Syrien Day five

one of the biggest challenges for me in my time in syria was defently the language.
where ever i went with whom ever i tried to talk it was all in arabic. for me as a western guy living in germany it is a must to learn english as a second language. during my time on board the MV doulos i got used to speaking english all the time and i was amazed to see how many people in asia do speak english. especially the street kids in the philippines surprised me. non of them have the chance to go to school in order to learn the language but even the little ones of the age 3 or 4 speak better english than most of the germans ever will (sadly a true fact). i am not sure why but i expected the syrians to speak at least some english. but to my surprise some of them spoke better german than english.

well as i was not able to communicate with my english i looked forward to learn some more arabic. my studies went well and i was surprised to see how easy i pick things up and how motivated i was. back in school i hated the english lessons and so did the english lessons hated me. i would sit at home with tears in my eyes screaming at my mum because i did not want to study this stupid and booring language. she would sit down with me and with a loving and caring heart teach me this alien like words and prases. i have to say my mum is one of the most patient people i ever got to know. she only had a few freak out moments in our childhood even if she would have had reason for many many more.

back to syria. i would spent most of my day sitting at the balcony studying this complex language and it was so much fun. i enjoyed talking the local friends i made as well but some of the best memories were made on that balcony in the sun with my arabic books in front of me. as my teacher petra was a taxi ride away from where we lived i had to take the cap to get to her place. at first i thought "oh thats ok" until i realised that as soon as i would enter the cap i would be totally lost and had to rely on the little arabic i knew. today was the day i would take my first cap alone to her place. the guys gave me her adress written down in arabic and so that i could say it. i started to simply write down every new information i would get in english and in arabic in a way that i could say it. for example there is a prase that says "if god wants it" it is said all the time. in arabic it is written like this إن شاء الله but to be able to speak it you write inshallah. this is just one of the many examples i could give you.

well there i was with some money in my hands, the right adress in my mind and on a peace of paper. taking a cap is something so normal in syria that i got to a point where i forgot how expensive the cap is back in germany which ended in a bad experience as i took a cap at night in germany and ended up paying 20 stupid euros. well most people in syria do not own their own car as it is way to expensive. instead they take the cap...ALL THE TIME. which means that it is easy to get one as their mostly the only cars on the roads but also that you have way to many of them. most of them are old, like really old. some of them you would get in and your first thought would be "OH NO". it is a funny feeling to feel every stone on the street while you race around a cornor way to fast. well as i said traffic in syria is insane.

my first taxi ride to petras place was very funny. i hit a taxi with a young syrian guy who seemed really interested in my sunglases. he was surprised to see a western guy in town and started to ask all these arabic questions. before i allowed myself to freak out i took over the conversation and used the little arabic i knew. i told him that i was from germany and that my name was sebastian. i asked him what his name was and wanted to ask him where he comes from but instead asked him what he is doing right now. he looked at me with weird eyes and said drivign a taxi. it took me a second until i realised that i had asked the wrong question. as we arrived at petras place he wanted me to pay him a certain amount of money which i knew was way to high so i tried to deal him down. somehow he got the idea to ask me for my glasses instead of the money. he seemed obsessed with the idea of owning some german glasses. first i tried to tell him that the glasses were from australia and not from germany but then i realised that this was maybe not such a good idea as i'm sure if he would have understood me he would have insited on the glasses. well i managed to get them back as he had them already on his head and payed the extra money. what a weird situation.

class was nice and i enjoyed the lesson.
as i got back i ended up in a taxi off a really nice syrien guy who seemed super excited to see me. first i was not sure why bit later i realised that he must have know the others. he kept asking me some for me unknown questions but all of them had the names of the others in it so i kept repeeting where i wanted to go and smiled everytime he said georgs or stevens name. as we arrived at our aparment i knew for sure that he had to know the others as normally the taxi drivers stop a bit to far but he stopped right at the door. as i wanted to pay he insisted on me not paying. first i was like, no way her's the money but as soon as he started to get out of the car to open my door i knew that he was serious. you see in syria it is normal for people to offer you something even if they don't really want to share. for example if you would end up sitting at a table with somebody and he offers you some juice you have to say no at least three times before you then take it. that way you make sure that he really wants you to have the juice. the same thing goes for almost everything.

this day was a huge success for me as i was able to travel to petras without the help of the others and i even got to use the little arabic i knew.

