Where in the world is our team?

Click on the title and you'll see the apartment building we are living in. From there you can zoom out and around! Here is a closeup.

The sky is beautiful here. I took the picture below from Kim & I's bedroom at about 5:00 AM this morning. (I still wake up early due to jet lag, I guess.) You can the moon (waxing gibbous, for my astronomy students) about to set and if you click on the picture and zoom you can see the tents of the Bedouin family that grazes sheep and goats in the field behind our apartment.

Enjoy!

Thursday & Friday

Hi Friends,

THURSDAY

Thursday the main events were a tour of old Amman, and worshipping with the Second Circle Alliance church.

A Jordanian, Akif, has become a friend of our team. Thursday afternoon he gave us a tour of the Roman ruins in the old part of Amman. We took a local bus down to the center of town. Riding the bus was a good cultural experience. We heard in our cultural briefings that the Arab culture honors women, especially if they are "covered" and older people. (By covered they mean with any kind of head scarf. We see some women with most of their faces covered, but most just cover their hair.) At one stop two women in head scarfs and long dresses got on. The "boy" who collects fares pointed at a grey-hired man (not me!) to get up so the women could have the seat. He got up and the women sat down. The chain reaction continued when a younger man got up and gave his seat the the older man. This is a very typical occurance.

The Roman ampitheater is an amazing bowl rising up the side of a hill. The seats and steps are all marble, slick in some places, replaced in others. When we were there they were preparing for a concert that eveneing, so lights, sound equipment, orchestra chairs, and a grand piano were all arranged throughout the ampitheater. How many 2000 year old venues do know of in the United States that are still being used?

We taxied up to the top of the hill where some columns are standing on top of a massive limestone wall. Later we were told that people believe that this wall was the site of Uriah dying in battle when King David wanted to take Bathsheba as his wife.

In the museum at the top there were artifacts from the stone age to the Ottomans. The highlight for us was seeing close up fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls!

In the eveing we attended the main service of the Second Circle Alliance church. They were sending off an Iraqi family that had been members of the church for 8 years. They were emigrating to the US - Virginia. After the service, we talked with church members before heading out for pizza and home.

FRIDAY

Yesterday the big event was an afternoon picnic in the hills east of Amman and hearing the story of a precious brother who has suffered for his faith. It was very moving and made me realize how easy things are for us in the US.

Earlier we went shopping at the City Mall. Since it was Friday, the holy day for the people here, all of the shops were closed except for the giant French store Carrefore. It was a great experience.

TODAY

Today we need to spend time getting ready for teaching. We will split up our team among the four classes andgo over lesson plans. Please pray specifically that those of us who haven't before will be prepared and confident as we face our students tomorrow.

Grace and peace,

Michael

Center Trip

At the center last night Claire, Jackson, Micah, and Luke continued doing oral assessments to place students. The classes are all full. We will teach 7:00 - 9:00 PM (19:00 - 21:00 as they say here) . We will teach two levels of beginner levels, an intermediate level, and an advanced level. The lower levels have 15 students, and the advanced class has 18 students. We haven't decided yet who will teach which level. Two classes will have one instructor and two will have two of us teaching. Please pray as we decide how to split up the classes. Since the classes are conversational, large classes make it hard to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak.

Also, I (Michael) have an additional task. Another college student, Micah N, is doing a business internship for his degee program at University of Wisconsin. He is setting up a coffee shop in the center that will be open during class hours from 4:30 - 9:00 PM, Sunday through Wednesday. He needs help with the coffee, and I am the only person on our Simpson team who really likes coffee! Bummer ;^) So I spent part of the evening with Micah N getting the espresso machine to work, and other coffee-related tasks.

Kim spent most of the evening working on lesson plans She has a better idea of what the students are like now, so that helps. The picture is Kim workingon her eee Machine in the coffee shop.

All of except Kim had great opportunities to put our cultural orientation into action. Micah, Claire, Luke, and Jackson were more comfortable doing the oral assessments, and got into more significant discussion with students. For me, I was talking to (bothering?) Kim and she pointed out three men sitting on sofas. "Why don't you go down and talk to them?" I was nervous, but said one of those under-my-breath "Help me, Lord" prayers and approached them. Soon the three grew to six (all men, of course) and a fun conversation developed.

After the registration closed, and the students left, our team went outside to visit with some members of the Amman Alliance church. I got choked up when I introduced myself to Pastor Youssef. I had seen this precious man on Alliance videos. For me it was like meeting one of my heros. A faithful pastor in a country that is 98% of another faith.

We taxied back to the Guest House, had a great team debrief led by Jackson, and got to bed at midnight. Several of us popped awake around 3:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, so we haven't fully overcome the jet lag yet.

Today we are getting a tour of Amman by a Jordanian brother.

We'd love to hear from you!

Grace and peace,

Michael

Our First Day at the Center

Marhaba,

In our first day at the Center, we met the other team that will be teaching an early class, received orientation and spent two hours doing oral assessment to place students in English classes. We ate dinner at 10 PM at a lebanasnack restaurant. The chicken schwerma sandwich several of us had was great! Today we got another cultural orientation from one of the workers here. It's now 5:00PM and we're about to leave to do additional assessment tonight. There are about 60 students signed up now, many are advanced. That is exciting because we can engage those student deeper in conversation.

Peace and grace,
Michael

We're Here!

Hi friends!

We all arrived safely last night, the apartment is very nice. Here is a photo of us at breakfast.

We're leaving for the center in a few minute to see it for the first time.

Grace and peace,

Michael