Day 4 - Kuwait
Before I get into today’s events I want to thank all of you who have been writing me. It really means a lot to hear from you, and it reminds me that while I might get lonely here in Kuwait, I’m never alone.
Today started a bit earlier than most. I woke up at 4:00am (on purpose) and got myself ready for work. I had a 5:00am conference call for The Grapevine Project (http://www.thegrapevineproject.org) which went really well. For the rest of the team it was 10:00pm Eastern/9:00pm Central. After an hour on the call I excused myself to grab some breakfast before Leo, my escort to the office, arrived at 6:30am. I finally got to the classroom at about 7:50am with class scheduled to start at 8:00am. Lo and behold, all the laptops were still in boxes. No problem, the first lab exercise was to unpack and set up laptops. The rest of the class went rather smoothly.
For lunch I walked across the street to a mini-mall of sorts. There was Chinese, Subway, pizza and a donut shop. I skipped all those and went for a fruit smoothie of banana, strawberry and mango. As I was walking back to the classroom, each sip of my smoothie got progressively crunchier. The wind kicked up enough dust that it was somehow making its way up between my teeth. There is no escaping the dust out here. My black shoes have a nice beige coating around the bottom. The bottom of my pants is also full of dust. That’s why people wear khaki around here – you can’t tell if you’re dusty or not.
After lunch we reconvened and covered the afternoon material. On my way out, I checked back into the main office and bumped into another American expatriate working out here. He mentioned something about a pickup basketball game just down the street from where I’m staying and I proceeded to invite myself. He said to meet at 7:00pm and I was excited. After all, I want to do some regular exercise and basketball is just the thing for me. I need to get the cardiovascular going, but I can’t stand the treadmill. Whenever I step on one of those I feel like I’m getting nowhere… Besides, basketball is a great opportunity to meet people and chase after something bouncy (I must have been a cat in a past life).
On the way back to the hotel I resolved to find a shawarma stand for dinner. There’s only so much hotel food one can take. I’m resigned to eating breakfast here daily, which isn’t bad considering there’s only so many ways to do breakfast and I think they’ve got it right. Fresh pineapple, eggs, meat and pastry – I’m all set. Well I found a couple of shawarma stands, ate my fill and went back to the hotel to change for the basketball game.
By 7:00pm the sun had set so there was no more heat pounding on the playground. In fact, by then I think it had cooled to the upper 30s Celsius (about 100 Fahrenheit), with a nice breeze blowing. Nice for the temperature, terrible for my jump shot. OK, not that I have much of a jump shot but the wind was playing with it nonetheless. So I met up with my contact and we played a couple of pickup games. Some of us were American, but there were a few other nations represented: Egypt, Somalia, Syria, Iraq to name a few. Because of all the dust on the concrete there wasn’t much traction, and I took a tumble or two. A little scratch was enough to give me bragging rights – “Yep, I went to Kuwait and shed my blood there too.” I say this rather flippantly for humor’s sake, but I would pause so as not to diminish the Ultimate Sacrifice made by over 4,000 men and women here in the region. Be sure to thank the servicemen and servicewomen whose paths you cross on a daily basis. They serve willingly, bravely and with conviction. And remember that respect and support of our military includes the entire chain of command – right up to our Commander in Chief. I don’t agree with every decision he’s made, but I haven’t agreed with every decision anyone has made. That is not an excuse for me to disparage people. Obviously I’m a bit sensitive on that last topic. Feel free to zip me an e-mail if you disagree. I’d be perfectly happy to hear you out. That’s dialogue (from the Greek – “through words”, not fists or epithets).
Well, I survived the basketball court. I didn’t give as good an account of my game as I had hoped. But I’ve learned a thing or two before I head back out tomorrow to do this all over again. Back in my hotel room I took a shower, munched an apple, called home and now I’m reflecting back on the day. So many things could have turned out badly, but by God’s grace I’ve survived to tell about them.
I almost typed “mercy” instead of grace. The difference between the two is subtle yet profound. Grace is God giving you what you don’t deserve. Mercy is God not giving you what you do deserve. Think about it. When it becomes a question of what I deserve, who decides? If each person on earth decides what they deserve, there is guaranteed to be conflict. I don’t think BMW could keep up with the orders :-) But when we recognize that God knows what we deserve, we are then free to live without the burden of worrying whether we got ours. More importantly, when we’re really honest with ourselves and recognize the full extent of God’s knowledge of what we do deserve in light of who he is, aren’t we thankful he doesn’t let us have it?
