cypriots have lost much of the mainland Turkish people's islamic zeal." Very fascinating, because the Greek Cypriots have lost much of mainland Greece's Greek Orthodox Church zeal. The island is, for the most part, spiritually dead.

POTB

you know...