Final Destination... Cairo!

On February 15th, we finally arrived in Cairo, just 16 days late! We were excited to start our new life, and thankful for the protection that we had felt throughout all of our detours. And when it was all said and done, our 4 overweight suitcases had made it from Seoul, to Istanbul, to Dubai, and then finally to Cairo with no extra charges! We know that it was only through prayer that this was possible, and we are so thankful. Ultimately, I think all the waiting and stress that we experienced made our arrival in Cairo even sweeter, and made us all the more grateful to be here.

Although there has been a lot of conflict in Egypt over the past few months, we feel so lucky to be here during this time of change. It has been amazing to hear the first hand accounts of people who were protesting in Tahrir Square, and who were elated when Mubarak finally stepped down. I feel so proud of the Egyptian people because of the peaceful way they went about getting their freedom. The future is bright, and there is hope in the air. Things are still not stable yet, and of course there will still be conflict, but it feels great to be here during this time to see history in the making.

Over the past few weeks, Tim and I have worked on getting settled. And a big part of getting settled is figuring out what life is going to look like in our new place. Where will we go shopping? Where will we go for entertainment? Where will we go to church? Who will our friends be? What will our schedule be like? These are all questions that we have dealt with recently.  And I'll be honest, it's hard to start over. In the first few days of being in Egypt, I found myself craving the ease and normalcy of Korea. I missed our neighborhood, our friends, our church, our students, and the beautiful life that we had carved out for ourselves there. It's hard for me to start from nothing and build up our life again, especially when I felt like we just did that. But I came to a point when I realized I had to let go of Korea a little bit and just jump into life here in Egypt. I couldn't be cautious and just test the waters little by little. I couldn't look back and dwell too much on the life that I had before. I needed to be all here, and not be afraid to let myself be vulnerable and open to the changes. This shift in attitude has helped me so much, and now, although I will always miss Korea, I’m all Egypt!

So now Cairo, and more specifically Heliopolis, is starting to feel like home. We love our apartment, which is in a really quiet and safe neighborhood, and is much larger than the one in Korea. It also has an oven, which we have not had for a year and a half, so we are free to make as many cooking masterpieces as we want. We've found our local grocery stores that are within walking distance, and we love that groceries are so inxpensive. Norris has taken us to church, and we've met some great people there, and have already gotten involved in the worship team. I can tell that we are going to love being a part of that church. As far as school goes, it has had its ups and downs. Things started out very chaoticly, as the students had been on break for a week, and had a hard time getting back into the routine of school. And I felt a little overwhelmed about jumping right in to teaching Music with no real direction. Also, as we have come to find out, there are a lot more discipline problems here than we had in Korea. So it was definitely hard and very exhausting at first, but now we’ve gotten things mostly figured out and we’re enjoying getting to know our students. I finally have my classroom organized, a good discipline plan, and a vision for my end of the year concert. And I have a truly amazing teaching schedule. I teach for about 3 hours a day, and the rest of my time is for prep and planning, which I have definitely needed lately. I think I’m really going to love teaching Music. Tim is teaching Kindergarten for the rest of the year, and that is definitely something different for him!  But he is so great with those kids, and the kids adore him!  So all in all, a rocky start with school, but now things are really starting to stabilize and we’re enjoying it more every day.

One of the best parts about living in Egypt is that we get to live right next door to Norris, and eventually Angie when she gets back to Egypt with Baby Ham! It's great to have family nearby, and we're really thankful that Norris has been kind enough to show us around and help us get settled. We realize that we have so much to be thankful for, and we’re not taking any of it for granted. It was a long journey, but we’re finally in Cairo starting our new adventures!