Happy Reunion

While we were in Egypt Josh's parents took care of our dog Sammy for us. That was a huge blessing because he got to play with their dog Gracie, run around, and be with people who loved him. He also got spoiled and slept in the bed with Josh's aunt and uncle. Haha.

But that also meant that I was without my dog for about 4 weeks. They took him home with them Monday before we left for our trip on Friday and then we were gone for 2 weeks and then we couldn't go get him until the following weekend. I missed my dog! Reunited again!
I was kind of wondering if he would even want to go back home with us. At home he doesn't have a yard or any other dog to play with. But as we were packing up the truck to leave, he jumped in the front seat and wouldn't get out! We weren't even leaving yet, but he did not want to get left behind. He had to get him out of the truck several times.

So, I guess he missed us too.

Pregnancy update

I am now 15 weeks pregnant, which means that my first trimester nausea is over, I'm not AS tired as I used to be (though I am a little tired still), and I'm starting to show a wee bit. Other people don't notice yet, but I certainly do. Especially when Friday I stopped being able to button my pants! I've started doing the rubber band trick on my jeans and have bought a bella band or tummy sleeve for my dress pants. I am currently wearing the one pair of slacks that still button - because they were big on me to begin with!

One of the weirdest thing about pregnancy for me so far has been the food aversions. I haven't had major cravings (except for wanting mac 'n' cheese for lunch today...weird) but I have had a few aversions. For one, salad. Why salad? I love salad and before being pregnant was eating salads everyday. Now, making one at home makes me sick. I have been able to eat a few in a restaurant, though. Another weird aversion has been humus. Before pregnancy I would make big bowls of humus and eat it all the time. Now the thought of it makes me nauseous. Veggies are not high on the list of foods I enjoy right now, though I am able to eat stir-fry veggies. I dunno, it's weird.

As for the baby, supposedly he or she is about 4 inches, or about the size of an apple. And you can now tell if baby is a he or she. But we won't get to find out for probably another 4-5 weeks. They say that baby can also sense light now. It's amazing! To think of this little baby inside of me who can move, sense light, and is starting to move amniotic fluid through the respiratory tract. And I can't feel anything and many people can't even see the baby bump yet! It's all such a miracle!
There it is! That's my bump! Baby Seefeldt is growing!

Thoughts and Reflections

I've shared what we did. I've shared pictures to illustrate our adventures.

The thoughts and reflections about our trip are more complicated, though. As you can imagine, with everything that went on, there were a ton of thoughts, emotions, and dreams that went with it.

The Arab culture is a welcoming, hospitable culture. The people we met wanted to give us things or offer us something to show that they valued and welcomed us. I went over to a woman's apartment just to pick something up and she wanted to make me fresh mango juice just because I was there. Many times when we met people they would say "You are welcome here." The people long for relationship.

As a woman, there was not a time when I felt afraid. There were times I felt a bit uncomfortable and was glad my clothing was conservative. I know that it would be an adjustment for me and I would have to learn when to behave how.

We enjoyed our time and want to know more about Arab culture.

Fun in Egypt

Being in Egypt for 2 weeks means that we have lots of stories and did lots of things! There is no way I could put up everything! So here are some other fun, random (or just not otherwise categorized) things that happened...

On Sunday we went to a church service. Right before leaving for the service our trip leader told us that the pastor asked if someone from our team would sing a song for the service. Randy, our trip leader, thought of me and asked me to do so. One of the engineers agreed to accompany me on piano, so we hurriedly practiced Amazing Grace and went for it. It went well and I really enjoyed doing it. The pastor asked for us to sing again that night. I had even more fun at the night service, singing Here I am to Worship and really getting to worship.We had been dying to get in the water there in Alexandria. So here we are on our last night there finally putting our feet in the Mediterranean!After shopping and playing on the beach, we passed a barber shop that was still open at 12:15 am. So we decided to get Josh's hair cut. The guy did a great job and while we waited on Josh they served us hibiscus juice. How lovely! And the haircut and tip was a grand total of about $3.50.
Kelly and I really wanted to learn how to cook something Egyptian. So our new friend Nabila, the wife of one of that pastors, agreed to teach us how to make koshery, a very typical Egyptian dish. She loved getting to teach us and we loved learning!We fed the team one night and it was a big hit! Yay!

