Every Blessing He Pours Out We'll Turn Back To Praise

It may seem strange to say it, but this year we have even more to be thankful for than ever.  Looking back at our lives one year ago, it would seem that we've given up a lot of God's blessings to follow Him over here.  But we've discovered that really we just traded in those blessings for even more.  In a place filled with hardship and pain, He has filled us instead with joy; in a country destroyed by the effects of war, He has given us peace that passes all understanding.  In a city where people struggle to afford even basic food and shelter, He has provided us with more than enough food and warm houses...well, relatively warm houses at least ;).  We are thankful for our safety, the technology to talk with our families on the other side of the world, and for the friends we have over here - both old and new.

And of course, we're thankful that we could get together with a bunch of horenjis (foreigners) to celebrate the traditional American Thanksgiving Day with some traditional food.  No turkey (they don't have those here), but we did have chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie...just to name a few.

        The anticipation of the feast makes the guys a little crazy.....

A lot of things may be different over here, but one thing that doesn't change is the good feeling of a food-induced coma after eating your body weight in stuffing and pie....mmmm hmm.

           "O give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name;

            Make known His deeds among the peoples!  

            Sing to Him, sing praises to Him;

            Tell of His wondrous works!"

                                    ~ Psalm 105:1-2

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Wedding Bells

So much has happened in the first month we've been here that we haven't even gotten a chance to tell you about everything we've experienced.  We had only been in the country for 3 days when Matin was invited to a wedding!  The brother of one of the employees was getting married that night, so Matin went with a group of  other guys from the office to check out the first wedding.  In this country, the actual ceremony is a private affair - only the immediate family and the mullah are present to sign the marriage contract.  Afterwards, the family travels to the reception in a train of cars decorated with flowers and strings of lights, where all the guests wait for them to arrive.  Wedding receptions are HUGE here, and not that different from weddings in the US...except with many more people.

Here is a picture from Matin's table at the reception hall.  In the background, you can see a partition dividing the room in half:  the men and the women sit separately and do not mix for the entire reception.  The only man that ventures to the women's side is the groom, who walks with the bride to EVERY table to greet the guests.  The bride, however, does not do the same on the mens' side.  This of course means that the dancing is uni-gender, but that doesn't stop these guys from getting jiggy with it on the dance floor (notice the group of guys near the partition).  Also take a look at the guy in the foreground:  electricity is so sparse in this city that many guests brought their cell phone chargers to the wedding to charge their phones!

The table was so full of different dishes that all of the food didn't even fit on the table.  And notice that Matin is drinking Fanta - soft drinks are expensive enough here that they are considered appropriate for weddings.  He was very careful not to eat any of the uncooked food, and thankfully he did not get sick.  But he did manage to meet many people - including the older gentleman who first gave him his Persian name!

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Two Days Wages Well Spent

So the other day we all decided to order some food from a western restaurant called Red, Hot, & Sizzlin' and have it delivered to our house. Oh my gosh it was sooooooooo good! Matin ordered the Sizzlin' Burger with bacon and cheddar cheese, french fries, and cole slaw and I decided to go all out and order the Filet Mignon with roasted garlic sauce, mashed potatoes, and a side salad. Mmmmmm...how I missed steak! The Filet Mignon was so huge together Matin and I could not even finish it. Of course, it cost enough that it should have lasted us two weeks. And that takes us to how I came up with the title to this blog...Two Days Wages Well Spent. Our extravagant lunch cost us about how much we make in two days! But, sometimes you just need to splurge to stay sane :). As you see in one of the pictures...the guys were in an exceptional mood after finishing their lunch. After a few weeks out of the country, good american food can do that to you!

I thought Matin's burger was quite good ;)  Of course, he was happy to trade a bite of his burger for some of my filet.

  She's not quite sure what to make of Jawed's love affair with his steak!

 Apparently steak and potatoes make guys REALLY happy!

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Our New Home....

...or should I say our current home?  Soon after moving in to this apartment, we learned that Matin's company is looking into moving the offices to another city farther north that might offer more opportunities for business growth, so we may be moving again in a matter of months...or weeks.  But we didn't think that should stop you from getting a glimpse of our current penthouse pad (our apartment is on the third floor, so we're considering it "penthouse").  Oh, and did we tell you we have been given Persian names?  M*'s name is "Matin", and L* has been named "Laylo", which is a type of flower here.  Cool, huh?  From now on, we're going to use our Persian names on this blog, because they are awesome.

