Storm yesterday and John Piper

Yesterday was possibly the first and only storm that has ever passed over Egypt. It maybe only rains in Cairo 5 times the whole year, and it has usually only been a light drizzle. Ben called me in the living room where he was reading and said do you hear that? We automatically knocked thunder off the list (because it never happens), our guess was wind or military jets. I opened the window to find lightning. About 5 minutes later it began to hail (definitely never happens) and side ways rain. Unbelievable! I have been anxiously looking forward to visiting the states in May, and one of the reasons is seeing thunderstorms again! Of course that is after family and Bella on the list. :)

Ben and I are HUGE fans of John Piper and would put him right up there with C.S. Lewis and Paul in his theological teachings. Well, I may be facebook friends with him and his wife, and may have seen that they were in Egypt meeting with people getting ready for the Lausanne conference in Capetown, South Africa. I had the opportunity to go hear him speak at an Egyptian church about 45 minutes away. You can almost guess what he spoke on, but the scripture was 2 Corinthians 4:4-6. He gave hope to Christians living in the Middle East. It was incredible. I have a short clip of him teaching, just to give you an idea. He has a wonderful resource website called Desiring God.

Still no news about the job, but He is faithful. I had the opportunity of speaking to about 30 high schoolers at Youth wednesday. I was pretty nervous about it for about 2 weeks. But the Holy Spirit consumed me and the night went great. It was pretty cool. I talked to them about idolatry and having other gods in our lives. We talked about the failure of Israel and Judah's kings who were faithless, so pray that God would be stirred up in their hearts this week, for their own good, but also because we need them. Two people were denied access into the country this week. One was a member of our church who has been here for ten years. The other is the author Josh McDowell. God in his sovereignty is good. But we are human and I just ask to pray for our selfishness when people are forced to leave. We have friends returning in a couple of days, and man, we really want to see them again.