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Syrien Day four

it is half past 6am and my alarm goes of. for some reason i thought it would be a good idea to get up early in the morning and to read my bible. i did this back on the ship and it was a huge blessing. i would get up around half past 5am and would make my way up to the sun deck. there i would stay until breakfast time reading my bible and journaling. i managed to do this for three months without a break and it was some of the most fruitful time in my life. as i felt a strong calling from god to read the new testament again while i was in syria i decided to do this in the mornings. at firts it was hard, sure it was but later it became so important that i knew if i would not read my bible i would not be able to survive the day.

so i started reading the new testament again. it was my third time reading it and first i was not exited as it ment reading the booring jesus birth story again but somehow the little details catched me and i was able to see so much more of the background story that you normaly do not think about. things such as how did mary feel when the angle spoke to her or how did she think about jesus being the son of god? i loved asking myself all these sidebar questions and i always wrote them down in my journal. i hadn't journaled in a while as life on board the ship became everyday life. but as soon as i started planning my trip to syria i picked it up again and with a new lit fire i wrote down everything. i would sit in my room and just write down thoughts that would come to my mind "will i like the team mates?", "will i enjoy the food?", "will i learn some arabic?", "what if something bad happenes?". the last question was somehow the biggest one in my mind the voices became so loud that i even wrote a letter to my best friend telling her how much i love the friendship we have and how much i appreciate her as a person. well all these things ended up being written down in my journal. i loved writing all these things down as i knew that later these entries would help me to keep the memories alive that i would make in syria. little did i know about how all of this would change.

as i finished my quiet time we sat down and had breakfast as a team. i loved our team times as it was always nice to be around the others. i enjoyed listening to the speaking arabic and i was impressed. all of them spoke amazing arabic and where ever we went they would impress people as nobody would think that they could speak such good arabic. it was a huge motivation for me to study more.

my last days have kind of only been about me seeing some of aleppo and learning some arabic but today was about to change all this a little bit. after the breakfast the guys decided to take me down to the campus. the campus was one of the most important places for the team. as the ministry was to get to know the local people and trough deep conversations share the gospel the team spent every secon at the campus talking to the young students. today i was introduced to the group. i looked forward to this day as i ment i would finally meet som local people my age and that i could use some of my arabic. as we went down to the campus i also got to see some of the more modern part of aleppo. now what you will have in mind are these HUGE bright shopping malls or apartments but i have to disappoint you. the intire city was and i guess still is covered with a huge layer of dust. everything seems old even if it is new. at first i didn't like the look but now i even miss it.

as we reached the campus it was almost like entering a different world. the surroundings still looked the same but the people changed. normaly the people you see on the streets are adults mostly man and never couples. but on the campus you see only the young students and they just look normal. the women walk around uncovered and the guys chase after the girls. it was a weird picture. the park area inside of the campus was full of couples (most of them making out). in some ways it shocked me. later as i got to know some of the students i was introduced to their world not only physically but also mentally. i got to understand them better and better up to a point where i would say i started to think like them. sure it takes longer then a few weeks to understand a culture, to speak a language, to read the local books or even to think like the locals but in some ways i have to say i adjusted well and fast. it wasn't long until people told me that i do blend in very well (as much as it is possible for a western looking guy with blond hair and bright eyes to blend in).

