Lullaad Hoon!!!

Yesterday, the children who live in the House of Hope arrived for the semester, at least some of them did. There are actually one 4 boys and 1 girl here now, though eventually there will be 7 boys and 5 girls. Apparently the kids just kind of show up as the semester continues. Welcome to Palestine. It is really nice how laid-back everyone is here.

Both Sarah and I have been progressing in our Arabic, I don't know if we've mentioned this before, but it is a difficult language to learn. Even the native Arabic speakers here tell us that Arabic is more difficult than English. Think about that.




Ok, you can stop thinking about it now.

We've had the chance to visiting a number of families in the last few days. On Saturday we went to Hebron, where we sat on the roof, looked over the city, and drank tea with a Muslim family. One of the brothers from the family lives at the House of Hope part-time. We discussed the different opinions about marriage, adoption, and things of that nature between Muslims, Palestinian Christians, and American Christians. One of brothers, who was about 35 and had 2 wives and 7 children, kept trying to get Sammi to ask us to help him visit America. I have noticed that many Palestinians think that Sarah and I have some sort of sway with the INS, as if we can get people into the country. I try to explain that we do not, but it does not seem to convince anyone.

On Wednesday, Sarah and I have been invited over for Lunch by a family who we met Saturday night. The grandmother speaks some English, though it is difficult to understand her, and our Arabic is not quite at a functioning level. Please pray that we will be able to be friends with this family, despite the language barrier.

Tonight, I am leading the devotion for the children. I have never actually seen anyone lead a devotion here, so I don't know exactly what is expected . . . but maybe that's a good thing. I plan on telling a story about Noah's Ark, finding some coloring pages of the story, and then using stuffed animals to allow the children to act the story out. I'm a bit nervous. Most people probably won't read this before 7pm (or 11am cst) when I give the devotion, but if you do please pray that I at least will not embarras myself too badly.

Thanks all of you for your interest in our lives, by the way. Oh yeah, the title of today's entry means. The Children are Here!!!