mumkin

Dearest Persons,

Hello! :) Not really sure how to start this post, but I feel as if it is a similar feeling to that of starting my Qur'an paper... I just don't know where to begin. I'm researching the topic of "jinn" in Islam, jinn are like demons, or beings of evil, yet they aren't necessarily evil as they may be good too. But anyways, I have this paper due tomorrow and I am really struggling to motivate myself to begin and it's already 8:13pm... I'm going to be up late tonight, yet at the same time, I feel up for a late night. So, since I'm up for a late night I thought I'd be up for a little slash possibly large post. :)

This weekend was mumkin the most amazing of my entire life I think so far. OH MY GOODNESS!!! :) Yet at the same time it's like this big beautiful blur in my mind. Picture taking a blank canvas and seven different thick fine bristled brushes soaked in color, two shades of brownish tan representing the desert and the mountain, one of a perfect sky blue, two of ocean blue-one being a deep gorgeous teal and the other a deep sea blue, throw in a red for the decorations adorning a camel, and top it off with a hot pink-fuschia-purple color for this incredible flowers that speckle the background and bring life to the hotels and shops and restaurants. Then just take those colors and swipe your brushes back and forth, back and forth creating this amazing swirl of colors and patterns... that is what I see in my mind as I think back over the past weekend. I don't know that I have ever been in a place so beautiful... and THERE WERE CAMELS EVERYWHERE!!

We left Cairo around 6pm Thursday evening and arrived at Mt. Sinai around 2:00 in the morning... and we started our hike. Ok, so I am blaming my lack of preparation on my quick journey to Amrica... but no matter what I blame it on, I was not expecting it to be sooo cold! Somehow I didn't even bring my coat... and that's why I brought my coat and hat on this trip... so that I could climb Mt.Sinai... so not sure what happened. Steve Kool came to my rescue though... he had brought an extra fleece and it absolutely saved my life... Kool... you are KOOL!! :) I was still a bit chilled, but once we started climbing, I was stripping layers and re-layering the whole way... we hiked up hill in the dark by the light of the moon for 3 hours and arrived at the top, I think around 5:45... I can not even begin to describe to you the beauty of that night. There were camels everywhere and the trail up Mt. Sinai made big circles as you climbed the mountain, so you like crossed back and forth and turned corners, and many times as you turned a corner and looked up, there were camel silhouettes with the moon behind just tracking up the mountain. It was BREATHTAKING!! One time there were 3 camels at the same time and I sang "We three Kings of Orient Are". On top of the wonder and beauty of the moon, the stars, the mountain, and mainly: the GAMELS, it was SO much FUN to climb Mt. Sinai. I climbed most of the way with Justin and Courtney and some other MESPers and we had some amazing discussion about Islam and our faith. One of my favorite things ever to do is talk about faith, and so it was amazing to just talk about God and Jesus and the whole deal for three hours while climbing an intense mountain. Justin described the journey as like a pilgrimage... and I love that description: to the place where Moses received the 10 commandments, and even more, a pilgrimage to the core of faith. I found a quote today on sweet Johnny Wakefield's website and it went so much along with our conversation that I really want to share it with you as well...

"If you tell me Christian commitment is a kind of thing that has happened to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say go to, go to, you're either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine. Every morning you should wake up in your bed and ask yourself: "Can I believe it all again today?" No, better still, don't ask it till after you've read the New York Times, till after you've studied that daily record of the world's brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side by side with your Bible. Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for that particular day. If your answer's always Yes, then you probably don't know what believing means. At least five times out of ten the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so. The No is what proves you're human in case you should ever doubt it. And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes, it should be a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and... great laughter." - Frederick Beuchner, The Return of Ansel Gibbs

I really liked the end of the quote... "a Yes that's choked with confession and tears and... great laughter." Mmm. Mumkin. :) When we got to the top of the mountain we all spooned... (no worries Momma!... totally g-rated, and not co-ed! haa!) and just laid on blankets in the cold waiting for the sun to come up. And then! AH!!! Persons!! You will NOT EVER understand what I felt in the beauty of that morning!! It was sheer joy and beauty. Our God is SO gorgeous!! We sang the Doxology at least 3 times and I just couldn't stop singing and rejoicing at the beauty of God. I was so exhausted having really not slept in the past week since Gramma died, and just walked uphill and sang and talked the whole way and I'm TOTALLY not in shape, and I had to use the restroom sooo bad... and yet I was just taken aback at the GLORY of the morning. I can not even begin to describe what I felt.

