Back from Blogging Oblivion

It has been two months since this blog has been updated, and almost twice as long since I have written anything.  A lot has happened in the last four months: 

• We visited America in all its glory.  Frog jumping contests, children's museums, family pets, and of course, family. 
• I spent 1 month away in Bahrain while Alison and the kids remained in the US.  It was good to have time to get lots of stuff done, but I also missed them.  
• Gabe may have an allergy to gluten and/or dairy.  Uff.  Breads and Dairy products?  Poor kid. 
• Eva is being potty trained!  I'll spare you the details. 
• The Packers lost to the Seahawks on a horrible call 
• My parents have a foreign exchange student from - wait for it... - Bahrain!  Alison and I have had the chance to meet her familiy here, which has been a lot of fun. 

Away to Chicago

Alison and I left the kids with my parents for three days and headed to the Windy City (named for its long winded politicians, not for excess amounts of wind).  We walked around downtown, at Chicago style pizza, visited a few museums, went for bike rides, took tours, and visited the U505 submarine.  As the nerds we are, we even visited a couple bookshops and I found a book on Bahrain from the 1980's!  I am still working my way through it. 

We have moved!

One of the perks of being the Principal is moving into the house reserved for the Principal.  It's actually a duplex, and we occupy the second floor.  The first floor is occupied by the pastor of the National Evangelical Church and his family.  They have already been wonderful neighbors, and their four teenage/adult children living at home provide ample baby-sitting opportunities. 

The house provides more room for our family and, most significantly, a yard!  The kids love being outside.  We are within walking distance of quite a bit, and I am within walking distance of the school.  This cuts my commute down by an hour.   There are a lot of small things I need to come to the school for, so it is nice that I can pop over for an hour if I need to without taking up my entire day. 

On Being Principal

I have learned more in the last three months than I anticipated.  I have learned about how air conditioners and electrical wiring work, set ups of industrial fire alarms, labor law, organizational design and a plethora of other things.   And of course, when someone comes to me, I can no longer pass the buck if I don't want to deal with it.  I have had to learn better time management, to prioritize, and to slow down a bit.  I may have some ideas, but changing institutions takes time - even if everyone inside wants to change with you.  Fortunately, I have a great staff.  Everyone is hard working and dedicated, and I am encouraged every day by the work that they do.  

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas!

Its been a while since I've posted, but we've been quite busy.  Brian and Liz (Alison's brother and his wife) came and visited for two weeks over Christmas.  We had a fantastic time with them, and were even able to to go Dubai with them for a couple of days.  Here are some things I learned. 

• You can apparently book private parties at indoor ski resorts in the desert.  We had intended to go sledding and skiing to experience snow on Christmas day, but the indoor ski resort was closed for a private party.  Really!?!  Is it not crazy enough that you can do indoor skiing in the middle of the desert?  Apparently not.  We still had a good time that day.  We explored the mall, went to the book store (not that we're starving for one in Bahrain - we just like books) and took Eva to the area with the kiddie rides and arcade games.  She was freaked out by the 
• Chasing Eva saying, "Oh no!  Sharks!" is hilarious.  For both of us.  In another mall, there is a "water-zoo" (aka aquarium), and it was everything I had hoped and dreamed.  Eva laughed and giggled and squealed her way through the whole thing looking at otters, bright and colorful fish, and most of all - penguins.  There is also a tunnel that goes under the massive two-story aquarium and there are 15-20 large sharks with jagged teeth.  Lots of fun. 
• Camel Burgers are tasty.  They're a little tougher than beef burgers, and I probably wouldn't order one again.  But its kind of cool to say I've had a camel burger. 
• The Apocalypse does NOT come if we don't put our kids down for naps at 1pm.  Usually the kids are on a pretty rigid schedule, and, although we intended to keep them on the schedule, we grossly underestimated travel times going to and from the hotel.  But it ended up all right.  Its a little freeing to think that, if we choose for a day, we can do something that requires a little more time. 

Of course, this last week was Eva's 2nd birthday!  Happy Birthday Eva!  We didn't do a whole lot, just went out for ice cream at Dairy Queen and let her have a vanilla sundae.  We didn't plan any events this year, and maybe that makes us bad parents.  I'm not sure. 

I remember when I was a kid my dad (or mom, maybe) telling me that it was nice that my birthday was in April.  That way they had time to save up for presents in between Christmas and my birthday.  I remember being a bit confused as to why that mattered.  Well, now I know.  Not that its a problem now.  But someday when she wants a laptop for Christmas and an iPad for her birthday, there's going to be some tears shed.  