We met a woman who runs a beauty salon. She came over one day to hang out with the ladies and she did henna for us! She is such an artist! It was so fun!Here I am getting my pedicure . She really went after my feet! And it tickled!Definitely one of the best parts of the trip was building relationships with the team. We had a team of incredible people. We enjoyed spending time with everyone. I miss them and find myself wanting to call people up just to say "Hey, so what have you been up to today?"

Here are some memories we made with our teammates:

The Project

During our second week in Egypt the team worked on designing a conference center and school for handicapped children. This was a complicated project and the team worked very hard (and long hours). They did a great job! The teachers and leaders of the existing school were happy with the concept and everyone seemed satisfied with how things worked out.

While the architects and engineers were busy at work, I got to play with kids at the preschool! They were so great! This is one little friend that I made there. He didn't want to eat his lunch even when his teacher fed him. So I took the fork and attempted...and he ate his lunch from me! Such a sweet little boy!

I also got to go briefly to a girl's orphanage one afternoon for one hour. It was not nearly long enough to really play with the girls, but I was having a hard time talking with them with my lack of Arabic. But they understood my smiles and we could say "I love you" to each other in English.

Glimpses

As you can imagine, we have tons and tons of pictures of Egypt. Many are images of the cities, the views of the streets, the coast, or the market places. Below is a slideshow of several such images. These are to give you a glimpse of what we saw in Egypt.

As Tourists in Egypt

Here are some of the slightly more touristy things we did:



This is a picture in the new library in Alexandria. This facility is a major wow! It houses countless documents and has a computer system in which older books have been scanned in so that you can access them from anywhere in the world. And on some of their computers you can access any website that was ever created in the history of the Web. I would love to spend a day there.
In Cairo we went to the Bible Society. Such a cool place! In their book shop we bought an English-Arabic bible and a children's story of the parable of the prodigal son in English and Arabic.
The Bible Society has created a tour for children to teach the validity of the Bible. It will be opening to the public next month. This picture is of the Lord's Prayer in Greek, Arabic, and English, to demonstrate that God speaks all languages, not just Arabic.

In Cairo we also visited the Cave Churches, churches that are created in the rocks . There is a huge rock face with detailed carvings of scenes from Jesus' ministry. (Most of our pictures turned out blurry)
This is inside the biggest Cave Church. Really, it's a cave.



One evening, we got to all go out to this cove to see the sun set over the water. It was beautiful. There was a lighthouse, walkway over the water, and beautiful lighting as the sun set.

And of course, the pyramids!

Some of the team ventured inside one of the smaller pyramids. It was hot and stuffy inside, but it was fun to see what it's like inside a pyramid. This one was a tomb for one of the Pharaoh's wives.

In other news...

We are 13 weeks pregnant! Yay! We are so excited about this and are looking forward to our little one around March 20th. We have had our first sonogram, seen the heartbeat, and then heard it again at the doctor's office yesterday. Everything is going well. We ask for your prayers for health for the baby, wisdom for us as parents, and for this baby to be one who makes God famous with his or her life.
Here's our little one at 9 weeks. Baby is bigger now- almost 3 inches - and has fingerprints.

We'll find out sometime in November whether we are having a boy or girl. Right now we are just happy to have a baby.

We'll keep you updated!

Home Sweet Home

(At a market in Egypt during Ramadan)

We are back from our trip to Egypt, where we have been for the past 2 weeks. We had an amazing time, took hundreds of pictures, made bunches of memories, and now have even more to consider for the future. We got to meet with local people, experience life in Egypt, and of course hit some tourist sites along the way.

We got to work with a great team of people. We had many great discussions about life, challenges, and how God works in each person's life.

I'll take some time to write a better summary with pictures (hopefully tomorrow).