Heart Pounding

I woke up this morning (My first morning in Egypt) to the sound of the call to prayer on loud speakers that blast through the city. Each Mosque competes to see who can be the loudest and sing their prayer the longest, at least that is the way it seems at 5 in the morning…

After a cold shower (They forgot to turn the heater on) and a nice breakfast of toast and tea, I stepped outside to view the site that my heart has been bursting to see. Children in need of God’s love… They were playing in the streets just the way I had visioned them in my dreams for the two and a half months of waiting… I am so excited to be here!

First thing on the list of “To Dos” was to visit Rev. Dr. Safwat N. El-Baiady, he is to the Protestant Churches in Egypt as the Pope is to the Catholics in Rome. To be honest, I was not too excited to see him since I was so tired. (Only getting three hours of sleep), but, I am not here for sleep… Right? Anyway!

The driver who was going to take us to Rev. Baiady arrived in a Compact car of some sort, and instructs Dr. Hisham and me to sit in the back seat of the car; I thought this was a little odd, since people of importance usually get placed in the passenger seat in Egypt. It did not take me long to figure out why, the passenger seat did not have an “Oh my Lord!” handle…

Now, you may be asking what an “Oh my Lord!” handle is… Well, in some places it is called the “Oh shoot!” handle, or the “Please God help me” handle, or the “Flex your arm for the ladies” handle, it was originally designed as a bar that is attached to the ceiling of a car to help people out of the car, but I know no one that has ever actually used it for this purpose, most use it for one of the above mentioned, and I use it as an “Oh my Lord!” handle that I can quickly grab hold of to brace for impact in the event of an accident… Well, I also sometimes use it to flex my muscles, but that is besides the point…

Today, I swear I was going to pull the handle off of the ceiling, for I have never used the O.M.L. handle that much in my life. I truly do believe that the driver is practicing for F1 Racing, because he was driving at very high speeds and swerving in and out of traffic nearly hitting pedestrians and cars. I must give him credit as one of the greatest and most terrifying drivers I have ever seen. Not a single scratch was found on the car, no one was killed, and I was now wide awake for my meeting with Dr. Baiady.

Kimo