We're moving....again!

That's right...tomorrow morning we are packing up our house and throwing our bags on a truck in preparation for our flight to a new city on Saturday morning.  "M-town" will be our new home for the next several months while we complete our culture and language training, and set up a new branch office for Matin's company.  M-town is a little smaller than our current city, but we've heard some great things about it from people who already live up there.  

We may not get a chance to post an update for a few days as we get set up in our new house, but we'll provide pictures as soon as we can.  Please be praying for our transition to the new city and for the people we'll meet when we get there....

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Eid-e-Tabrik!

Today marks the first of three days of "Eid" here in Central Asia, and everywhere people are greeting each other with "Eid-e-Tabrik!" (loosely translated, it means "congratulations on the Eid").  An "Eid" is a celebration, of which there are 4 in our part of Asia.  This Eid celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son - whom locals believe was Ishmael rather than Isaac - at God's command.  The celebration is kicked off with the slaughter of a cow or goat, which is then eaten over the next three days full of feasting with friends & family.  Day 1 is usually reserved for celebrating with immediate family, Day 2 is extended to distant relatives and close friends, while Day 3 is spent visiting or hosting ALL friends.  Eid's also have less significant traditions, such as the purchasing of toy guns and firecrackers for all the children.  This of course means three days (and nights) of tiny explosions...fun!

Nobody works during Eid, which isn't that surprising.  But it is amazing how the locals can take a 3-day holiday and stretch it into 9 consecutive days off!  Weekends here are Thurs & Friday, and the day before Eid is always a government holiday (people have to prepare for the next 3 days of visiting & hosting).  This year, since Eid began on a Monday, there was only one work day between the regular weekend and the beginning of the holiday.  No need for people to come in to work for only one day, the government figured.  And just like that, the entire country shut down for 9 days.  Good thing we bought enough food ahead of time :)

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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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