Dear Friends:

Greetings from the Far Side! I do pray that this finds you all well! Here in Amman, things are moving along. Hala is now working with the Middle East Council of Churches' Office of Refugee Affairs. It makes our lives a lot busier; having to prepare meals at night for the next day as well as laundry and house chores, but Hala is feeling much more satisfied with what she is doing. I continue to shuttle between Egypt, Jordan and Palestine in efforts to get the Joining Hands for Hunger program off the ground. Great progress is being made in Egypt, but in Palestine, the political situation is hampering efforts to meet together and to get a serious effort underway. I am also doing some work with the MECC in Amman.

This month is the holy month of Ramadan for our Muslim neighbors, a month of fasting, prayer and fellowship. Ramadan is important for the Muslim community because it is a time of reflection of worldly concerns and the community's collective sense of conforming to God's commands. The fast is also said to foster compassion for the hungry and thirsty. It has been compared to our holiday of Christmas, because this also the time when those in the Muslim community exchange gifts and visit with friends and family that they don't have regular time to visit throughout the year.

While Muslims are celebrating Ramadan, we have finally found, thanks to former PC(USA) missionaries in Jordan, an English-speaking congregation here in Amman that holds its services on Saturday evenings. We were put in touch with the former PC(USA) people by a former PC(USA) missionary to Egypt who has now retired. PC(USA) missionaries obviously still have a valuable role in the work and lives ofcurrent PC(USA) missionaries after retirement.

We attended services last night and were confronted with a sermon by the pastor about how we must question our roles as Christians and that we must look to the good news as a guide in our lives. That the good news is not just something to listen to on the weekends and feel that we have done our part by simply attending the service. The bottom line is obviously a common theme for many pastors, but one that needs to be reiterated so often today, that being "Christian living." He mentioned getting back to the true meanings of Christianity.

This morning, after sending the boys off to school (they have off from school on Fridays and Saturdays) Hala decided that she wanted to go to another church service, this time in Arabic and with her sister living here in Amman. I decided to stay at home and change bed sheets and clean the boys' room, which always needs to be dealt with. (We still haven't figured out how they mess it up so quickly!) After she left I decided to put on some music while doing my house choirs. I chose an old favorite from college, "Déjà Vu," by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. How often I spent time listening to this tape in college and thinking about the meanings of the words. In the song "Woodstock," an old favorite, as well as most of the songs on the tape, they are singing about themes so prevalent today, which are some of the most basic concepts in Christianity. I remember being in my college, a Quaker hippy relic founded in the 1960s, and discussing religion and concepts of spirituality. The familiar saying that Jesus was the first hippy was always around, and I can remember thinking how we were fortunate to be in touch with this system of loving our neighbors and viewing the world as our community. However, in thinking about that concept, I have to go back to what the pastor was talking about in his sermon last night. Where has the world gone wrong? Will we the human race ever get it right? I think we need to start trying a lot harder to live as Christians, to question and ask why things in the world today are happening as they are. Mission service certainly exposes us to the harsh realities. And those of you who receive our newsletters (that is if they aren't thrown out) may get a sense of this. But where does that leave the rest of the world? Now there's one to keep us all up nights? Hopefully, with the help of those working to make the world a better place, slowly, the rest of the world will follow suit. How's that one for your prayer list?

I'd like to add a couple other prayer concerns:

• That the wisdom of world leaders will prevent a war here in the Middle East, which is already embroiled in too much conflict.
• That the work of all churches will be a shining light to those in need and be a lead-in to putting their trust in the Lord.

Blessings,

Chris, Hala, Nadiim & Adeeb