Ok... and so THEN!! On the way down the mountain, after some Egyptian shay (tea), I got to ride a camel... shwayia... for about a kilo. (Funny, our currency is "pounds" and everything is in "kilometers", but you buy fruit by the "kilo"... when I was bartaring for my ride, I only wanted to pay 5 pounds (about a dollar!, yeah baby!) and the man finally said he'd give me a ride for five pounds for a kilo... and I was like, "What? I don't have a kilo! How do I pay you with a kilo?" And it was really funny, because it took me a looong time to figure out that he meant a "kilometer" and not a "kilogram"! :) Haa!) After my camel ride, mumkin during the camel ride... I had the greatest conversation of my life! Stephen and Justin wouldn't give me a knife though... but I asked what would happen if I stabbed the camel in a hump or if you could put a straw in a camel's hump and get water out. The man looked at me like I was crazy and said "La'!" Which means "No!" but I did find out that a camel can go four days without water in the winter and 1 in the summer, however I highly disagree and think that a camel can last a lot longer than this. But yes, so I came the closest I have yet to stabbing a camel in a hump, and I'm thinking I will not ever get to actually stab a camel in the hump, kindly mind you, but at least I asked about it! :)

After we climbed Mt. Sinai we traveled to Dahab which is at the tip of the Sinai peninsula and we were right on the Red Sea and you could see Saudi Arabia on the other side of the sea. It was absolutely amazing and breathtaking! The rest of Friday we spent just relaxing. We ate at this sweet Funny Mummy restaurant on the coast (I had THE best pizza ever... yum! Vegetable pizza with Mediterranean Olives is my new favorite food!), and then we walked the boardwalk and went to the beach and watched the sunset. Then Courtney, Intern Steve, Justin, Todd and I walked all the way up and down the boardwalk and stopped at several different sweet shops. I got some bracelets from some cute little girls, and then we ended the night back at Funny Mummy sipping Sablah... an amazing hot egyptian sweet milk drink with chunks of coconut and raisins and chocolate and other random fruit (tonight it was apple), and then Justin, Dena, Aimee and I played our favorite game... ROOK! :) We need to combine the past scores... we're keeping track all semester. The winner of this night's round to 500 bought dessert for everyone and we shared a banana split on Aimzers and Justin cuz Dena and I ROCK THE HOUSE!! :)

Saturday was... BEAUTIFUL. 10:00 we left our hotel for the Sea and went snorkeling. We loaded into jeeps and rode off through the desert next to the ocean until we came to a place where the reef is beautiful and we snorkeled. First of all, the water was amazing! I was afraid it would be so cold and so salty that I wouldn't be able to stand it; Jonathan and Caleb love to swim in the ocean but I've always had such a hard time with it, and secondly I was terrified of not being able to snorkel or breath underwater and like drowning or choking myself. Snorkeling smashed all of my pessimistic presuppositions and was THE most amazing thing I have ever done in my entire life. Dad, you weren't lying when you said that snorkeling when you went to Haiti was absolutely incredible... I can not DESCRIBE to you the wonder and beauty of the sea... and snorkeling and being able to see what is under the sea!! WOW! The water was wonderful and warm, and the salt was salty, but it helped keep me afloat and it didn't choke me very much at all... the waves were incredible. Sometimes I took my mask off and just swam and let the waves carry me and it felt so good to just swim in the sea. I had this really naughty urge to just take off all of my clothes and just be free in the sea... but no worries, I did not succumb to this urge and did not skinny dip in the Red Sea... mumkin next time? ;) HAA! Snorkeling, though... oh I just wish that I could share with you what I saw in my mind (apologies that my camera is not waterproof!)... it was like being in a huge fish aquarium... WITH THE FISH!!! I saw Nemo fish, schools of like gold fish, beautiful yellow and black striped fish, several eels, a few huge neon green shiny fish, and my favorite was when I was surrounded by these gorgeous bright blue Dory colored fish. It was So incredibly gorgeous and amazing. At one point I just wanted to sing... and actually I tried and gagged myself... I'm a dork. :) It did take me a while to relax and get comfortable with my mask and not freak out about drowning or not breathing, but then it was the best feeling I've ever had and I just want to climb a mountain and snorkel in the sea every day for the rest of my life. Wish I lived in Hawaii or something! :)