When in Rome....

The longer I live here, the more Bahraini I become.  I've decided that the eating schedule my Bahraini friends follow is fantastic: 

• Breakfast:  10am-11am
• Lunch: 3pm-4pm 
• Dinner:  8pm-9pm

On Tuesday, we experienced this eating schedule.  We had breakfast with friends at Fudruckers at 10, and by the time we got home it was time to put the kids down for the afternoon nap.  We then went to someone else's house for lunch (we weren't actually expecting lunch, but a great spread was brought out after we arrived!)  So we munched on lunch while chatting.  I was content for the day, and had a light snack in the evening. 

Not only that, but it is traditional to give kids money during Eid.  so as we left, our friends (at both breakfast and lunch!) stuck a couple of dinars in Eva and Gabe's pockets!  They are still too little to understand what money is (thank goodness), but we've got a few ideas for things that they would both enjoy.   

Our Staycation

Staycations - a name that became popular in the US in the last couple of years - are basically when people don't go on some expensive, extravagant trip during their vacation times.  Or, as I prefer to say - what people normally did during their time off for work or school until relatively recently.  All that to say, Alison, the kids, and I are on a stay-cation this summer!

Because Gabe was born in May, we were not able to get a passport in time to travel for the summer. Our plan is to stay here in Bahrain and let family visit us.  My brother, David, is here visiting for six weeks, and my parents arrive in two weeks.  The day after they leave, Alison's mom visits for two weeks.  All will get plenty of cuddles and pictures with the children.  Thankfully, a family in church has gone away for the summer and has graciously lent us their villa while they are away (provided we feed their dog and water their plants - a sweet deal if you ask me!)

Staying in their house has a couple of benefits:

• It's nice to get a chance of scenery for us.  We love our apartment, but the house is great. 
• Again, our apartment is great, but not big enough to comfortably house 5 adults and 2 children.  The house has enough room for us to spread our proverbial legs.
• Eva loves animals, and is in love with the dog.  I'm not sure the dog knows what to do with her, but does enjoy the occasional snack that Eva shares. 
• Eva is loving the space.  She walks alll around with her play stroller loaded up with various toys. 

We've never stayed in Bahrain for the whole summer before, and we keep hearing about how hot it gets.  I'm both eager to experience the 'real' heat of Bahrain, and dreading it at the same time.  Praise the Lord for air conditioning!  It also means that the summer will be a little slower.  We love going to the States to visit family and friends, but it always ends up being 8 weeks of running around like chickens with our heads cut off.  It'll be nice to have some time to relax. 

So what will we be doing the next two months with so much time on our hands (or, with extra time for me - Alison doesn't really experience a change).  Here's a couple of goals that I have:

1. Read.  My goal is a book a week.  I have a host of books that I haven't read, and have so far lived up to this goal (we're not done with school yet, but things have slowed down now that the students are in finals).  Alison thinks I should post a book review of some of those books.  I may yet do that. 
2. Modern Parables:  I don't remember what put this in my head, but I'm going to try and 'retell' some of the parables of Jesus as if He were in Bahrain telling them to us.  I may find that the stories are not that different.  Or I may find that they are.  We'll have to see. 
3. Playing with my children:  I get to do this already, but now we'll have more time to go to the pool, go to parks, build blocks, etc.  Eva is in a really fun stage right now and I'll be soaking that up. 
4. Preaching:  Unfortunately, our pastor and his family are returning to Australia for good.  Our church is looking for a new pastor, but until then, the preaching responsibilities are being spread around some of the men in the church.  
5. School Projects:  I've got a couple of school projects that I'll be meandering through (nothing heavy duty, of course).  I don't plan on spending a whole lot of time on them, but a little bit here and there would be good. 
6. Blogging:  I haven't done a whole lot of this lately - it's been a busy last couple of weeks for us.  But hopefully I'll have something interesting to say over the summer!

Christmas and Easter Irony

One of my favorite comic strips is "Non Sequitur".  The characters are witty, the humor is biting and the author likes poking fun at the absurdities of society.  Today's strip is as follows:

Ok, so I get the joke.  Two players playing for competing holidays spending time together.  But the irony is, the holidays actually do go together.  It's not just in secret in the off-season that they 'canoodle', but by their nature they are inseparable.

The problem is that the holidays that were once cornerstones of the Christian identity in the United States have become secularized and commercialized.  This is true particularly in Bahrain.  Stores catering to westerners stock up on Santa figurines and Easter egg decorating kits.  The holidays have a very secular flavor.