Most of the women who live in syria have a already planned out life. the family decides who they marry and where they live. one of the only things that they get to decide is what to study. this surprised me as normally women don't have many rights but in this case they do. the families know that the young people are easy to rebell against the traditions so they start too give them some say in their lifes just enough to keep them happy. it almost seemed like the women had a chance to escape their "prison" in the time they got to study. after the uni life for them would be like the life any syrien woman has to life: get married be a mother and thats about it. i started to understand more why these women would use their time at uni for such things as secret boyfriends or even speaking about the unspoken topics such as christianity.

the group that i was introduced in hosted around 20 people. half guys half women. they all were super friendly and quickly accepted me into the group. i enjoyed talking to them even if i was unsure at the beginning. i felt unsafe around them at first as i was not sure what i could talk about or what is ok for me to say/ to share. for example: i was intorduced as a friend of someheon who had visited them a while ago and as this person had shared that he had lived on a ship before he came i was not able to share the same thing. it all seemed like building up a wall up secrets to protect the team and the ministry. at first it felt horrible as it almost felt like lying but soon i realised that me not sharing the whole truth technically is not lying. i know that now most of you are about to protest against what i just said and sure i would say the same that not telling the intire truth is dangerous and most of the time concidered as lying but then again i was in a non christian country as a missionary and i was surrounded by local people who could easily just hand me to the secret police.
i enjoyed my day at the campus. i enjoyed talking to them and laughing with them. i quickly opened up and became a "friend" to most of them and to some even a brother.

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Syria Day three

i remember this day very well. as i woke up on this day and asked myself how long i already had been in syria it felt like weeks. do you know this feeling? you get to a new place, a new location or region and shortly after you arrived there it already feels like you have been there for ages. the strange thing is that this does happen for the better and the worse. sometimes you get to a place you've never been to and you hate it and the second day already feels like you have been there for way to long. but sometimes, the better times you get to a place and you love it. gladly for me it was the second scenario. i woke up with a smile on my face. if you know me you will know that i am somebody who smiles a lot and seems happy most of the time. but to be honest it is hard for me to smile right after i got up. i am not sure why but i am not really a morning person. but throughout my time in syria i seemed to smile every morning even on the hard ones.

day three was also the day that i realised that something with the light was different in syria. and i am not talking about the light inside the houses, no i mean the sun light. i found it to be really hard to open my eyes in the mornings. it almost felt like they had weights attached. the sun in syria or lets say in the near east gets so high in the sky that it is much brighter than in europe. the new location, the new smells, the new sounds, the new light, the new food all this made me really tired. but never the less i loved every second of it.

one thing that i got to love almost immediately were the muslim prayer times. there is just nothing more amazing than having somebody reminding you to pray. for me these times were always special. often i would sit on the balcony studying arabic and trying to get this complex language into my brain and as i am somebody who learns much easier with music i would listen to some music. but as soon as the prayers would start i stopped all i did, listened and prayed. these calles reminded me each day to pray for our cousines and to pray for my friends. i miss these prayers now and i wish i would have recorded some of them just for me to listen to them again.

it also was on the third day that i was introduced to petra (name is changed) who became my arabic teacher. a lovely widowed woman with a beautiful young daugther totally on fire for the language. she managed it to teach me incredible amounts of vocabulary and grammar in a really short time. sadly as i am now not faced with all these almost alien like looking signs i am not used to it anymore. i do remember some of the normal phrases but all in all i lost the sense of the language, sadly.

ok enough for today.
in the post tomorrow: two crazy taxi rides, alone and the blessing of local friends

be blessed and be a blessing
sebi

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Elliot Taylor about Osamas Death

i found this online and it does sum up how i feel about Osamas death:

"On a seemingly normal Sunday evening in Washington, D.C., President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, the symbolic face of terrorism, had been killed by United States forces in a secret military operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

As the news of bin Laden's death spreads across the globe, responses are mixed. Outside the White House crowds have gathered celebrating the event as retribution for the 9/11 attacks that shook foundations and hearts ten years ago. Elsewhere and in secret, others will be mourning the death of a leader, claiming him as a martyr for a worthy cause.

In his speech to the nation, President Obama encouraged the families of those that lost loved ones with the words, “Justice has been done.” He made it clear that although the ideals of terrorism are not dead, a man who fanned their flame into a lake of fire now lies cold and still like those lives he stole. With the death of bin Laden, the scales of justice have become a little more equalised.