This is the view from our balcony.  Unfortunately, here it's considered rude to be seen looking into someone else's courtyard, so people don't hang out on the balconies here.  But we still go out to catch the view from time to time....shhh.

This is the hallway as you come up the stairs - our four rooms are in each corner, and the double doors go out to the aforementioned awesome balcony.  Most nationals here don't use a table and chairs, but when it's just us, we don't eat on the floor ;)

This is our saloon, which is the equivalent of a living room or a family room in the US.  People here also don't sit on couches; instead they use toshaks, which are the pillows around the room.  Sitting on the floor all the time takes a little getting used to, but luckily we're young and relatively limber. 

And here is the bedroom, again with furniture that no one here would use.  Most people here sleep on mats on the floor, but we'll definitely take a bed.  The wall of doors & drawers to the right of the picture is actually the wall between our bedroom and the saloon - some of the compartments open from both sides, so you could actually see right through if you had both doors open!  Across the street from the window above our bed is a mosque, which means that 5 times a day we hear the call to prayer blasted from a tower mounted with loudspeakers.  The call to prayer has to be loud enough that people can hear it above the mid-day hubbub of city life, so you can imagine how high they set the speaker volume.  What makes this even more awesome is that the first call of the day is around 5:15am every morning, followed by a 35-45 minute sermon from the mullah.   And by awesome, we mean NOT awesome - hopefully soon we'll be able to sleep through it, but for right now it means early mornings for us.

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I felt the earth move under my feet....

We've been in-country for a little more than 3 weeks, and we've already experienced two earthquakes!  Both happened in the middle of the night and woke us up, although really neither was close to us.  Since neither of us had experienced an earthquake before, we weren't entirely sure what to do.  So we did nothing :)  We just stayed in bed and hung on for the ride.  Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit....the first one wasn't even long enough for us to stand up.  But we were surprised that we didn't hear any windows rattling - it mostly just felt like somebody was shaking our bed.  Our local friends tell us that there are never earthquakes here, but of course they also claim they didn't feel either of the last two....hmmm.

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Finally Here

So we apologize for not giving an update until now...life has been fast and furious since we hit the ground in our new home city of K-town.  But after four layovers spanning 2.5 days, four different countries, and three different airlines, we've finally made it!  And all of our luggage arrived with us, which is no minor miracle.  Yesterday marked two weeks since we've been in country, but it feels more like two months.  Our days have been full of orientation to our new home....and overcoming jet lag.

We were asked about our "first impressions" by one of our new teammates who has lived here for years, and it got us thinking.  There are some places in the world which at first feel very different from what you're used to, but soon you realize that fundamentally they are very similar.  This is not one of those places :)  We were told that upon entering a culture like this one (which has few Western products or foods, very little English, and a completely different alphabet), most foreigners find that their ability to function has been reduced to that of a 3 year old.....and that could not have been more accurate.  It's really strange to have to re-learn the smallest of things like where to get food, how to buy furniture, or even how to throw away your trash.  (As it turns out, we just hand our trash to the chowkidor - the guard - and he throws it into the juey, which is the open ditch next to the road serving as the sewer.  And if you're wondering - YES, it reeks.)

We did move into our apartment already, and that has certainly exceeded our expectations.  The kitchen might actually be nicer than the one we left in Durham!  We'll post some pictures as soon as we get the place set up.

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Leaving On A Jet Plane......

It's been a few weeks since we've updated this blog, and that's because we've been busy getting ready to leave TOMORROW!  After over a year of preparing, two months of training, and several days of packing, it's hard to believe the day has finally arrived.  For the first time in 10 years, neither of us has a working cell phone.  Only one key remains on our keychains - the key to the car that will take us to the airport at noon tomorrow.  We'll spend the next two days traveling across the world, finally landing in our destination city of K* on Sunday at 3:30 pm local time.  Please be praying for us as we travel and begin to adjust to life on the other side of the world - we will provide an update as soon as we can, and hopefully even send out a newsletter with some great pictures of our new home!  We don't know what kind of crazy adventures are ahead of us, but we do know that God, who goes before us, is faithful and worthy to be trusted.

"I lift my eyes up to the hills,

From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, He who keeps Israel 

 will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

The Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

 nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

 He will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and 

 your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

                       ~ Psalm 121

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