But the two holidays are inherently intertwined.  Christmas, you see, is the holiday in which we celebrate God coming to earth, in the form of Jesus.  The primary purpose of Jesus coming was to atone for our sins, to provide an avenue to wash away our shame and make it possible to has a real relationship with God.  That process happened during the death and resurrection of Jesus - Easter.  Without Christmas, we cannot have Easter.  And without Easter, Christmas is meaningless.

Christmas Day

This was our first Christmas with Eva, and it strikes me the importance of communicating that Christmas should be about celebrating the coming of Jesus.  He is Emanuel - God with us.  According to Hebrews, he is the exact imprint of God's nature.   We continued some of the traditions that I had growing up - such as reading the birth of Jesus from the gospel of Luke, and plan to continue some more - like the advent tree that we (sometimes) did leading up to Christmas.

Our Christmas was also full of fun times with friends.  We went to a friends' house for a large Christmas Eve lunch on Friday, another friends' house for Christmas day lunch and then yet another friends' house for Christmas Day dinner (really, light snacks) and a gift exchange.  I was given a book of Arab proverbs and English equivalents.  I'll share the really good ones on here. 

Unfortunately, Alison and I didn't do ANY Christmas shopping this year.  However, Grandma saved the day and had sent us a package full of presents - 3/4 of which were for Eva.  Here's a video of Eva opening her very first present. 

And here's just one of the goodies that Alison made to take to people's houses - homemade apple pie (she also made scrumptious candy cane cookies, delectable raspberry squares and succulent sugar cookies). 

Last, just because I can - a video of Eva bouncing on Mommy's knee.  Its so great to hear her squeal with delight (sorry, the picture is a little dark)

Merry Christmas from Bahrain!

This is a Christmas Carol from believers in the Middle East.  Merry Christmas!  Blessings for you as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord - Emmanuel, God With Us.

The King Declares A Random Day Off For Schools

I should be at school right now.  It was supposed to be a special day at school for National Day celebrations.  I was supposed to take the 12th grade class on a trip to the Bahrain Stock Exchange.  So why no school?  I was at a friends' house last night at about 6 o'clock and he got a call from a friend.  This friend told him that school was canceled - by the king, no less!  She didn't know why, but school was cancelled.  I called my vice principal later to confirm, and she said yes.  And so here I sit at 7:45am while Eva plays with my keys and I write a blog post.

There are two observations I'd like to make about this:

1.  "Random" Days Off:  Since I have lived in Bahrain, this happened once before when a leader of the UAE (?) died a couple years ago.  This time its for a National Day Celebration.  Either way, we find out the day before, and we are pleasantly surprised with a day off.   No warning at all.  Frustrating?  Initially, but after a while you just get used to things like this.  I've learned that I can't plan too far in advance at school, for inevitably something happens (like today) that completely messes with what I wanted to do.  So you just learn to go with the flow.

2.  Spreading the Word:  This mystifies me even more - how an announcement can be made literally 12 hours before school starts and the entire country now knows.  In fact, I would venture to guess that 75% of the country knew in the first hour.  I imagine it was announced on radio stations (which I don't listen to) and local news stations (which - not knowing Arabic - I never watch).

But beyond that, its just expected that everyone will hear about it in time.  And, in general, most people do.  And that's the part that amazes me.  Word spreads like wild-fire.  And I know that, as an expat, I'm relatively out of the loop.  So if I know about things so fast, you know that word spreads 10 times faster among Bahrainis.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Thanksgiving holiday has provided me with some of my fondest memories with family.  Every year we would go down to my Aunt and Uncles, and my whole mom's side of the family would cram into their house.  All but one of the cousins were (are) boys, so we always had a good time wrestling, playing soccer or basketball and making movies.  So large Thanksgivings are always a lot of fun.

We hosted Thanksgiving with our neighbor, Linda, for the third time.  We don't have enough room for all those people in our apartment, but between the two flats, no one goes without a place to sit.  Alison did more preparation than previous years, and so has been spending the last couple of days baking and cooking.  Today was a doosey of a baking/cooking day, but here is some of what she put together.

Do you see the large red pot on the stove?  That was FILLED with potatoes, and thus filled with REAL mashed potatoes.... mmmm.....

Here is a closeup of the green bean caserolle that Alison made.  Cream, cheese, butter, more cheese... it doesn't get any more heart-stoppingly better than that.

I had meant to take a picture of all the people who'd come, but I forgot in all the hubub.  It was a great time of hanging out with some of our American friends, and a lot of our non-American friends came a long to celebrate the holiday.