This may be true, and we must mourn with the mourning, but claiming the death of a man, no matter how evil, as inherently right and good places humanity on a seat of judgment far too big for us, with legs dangling from the floor. To say that it was good to kill a man is to say it would have been good for you to kill him, but no one should let that darkness, a darkness every man owns, rise to become a bloodied hand. Murder is still murder, no matter how the fall of the victim is cheered or grieved.

To some, Osama's death grants the West a victor's crown. To others, it is a loss, a weight that falls and pulleys honour and pride and martyrdom into the mind. We can't help but view it through the eyes of our childhood games: there are winners and there are losers. And everyone must take a side.

But when someone dies, no one wins. Death is loss, both for a person and a people and, most importantly, for Restoration. “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” God tells Ezekiel, “but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” According to a Restored world, it would have been be better for Osama to say sorry. Unfortunately, this would have removed many from their illegitimately claimed seat of judgement.

“Die, Osama, burn like our hearts burn for your death,” has been the cry of many these past years. Yet, this cry is from the land of death itself. It offers nothing new. It's a cycle perpetuated.

There is another call. One babbling like water out of the land of the living. It is quieter and harder. It is easily drunk dry by the harsh sun of retaliation, but its spring is deeper than revenge. It's a better way. And it's there if you care to find it"

Syria Day two

this world disgusts me.
in america thousands of people are on the streets celebrating the death of the worlds number one terrorist osama bin laden. as i turned on the TV in the cafe where i work this morning it was already all over the news. the imagine that was given showed houndreds of people standing in front of the parlament screaming USA and wavering the american flag. time jump back to 9/11 two thousand and one. i turn on the TV and i see thousands of iraqi people running on the streets shouting anti american slogans and burning american flags. before i will say something that will start a huge argument about this topic i just wane ask this question: is this a day where god is celebrating or crying?

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it is early in the moning and it is my first morning in aleppo syria.
the sun is on its way up and the first thing i realise is that it is really hot. georg is already up and prepared a small breakfast. it is my first syrien breakfast and i am not to sure what to expect. the table is filled with some vegetables, some arabic bread (pita), humus and arabic coffee. at first the food never really filled me and i am sure that the team spent some extra money buying more food as i was never really filled but soon my body did adjust to the new given situation and i got used to the feeling of hunger. it is not that we did not eat a lot just that i was so used to rich food that even ifwe ate some good amounts of bread i never seemed filled. now thinking back to my time there i really have to say that i got to love the syrien food. the pitas and the humus together with fresh cut onions, tomatoes and cucumbers served with some hot coffee...hmm i'm hungry.

well my first day was a rather quiet one. i went to one of the shops with georg in order to get a prepaid card for my cell phone which was a really strange experience. i was already confused back when we had to take the bus to aleppo that i had to show my passport and also here i had to take my passport with me and believe it or not in order for me to get a prepaid card i had to hand in my passportnumber and i had to give fingerprints. imagine giving your fingerprints in a local store in germany or the states or south africa to get a prepaid card, how weird would that be. well it was back then that i realised that the govermental system is controlling each and every move you make as a foreigner in their country. at first it felt weird and wrong to give somebody such essential and important details about myself but then again i was so into the adventure that it all seemed right and in some ways i guess i didn't really care.

i spent the rest of the day reading my bible and working on my arabic. the guys gave me some of their study material and i was all motivated to master this strange but fascinating language.

at the end of the day i had to realise that i was somehow really tired. i had slept enough sure i was hungry at least my body did tell me so but all in all i had no real reason to be tired. but i listened to my inner voice and went to bed early right after the evening prayer.

