FROGLEGS

Early tomorrow morning, we’re headed from Fes to Tangier on the nightrain.

It’s been a pretty laidback trip.  No robberies, the hassles by locals seeking money haven’t been too bad, no sickness and the places we’ve stayed have been decent.  We’ve seen some spectacular sights and eaten excellent food.  The tajine we had in Rabat and the cous cous we had last night in the Fes medina were especially nice.We’re meeting some guys this afternoon that have run a 24-7 Prayer week.  That should be interesting.  After that, we’re going to head off to the medieval medina to pick up some gifts and try not to get ripped off to badly before heading home.We’ve made friends in a couple different cities and as a community, we have some ideas about what we’ll be able to do with whom here in Morocco.  All in all, a success.It would have been nice to venture off the beaten path a bit further, but I think that’s something for another time.Door – Morocco 2002, originally uploaded by Supermagicmike.

Everytime I come down to Morocco, I am struck by the extremes that exist here. Rich and poor are two obvious ends of the spectrum.  Casablanca, the largest city Morocco, also has the third largest mosque in the world, Hassan II.  We went and saw it yesterday and it is immense.  I’ve seen St. Peters in Rome and La Giralda in Sevilla.  They are popsicle stick constructions next to this thing.  Opulent, extravagant and grand are all adjectives that fail to explain just how impressive this building is.  Some friends there told us this morning that the mosque cost 5 billion dollars to build.  Apparently, at least half of that money came from donations with the other half coming from the King’s coffers.  I have to say, I initially thought that it seemed like an amazing project.  But then I read this morning that over one third of Casablanca’s residents (4 million) live in some of the worst shanty towns in the world under totally impoverished conditions.  Couldn’t 5 billion dollars have gone to some other, possibly more important ends?  I’ve no room to criticize though. How much of our church budgets worldwide go to building projects that sit empty 5-6 days a week while children, widows and orphans go hungry?  I can’t say that we, as Christians are leading the way either.But then there are other things… Like the fact that it was actually cold (yes, cold!) in Casablanca yesterday and blisteringly hot in Marrakech today.  Casablanca was so wide and spread out.  It seemed like you could see loads of sky everywhere you were.   Now, as I sit at a frustratingly slow and malfunctioning PC here on the edge of the medina in Marrakech, I know that the concepts of personal space and being able to look up and see the heavens is going to be gone for a few days…Phew! Keep me cooped up on a train for 15 hours in two days and I start rambling first chance I get.

le souk !, originally uploaded by …cathzilla.

Jim, Samuel and I are off to Morocco on Sunday morning. The wives and kids will be in El Puerto de Santa Maria at Jesus and Rachel’s place until we get back in a week or so.

We’ll be stopping in Rabat, Marrakech and Fes; in that order.See you on the other side.

In our community, the “year” sort of runs from September to July. At the moment, it feels like the end of the year as many of us are going our separate ways for the summer. I know that to those of you who don’t live in Spain, it doesn’t really make sense for things to be this way. But I assure you that when you’ve lived in Sevilla during July and August, it makes complete sense.

At any rate, the year is ending for me and I’ve been looking back over the year at my favourite albums, songs, groups, books, concerts and films.

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She hasn’t written much this year, but in the wake of her surgery she’s written a new entry.

We hosted 48 hours of prayer in our shopfront this past weekend. I think it went well. It was stretching at times, but I think we all took advantage of the time to be able to pray and focus on God.We also had a great time getting everything ready this past week.We had a community work day on Sunday (pictures to follow). Then a few of us spent a lot of time down there throughout the week putting on the finishing touches.We ended up having the big front part of it covered in paper and offered different focuses (the world, Europe, Spain, Sevilla, Triburbana). Then in between we had a cross/communion station and a back bit for praying for specific friends and family. Hope to get some pictures of the weekend up somewhere at some point.A couple of mission teams from the US also participated. I hope they had a good time. I introduced them to the place and to 24-7 Prayer, but that was about all that I saw of them.We still don’t have electricity or water (good motives for prayer?) in the shopfront, but who needs those two things to pray, right?We’ll see what comes of it in the near future.I might post some more thoughts here if I feel a real urge to. I’ll probably also talk about it a little bit more in our next newsletter. If you haven’t already, you should sign up!