Greetings from Dahab, Egypt. It has really been a long while since I have written so I will try my best to fill in the gaps.
After a wonderful week in Mexico City the rest of the team arrived and we could finally all travel to the airport and fly off to London. With great excitement we waited for our flight call, but it just kept on getting later and later. At first we thought it is just "Mexico Time" but soon realized that something was wrong. Our flight was canceled and would only leave the next day! But God had a blessing up his sleeve and we were all booked into a great hotel, with a buffet
dinner and breakfast included! We could even take a swim in the gym swimming pool overlooking the airport. What a great blessing!
What a blessed stay we had in London. It was really a great time of rest and getting to know the town and people. I would really just like to thank my Guest Parents, Waldo and Soekie Brandt who just opened there house to us and blessed us more than we could ever think possible.
London really was a great time for me, but as I think back I realize that it was the people I spent time with who made it as great as it was. We spent our first
weekend with the South African Church in London where we helped out with the "Dankfees" (Thanksgiving festival) and then we also spent great time with the local cell groups. I also got the opportunity to help out at a local Soup Kitchen run by Doxa Deo London. It was such a great blessing to help out the people in need.
It was soon time for me to leave London and come to Egypt; it was sad and even hard to leave as I really started to love London due to the people I spent time with combined with what God came to show me in this time. He just came and showed me; through the people, how we ARE able to live a pure and Godly live, setting ourselves apart from the world and the worldly, even in a place like London. But it was God's plan for me to leave as He had even greater blessings waiting for me.
As some of you might know, our whole team was supposed to visit Bosnia, but due to some difficulties on their side we could only send eight from our team. Thus the rest of the team had to either stay in London or as it turned out come to Egypt two weeks earlier.
After arriving in Cairo and spending the night in a local hostel we traveled to the town of Dahab. It is located right next to the Gulf of Aquba, in the Red sea and this is one of the "smaller" dive towns in the area. An amazing two weeks followed, God blessed me with the ability to do the Padi Openwater Diver course as well as being able to just relaxing next to the ocean for a whole week after the course. Even staying in a great cheap hotel with God blessing us with wonderful meals every night in restaurants next to the ocean.
In this time we also had the opportunity to meet two guys from Germany, one even stayed in the triple hotel room with us. In this last week we could really just spend time with them every day, talking about everything, and I mean everything. Rey even had the opportunity one night to share our believes with them and we could just keep on being a example of Jesus to them. Just living Jesus every day!
It was soon time to return to Cairo and wait there for the rest of the team.The morning after they arrived we left to a small town in the middle of Egypt. Here in El-Qusyaia we spent time with the "Coptic Church" (Egyptian church). We learned more about them and just had time to share with them and visit all the churches in the area.
Please pray for them to have the boldness to go out and share with others in Egypt and to have patience and joy in there suffering as a persecuted church.
The following image just shows how bad it really is. In the area there is more than 80 Mosques and only about six churches. You can clearly see the two large green Mosques in the foreground and then if you look closely you will see all the little tower lights in the background. Every one of these is a Mosque.
We soon returned to Cairo where we spent one night in a hostel also visiting the Local Cave Churches.
This is really an experience I would like everyone to have! Huge churches carved into a mountain. There are no words to really explain this!
The next morning we were off to the traditional Mount Sinai, where we
had the great experience of spending the night on the mountain. Viewing the Sunset and spending the night on the cold mountain and then viewing the beautiful Sunrise. It was such a wonderful experience!
The next morning we walked back down the mountain and then traveled on to Dahab. Now we are here, waiting to see how God will bless and lead us.