This morning I woke up 5 minutes before my alarm went off but I didn’t mind, because God provided a beautiful songbird outside our window somewhere in the courtyard outside Jaco’s apartment. It’s foggy today, but I suspect it won’t last long in the sun of Dubai. Surprisingly, when I stepped out on the porch I could see my breath, yet it was 63.5 degrees F, 17.5 degrees C. We actually met Jaco this morning! He’s a great guy and offered us anything in his refrigerator. Jaco is a quantity surveyor for various projects in Dubai including the islands in the shape of palm trees and also the island in the shape of the universe! When he left for work he said to us, “Enjoy the day.” There’s something profound about that. Simply enjoy this day that God has given us! Amen! The rest of the day was spent at the Spice Souk and the Gold Souk where we met up with Beth Longjohn’s best friend who is from Kenya along with her two boys and the daughter of one of her friends. All three kids hung all over me asking for piggy back rides and to be thrown into the air and ride on my shoulders. It was a lot of fun to be around young kids but I also had to be quite firm because they always wanted “one more” turn…so it was good training if I ever have kids someday. At one of the Souks I bought my sister, Katie, a souvenir spoon with a camel attached to it. Nancy Gavina and Katie Beachy bought some Pashminas and James Bjorlie bought a tradition head covering and a fake 8GB iPod that was clearly a cheap version of the real thing but still worked well, and was only 100 Durham…or $25. I bought a long dishdash, a skull-cap head covering, a scarf-like head covering (think Yasser Arafat), and another religious hat and ALL for 110 Durham which is like $27.50! Good buy eh? I didn’t even have to haggle with the guy to get a better price and he threw in the hat for free. Of course he still got a profit because they won’t sell you something there if they lose anything on it. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures so far so I can show what I am talking about here. We then went to a museum and got to investigate Dubai’s relatively short history. It was a very interesting and educational place. Then we headed back to Jaco’s place for a nap for a few hours until 8:30 PM in preparation for the all night lock-in at the church, DECC (Dubai Evangelical Church Center). What a blast we had at the lock-in! At first it was rather awkward being an outsider yet having been put in a leadership position at the lock-in, but we all made friends quickly. We were all split into groups and each group had to make a short 5 minute film that loosely followed a children’s book that each group was given. The event was called the “Orville Awards” after the Oscar Awards and a little trophy is given away to the best supporting actor and the best director. My group got the book Cinderella…yeah…and I was all about giving them ideas and supporting but then the youth in my group asked me to Cinderella! I was a little hesitant but agreed to do so…if we changed a lot of the story.
So I changed my name to C-Dog and then proceeded to turn Cinderella into a gangster story of a guy with 3 studly-step brothers who were merciless against their brother C-Dog in the “dart game” (those at Cornerstone will for most likely understand this game). So news reaches C-Dog that there is to be a dance off at the town dance floor but before he can go his brothers dart him and leave him on the floor while they head off to the dance floor. However, C-Dog’s Fairy Moo Mother appears in the form of a plush toy cow and not only pulls the dart out of his neck but gives him an Alpaca Sweatshirt that repels all darts and gives him some sweet dancing skills! So C-Dog goes to the dance off where no one recognizes this gangsta and everyone is simply amazed at his dance moves. I had thought to myself that this was already going to be embarrassing so I thought I might as well go all out with the final “dance”. So I start my hip hop routine spinning around a little and then getting down with one shoulder to the ground and my feet in the air, push myself up to my feet and got on my back to flip myself to my feet by pushing off with my hands and fling my legs up so I landed on my feet. I then did a cartwheel into the splits (I definitely pulled a muscle when I did that) and stand to everyone’s cheers on the dance floor and everyone loved C-Dog from then on out…and he never got shot with those darts again either.
It was a lot of fun and got to know a lot of people during the process and even won the Orville Award (which was a porcelain statue of a fat Arab man with sunglasses and arms folded across his chest) for the best supporting actor! Nancy got a trophy for best director which was named Ahmed and was a little bobble head bearded Arab man. We stayed up until 8 AM before we went to bed and during that time Shehan and I went on a 5-0 winning streak in ping-pong before finally being defeated by Johnny and Jamaila. Leslie, Wes and I went to the gas station nearby and cleaned out all 48 of their Dunkin Donuts along with many croissants for everyone’s breakfast at 4 AM…nutritious I know. It was great getting to know people and making friends. The youth here are so friendly and make friends quickly and easily because they have to. Pretty much everyone in the church comes in and out of Dubai within 2 years and so they have learned to develop friendships quickly as well.
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