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Syrien Day one

*the names of the team members are changed for security reasons

It is early in the morning as my plane finally lands in damascus syria.
i had a horribke flight as i was sitting between some families with many children and they weren't able to sleep which made it impossible for me to rest. i had some funny and strange conversations on the flight with some syrien people that sat beside me.
one of them was a guy who sells cars from germany to syria. as we talked he asked me how i would describe the german culture. i tried my best to point out the positive things but as i just came back from the ship my mind was filled with all the negative stuff. well i guess i painted a interesting picture of the so called german culture. something that i found fascinating but also scary was that the man interfered the way the parents talked to the children. in front of me was a little boy who kept poping up his head to me. the parents told him to stop but he wasn't really listening and then suddenly the guy beside me hit the boy and told him to stop. i expecte a argument between the father and the man but nothing happened instead it almost looked like the father apologized to the man who hit his child.

another conversation i had was with a family that sat behind me. a monther and her two grown up children. the woman talked about the family they wanted to visit and along the conversation offered me a ride to aleppo. in fact i wasn't really sure how i would get to aleppo. as my cotact with the team was limited i wasn't able to organize a pick up. my plan was to fight my way trough the airport and then somehow manage to get to aleppo. this rather stupid idea seemed the perfect and exiting thing to do for me in that moment. as the woman offered me the ride i was somewhat glad but also sceptic. but as we left the airplane and entered the airport i could point out georg who stood in between the crowd's and waited for me. i had never seen him before but he wasn't hard to identify as he was the only western looking guy with short blond hair and blue eyes. we exhanged some brief welcome words and then made our way to the bus station. we had to take the bus to damaskus main station and then again a bus to aleppo. i would have been more then just lost without georg . at the mainstation in damascus i ate my first syrien food. it was a so called "potato sandwich". it had many fries in it and some vegetables. it tasted "interesting" but i was glad to have something in my stomach after half a day without food. the ride to aleppo took us about 5 hours and most of the time i was sleeping. i tried to stay up and to get a glimps of the country but as it was night and pitch black i couldn't see a thing. the bus ride was a really nice experience as it was so different to what i expected. they had some really nice seats almost like thrones and they had someone walking around asking if we needed anything. i was happy and glad that i arrived safe in a country i knew almost nothing of.

as we arrived in aleppo we had to take a cap to get to the apartment. as we drove trough aleppo i was super exited. all these new impressions, smells, sounds, looks. we arrived in the apartment shortly after the sunrise. as we got in i met the other two guys from the team steven and paul. i was impressed with the apartment. it had three rather small rooms one kitchen and a small bathroom but a HUGE balcony that went all the way around the apartment. besides the owner of the house we were the only people living in the house which is common for aleppo. george and the others sat down with me and we talked a bit about the ground rules while i was visiting them. it all sounded a lot like "sebi we wane serve you and wane make this the best experience for you ever". i kind of have to laugh about this right now ;)
they taught me some of the basic arabic words such as "my name is", "i am from germany", "thank you"...with these few words they gave me my keys for the apartment and send me off to the city, alone.

there i was in aleppo syria the city i had longed to see and the country i had prayed for. unsure where i would go i just followed some of the road markes the guys gave me. before i knew it i had entered the historic city core. it is almost like entering a different time. the buildings looked just how they look in the old movies. the entire old part of the city has never changed. the same people groups live there as they did back in the time of jesus. the entire scenery made me feel like back in time. i slowly walked towards the entrance of the souk, the traditional market in aleppo. i will not be able to describe how i felt in there. i will not even be able to describe how it looked in there. maybe later when my mind allows me to go back some more.

on my way back i realized that i could only se guys. it was a strange picture that was painted there in my mind. at first it was all i had expected and then again not at all like i thought it would be. on my way back i had to cross one of the bigger roads in aleppo. trafic is ridiculous and dangerous in syria. as there are no real crosswalks you have to just walk as soon as there is a smaller gap in the never ending traffic. well i found a small gap and walked on the street just to find out that my gap wasn't as big as i thought it would be and that i faced a huge bus that did not seem to slow down. i am not really sure how i made it to the other side all i know is that the bus was so close that it had toughed my bag. but i made it to the other side. i had to walk trough a park on my way back. in this park a random guy followed me and started talking with me. he spoke good english and at first i was ok talking to him but then i realised that he was after something special. as soon as he said "your handsome" i knew that i should rather get going. how weirdm, the one moment i see a totally covered woman and the next one a gay guy hits on me.

i was glad to be back in the apartment and it took the rest of the day to write down what i had seen. i wrote in my syria journal which sadly never made it back along with my bible and my prayer book but more about that soon ;)

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syrien

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