A Positive Note

Hello one and all!

As usual I'm so very bad at keeping up with blogs, but if it's any consolation, at least I'm really good at keeping up with pictures! I have tons and tons of pics put up on facebook, so if you haven't checked them out, feel free to do so.

Things have been going quite well lately. We have a full preschool now, with 12 kids. They're really happy lately, and behaving quite well for the most part. We got some new things for the preschool too, so it helps to entertain the kids and keep them happy. We got a portable basketball hoop so the kids have fun throwing balls around with that, and then just last night we got a rocker toy that can fit 3 kids at one time. They absolutely loved it today! Slowly we're trying to expand the preschool and fulfill some of the needs that it has, and improving the outside play area is a definite need since there's the only things for the kids to play with outside have been 1 wooden swing and 1 swing toy, until we got these other toys. Next we want to get a couple slides and another rocker toy so we have enough toys to keep all of the kids happy and occupied. But our new additions are working quite nicely! We also got some duplos that came with a train and tracks, so the kids are enjoying that a lot too.

The biggest problem I've been having in the preschool lately is that there's so many people that are coming to ask about their children attending the preschool, but right now we don't have space. We have a growing waiting list. If we get another teacher, which there's a possibility of, then maybe we can up our limit of children a little bit and take some kids from the waiting list, but for now it's just me and Manal and the 12 kids.

As for what I've been up to outside of preschool, there's been some interesting things that have happened lately. A few weeks ago I finally went on a Nile cruise with a group of people and with the student missionaries from NUA. It was a really fun night and a great experience. Then the next week a group of us went to a really nice mall here in Cairo called City Stars. It's very huge and ritzy and expensive. I've come to realize that Cairo has very nice places that make you feel as though you're in North America, then places that are very poor and low-scale, and also places in between. It's interesting to see the differences though. I also attended an Evangelical church service which had such beautiful music. It was amazing because the musical talent in Egypt is very low, but this church really had a dynamic worship service. It was really cool. Oh, we also went to go visit Saif's family last week, the family that was in the bad car accident. They're doing much better now and his dad is back home from the hospital and improving. It was nice to go spend some time with their family and see that they're getting back to normal.

This Sabbath I was asked to play special music as well as be the pianist for Sabbath school and church. It's the first time for me to be the pianist here, so I hope all goes well! Thanks for all your continuous love and support!