Middle East Trip: Day 6 Part 1

Day 6: Blessed Morning (Wed, 8/25)

As the week as progressed I have slowly adapted to the rhythm of life in Bloudan. Between Ramadan and the heat, most people get active sometime after sunset and stay up late. I actually went to bed earlier than I anticipated after the trip to Moses’ cave. I had planned to walk up to the internet café to send messages home but the young people warned me that all public computers are infected with programs that will steal you passwords and info. It seemed too much bother to create bogus accounts and not have access to my address book so I gave up the idea, but nonetheless it was well after mid-night before I got to sleep.

My sleep pattern had been to wake up early in the morning when the temps started to cool to quickly use the bathroom and finally pull a cover over me before going back to sleep. This morning was the same, but as I lay back down in the pre-dawn darkness the power suddenly went off and our ceiling fan slowly came to a halt. I got up and went on the porch and looked out over the valley which was without lights except for a small cluster on the far side. The sky was just beginning to brighten as the sun nudged toward the horizon. Jonathan woke up, and thinking I had turned the fan off because of the coolness, asked if we could at least put it on low. After filling him in on the situation I remembered my prayer of the night before, thought about it and said, okay Lord. After drinking a strawberry-banana drink and eating a cereal bar I had brought from home, I slipped into my clothes, grabbed my camera and headed out on to the deserted streets of Bloudan.

While making images right in front of the hotel I ran into a couple of the waiters from the restaurant coming to work. They put in very long days; some would still be at work when we got back from Damascus that night. Walking a block or so from the hotel I ran into a group of four young men who had just got off work from an adjoining hotel. Initially I hung back from them, not knowing what to expect, but when they spotted me they quickly doubled back and approached me and asked me where I was from. After a brief friendly exchange they waved good-bye and said they needed to get some sleep.

For the next hour I wandered to the outskirts of Bloudan, creating images and interrupted only occasionally by a car speeding to some unknown destination. As I left the town I was rewarded with some incredible vistas of the mountains and valleys, and as I walked I prayed and sang hymns out loud. I was overcoming by a sense of timeliness, that some of the first believers, perhaps some that heard Jesus preach in person or been healed by him, might have walked these very hills. After all, the Sea of Galilee is but a couple days walk away. As I praised the Lord for bring me here and revealing Himself at work in Syria I was reminded of Luke 19, when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to silence his followers and He told them even the stones would cry out if they were to keep quiet

Much humbled by the whole experience I headed back to the hotel, running into a group of Iraqi street sweepers as I neared my destination. The oldest one said he was headed to Texas in four months time to visit a friend and hopefully find work. What a small world we live in at times. Back at the hotel I joined the team for morning devotional and ate breakfast and bought a kilo of almonds. I was ready for another day of watching the Lord at work.