After snorkeling it up and swimming in the sea we headed back to our hotel, changed our clothes and left for Sharma Sheiik, a major tourist joint near Dahab. Oh yeah, I forgot... the only bad part about the weekend... when we were back at Mt. Sinai, we went to St. Catherine's Monastary and saw the supposed "Burning Bush"... yeah, not sure how I feel about that being the burning bush or not, but whatever! ;) Anyways... we were waiting to go in and I was wearing my fleece pajama pants underneath my favorite blue jeans that Al-e-cin gave me last semester... and I totally ripped them... in the butt... a HUGE massive rip!! It was the saddest thing I've ever done in my life!! But it was ok cuz I'd just bought a bag that hung low enough to cover the hole and my pj pants were under. Guess I'll have to buy some Egyptian jeans... bummer, huh? Haa! :) Anyways, at Sharma Sheiik we spent about 2 hours just exploring and I ate dinner with Courtno, Bessbusa, Aimzers, and Sarah at this amazing Thai Restaurant. It was delicious!! Amanda Mavichiien... you are MISSED!! Love you girl!! Then we got ice cream and headed home... played some Rook on the bus... tried to sleep... and got home around 12:30/1...

to find AMERICA HAD ARRIVED AT THE VILLA!!!!!!!!!!! :) Yeah, that's right!! My bag came!! SOOO exciting!! This morning... we had Christmas. I'm not even kidding you... and we had Christmas Burkey style!! :) I read Luke 2, the story of Christmas, and as we went through we sang like every Christmas carol in the book on cue... like when it mentioned that she laid him in a manger, we sang "Away in a Manger", or when the shepherds spread the news about what had happend we sang "Go! Tell it on the Mountain!" It was SO much fun!! And THEN!!! I had a HUGE trashbag full of Amrica and passed out a piece of America to all of my friends... and during the celebration of Christmas we all munched on Swedish Fish and Candy Hearts... it was THE best devo ever this morning!! Oh, I love Christmas, I love America, and most of all... I LOVE MY FELLOW MESPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel so blessed to be in the place where I am and be able to experience the wonders of creation and God and be learning so much in the meantime about life and faith and people, and really, about love. I am tired and exhausted, but I am so encouraged and just alive... more alive and just full of joy than I think I ever have been! Egypt is the best place in the world... well, thus far on my adventure in life... I think if I ever get to go to the Victorian Falls in Zimbabwe/Zambia or Cape Hope in South Africa I may have to change my mind... but oh, goodness... I love this place.

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment as you can... my commenting thingy is now working loud and clear... I love it when you let me know who you are though... like, the alum Mesper that wrote... who are you and I'd love to email you if you wanna email! (kburkey@olivet.edu) And also, know that I love you and am praying for you, yes, even here in Egypt... I think of so many of you often and randomly. All of my Olivetians... you are SO in my prayers and mind this week... Linz, Dorie, Steph, Jess... I was SO thinking about you guys... I think I was swimming in the Red Sea, mumkin the same time you were swimming in the ocean at Cancun! Erin, Carolyn, Katie, Jennifer, Ryan... all you Argentinians for a week... you are in my prayers and I'm so excited to hear all about your trip.... family, Burkeys, uncles, aunts, cousins, I'm praying for you... keep holding on to Jesus and trusting him just like Gramma would be telling you to, I love you and you are in my prayers... Jonathan, Caleb, Anna, Momma, Dad: I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! Every day I wish that you could be with me experiencing all the wonder of God that I am so blessed to be experiencing. I'm praying for you and love you SOO much!!

And I think I will end this post by explaining the word Mumkin. It's a staple word here in Egypt. It means: possible/possibly? We use it ALL the time. Or Mish Mumkin... Not possible/not possibly? Ya know, last night on the bus I was studying my Arabic and I was telling Justin and Aimee and Christina that I hate Arabic but today I've re-examined my heart and I need to make a clear cut change. Arabic is beautiful. What I hate is being rushed through my homework, having missed a week, and feeling just so out of the loop. I do like the Arabic language. It is sooo beautiful and flowery, and just, breathtaking... like the region it formulates from. So yeah... disclaimer: I LOVE ARABIC!! I really do. I just have to remember that when I'm frustrated at our dear teacher Nahed. :)

Ok, I need to go start that paper... Geez... it's 9:25!! I just blogged for more than an hour... oh well, it was worth it... I needed to get all of that out of my system into word format. Haa!

I love you all dearly!!
You are in my heart and my prayers!

Lost in His Mighty Grip,
Your Kara Joy