Before we ate, Alison read the following Psalm as our prayer of thanksgiving to God for all he has provided:

Psalm 136: 1-9
¹Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. 
            His love endures forever. 
²Give thanks to the God of gods. 
            His love endures forever. 
³Give thanks to the Lord of lords: 
            His love endures forever.

⁴to him who alone does great wonders,
            His love endures forever.
⁵who by his understanding made the heavens,
            His love endures forever.
⁶who spread out the earth upon the waters,
            His love endures forever.
⁷who made the great lights—
            His love endures forever.
⁸the sun to govern the day,
            His love endures forever.
⁹the moon and stars to govern the night;
            His love endures forever.

He is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed! Easter in Bahrain

Its Easter weekend in Bahrain, and as a friend informed me, one of the first times in a long time that the western celebration of Easter and the eastern orthodox celebration of Easter fall on the same weekend.  So what does Easter look like here?

Good Friday - the day of Jesus' death - is our normal church day.  Our church, Saar Fellowship, had its regular service on Friday morning.  It was a normal, solemn Good Friday service, with the exception of communion. 

Usually, communion (bread and wine - the symbol of Jesus' broken body and blood shed for us) is handed out on communion plates by ushers.  Instead, they passed out nails.  In the center of the auditorium was a cross about 4 feet high.  As individuals chose (we weren't dismissed by rows or anything), people went to the cross and hammered their nail into the cross - a symbol that WE, through our sin and shameful behavior, made it necessary for Christ to die for our sin and shame. After hammering the nail, people could go to either side to take communion. The congregation sang one more song

Today, Sunday, is a work day for everyone.  Most people do not take the day off, but churches here are prepared to accommodate!  A conglomeration of churches holds a sunrise service for people to attend before work.  This year, Alison and I met some people in our small group met an apartment at 6am - read the story of how Jesus rose from the dead, claiming victory over our sin and punishment, and then shared a meal together.  Some people went off to work in the morning, while others (including myself) have the day off. 

Later in the day, we went to some friends' house for an Easter celebration!  There were almost 30 kids there, so they gathered them around and told the Easter using different pieces.  We all shared a meal together and then the kids went out back for an Easter egg hunt.  Eva even participated by doing a little hunt herself!  (Of course, eggs are not part of the Resurrection story and Jesus.  I'm not really sure how they got in there, but its what we do, and its a good time, anyway!)

"Look! I found an egg!"

From Evangeline

"I gotta carry it home, and find out what's inside."

From Evangeline

"Hmm... kind of empty.  Need to find some more."

From Evangeline

"Look how many I found!  I need to get some more!"

From Evangeline

"Gotta eat the candy before my daddy does!"

From Evangeline

Merry Christmas!

Here are a few pictures of our Christmas together this year! It was a busy last few days as Christmas fell on a Friday, which is also church for us. We had a good time spending Christmas with friends - it was very nice! Enjoy!

Eid Mubarak! (Happy Eid!)

The Hajj is one of the most important holidays for Muslims, right up there with Ramadan, (though I must confess, I'm not sure which is more important). You can see a great interactive graphic/map of the hajj on here on cnn.com. I'll give a bit of an explanation below, but for those of you who are more knowledgeable, feel free to comment!

So what is the Hajj, exactly? Some people are probably aware that in Islam, there are five pillars that each Muslim must do in his or her life: giving alms, saying the shahadah (There is no God but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet), praying five times a day, fasting during Ramadan and lastly, going on the pilgrimage to Mecca, or, the Hajj. The Hajj in particular retraces some of the steps of Ibrahim (Abraham, as most westerners would know him) as outlined in the Qu'ran, where Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice his son Ishmael to God.

Here in Bahrain, while many people are not participating the pilgrimage to Mecca, there are plenty of others who are participating in celebrations. One thing that is commonly practiced is the killing of a sheep, and then giving the meat to people who are in need. I haven't seen the actual slaughter yet, but I did see a very large truck-load of sheep being taken somewhere. And probably not to the green pastures near still waters.

As for Alison and I, we are grateful that this Eid (which means festival) falls on the weekend of American Thanksgiving! Alison does not have school tomorrow (Thursday) and does not start school again till next Wednesday. Nor am I teaching classes at the ACEC, which means we both have some time off. Tomorrow we are hosting thanksgiving in conjunction with our neighbor, Linda, for 25 or 30 some odd people! Its going to be quite a feat, none of it organized by me. Me - I'm just the brute labor. I'll probably be moving furniture and carrying turkeys.

The Masjid al Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The large black structure in the middle of the mosque is the directions that all Muslims pray towards, where ever they are in the world.