Keep in touch. I miss you all.
Today started a bit earlier than most. I woke up at 4:00am (on purpose) and got myself ready for work. I had a 5:00am conference call for The Grapevine Project (http://www.thegrapevineproject.org) which went really well. For the rest of the team it was 10:00pm Eastern/9:00pm Central. After an hour on the call I excused myself to grab some breakfast before Leo, my escort to the office, arrived at 6:30am. I finally got to the classroom at about 7:50am with class scheduled to start at 8:00am. Lo and behold, all the laptops were still in boxes. No problem, the first lab exercise was to unpack and set up laptops. The rest of the class went rather smoothly.
For lunch I walked across the street to a mini-mall of sorts. There was Chinese, Subway, pizza and a donut shop. I skipped all those and went for a fruit smoothie of banana, strawberry and mango. As I was walking back to the classroom, each sip of my smoothie got progressively crunchier. The wind kicked up enough dust that it was somehow making its way up between my teeth. There is no escaping the dust out here. My black shoes have a nice beige coating around the bottom. The bottom of my pants is also full of dust. That’s why people wear khaki around here – you can’t tell if you’re dusty or not.
After lunch we reconvened and covered the afternoon material. On my way out, I checked back into the main office and bumped into another American expatriate working out here. He mentioned something about a pickup basketball game just down the street from where I’m staying and I proceeded to invite myself. He said to meet at 7:00pm and I was excited. After all, I want to do some regular exercise and basketball is just the thing for me. I need to get the cardiovascular going, but I can’t stand the treadmill. Whenever I step on one of those I feel like I’m getting nowhere… Besides, basketball is a great opportunity to meet people and chase after something bouncy (I must have been a cat in a past life).
On the way back to the hotel I resolved to find a shawarma stand for dinner. There’s only so much hotel food one can take. I’m resigned to eating breakfast here daily, which isn’t bad considering there’s only so many ways to do breakfast and I think they’ve got it right. Fresh pineapple, eggs, meat and pastry – I’m all set. Well I found a couple of shawarma stands, ate my fill and went back to the hotel to change for the basketball game.
By 7:00pm the sun had set so there was no more heat pounding on the playground. In fact, by then I think it had cooled to the upper 30s Celsius (about 100 Fahrenheit), with a nice breeze blowing. Nice for the temperature, terrible for my jump shot. OK, not that I have much of a jump shot but the wind was playing with it nonetheless. So I met up with my contact and we played a couple of pickup games. Some of us were American, but there were a few other nations represented: Egypt, Somalia, Syria, Iraq to name a few. Because of all the dust on the concrete there wasn’t much traction, and I took a tumble or two. A little scratch was enough to give me bragging rights – “Yep, I went to Kuwait and shed my blood there too.” I say this rather flippantly for humor’s sake, but I would pause so as not to diminish the Ultimate Sacrifice made by over 4,000 men and women here in the region. Be sure to thank the servicemen and servicewomen whose paths you cross on a daily basis. They serve willingly, bravely and with conviction. And remember that respect and support of our military includes the entire chain of command – right up to our Commander in Chief. I don’t agree with every decision he’s made, but I haven’t agreed with every decision anyone has made. That is not an excuse for me to disparage people. Obviously I’m a bit sensitive on that last topic. Feel free to zip me an e-mail if you disagree. I’d be perfectly happy to hear you out. That’s dialogue (from the Greek – “through words”, not fists or epithets).
Well, I survived the basketball court. I didn’t give as good an account of my game as I had hoped. But I’ve learned a thing or two before I head back out tomorrow to do this all over again. Back in my hotel room I took a shower, munched an apple, called home and now I’m reflecting back on the day. So many things could have turned out badly, but by God’s grace I’ve survived to tell about them.
I almost typed “mercy” instead of grace. The difference between the two is subtle yet profound. Grace is God giving you what you don’t deserve. Mercy is God not giving you what you do deserve. Think about it. When it becomes a question of what I deserve, who decides? If each person on earth decides what they deserve, there is guaranteed to be conflict. I don’t think BMW could keep up with the orders :-) But when we recognize that God knows what we deserve, we are then free to live without the burden of worrying whether we got ours. More importantly, when we’re really honest with ourselves and recognize the full extent of God’s knowledge of what we do deserve in light of who he is, aren’t we thankful he doesn’t let us have it?
Keep in touch. I miss you all.
