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KEZIA
29 March 2008
Hi everyone,
I hope you're all doing well. Sorry again that for a lot of you it's been a really long time since I've been in touch... as usual! It was great to see so many of you at Christmas and catch up with you. I'm pleased to say that this is going to be a much happier email than the one I sent before Christmas when I didn't know where I was going to live and lots of things were seeming really uncertain - thank you for praying because God has really answered your prayers, and I am really feeling at the moment like I am getting much more than my fair share of good things from God! It's good that he doesn't do 'fair shares'!
After some more confusion and living out of a suitcase for a while, I moved in with my friend Anja, from Germany, last week - and I finally unpacked yesterday - and it just feels so great to finally know that I have somewhere to stay until I leave, and with a really good friend. Anja is a social worker and here she has studied Arabic for a year and is now beginning to work in Egyptian preschools to train the teachers there. I am living in Maadi, where the church is, so that's easier, and it's just a much nicer area with lots of trees, and I can't really believe I live here! It's also right next to the metro line which makes getting places so much easier. And, after feeling really alone for a while last year, I now seem to have lots of friends again somehow. We went to visit my friend Amira from work who had a baby this month, and that was a really special day. When I was leaving Edinburgh I really realised how many amazing friends God had given me there and thought that could never happen again - but it has! So it will be hard to leave in August...
But actually I am excited about being back home next year after being away for so lonng. I did apply for my MSc when I was at home, and I got accepted! And I finally remembered to send a fax to accept my place, so I am really going to do it (although you could pray that I get some funding for it!!). So I will really be back in the UK, at least for a year! :) The course is called 'Violence, Conflict and Development', at SOAS, at the University of London, and I've wanted to do it for about 5 years now and it's the only course like that in the UK, so I'm so excited that I can really do it. So thank you for praying for that too!
I have also been so much less stressed out at work - I think the reasons to be stressed are still just the same, but somehow I'm taking it less personally and not feeling so responsible for everything, which is much better. We are still needing a new director and someone to do my job when I leave, and it's quite urgent now as a lot of people are leaving this summer. I sent a lot of proposals to some trusts in the UK in January, so maybe you could pray that some of them (or a lot of them!) decide to give money to Refuge Egypt! Inflation is totally crazy in Egypt at the moment and many food items are double the price they were last year, which isn't good for our budget for food packages. The art lessons with the kids are going well, but my girls' small group has stopped because the friend I went with couldn't do it anymore, so please pray for the girls and for someone else to help me if I'm supposed to keep doing it. I'm still teaching English, although my class has got smaller as a lot of people are returning to Sudan. It's interesting as now almost half of our new refugees at Refuge Egypt actually come from Eritrea.
I feel like every time I write to you I should tell you about the latest crazy job I have been given for which I am totally unqualified - so this time it is being the Emergency Team Manager - ha ha. That's the department that registers newcomers and gives food and clothing and emergency assistance (where I worked when I started) and while Amira is on maternity leave for 3 months I'm supposed to be in charge! It's funny. But actually it's another great opportunity for me to try something new, and I've always thought I would be an awful manager because I hate confronting people and telling people what to do, so I thought it would be a good chance to prove it! So we'll see what happens. It will be interesting because really the staff are my friends, so I hope I don't have any problems with them! I really like this department though, so it's nice to have a chance to be more involved with the services we provide instead of just writing about them. Actually I really can't believe the number of different things I've had the chance to do here - it's been such an amazing experience. I was able to visit our clinic in Arba wa Nus, a really poor area of Cairo, last week, and it's really cool as it's run by the Episcopal, Orthodox and Catholic churches together and serves poor Egyptians as well as refugees. Our Clinic was running a TB and HIV awareness day in a Sudanese school there, and it was great to see that as well; the kids were really interested and participated really well. We are supposed to start providing Anti-Retroviral treatment to about 25 AIDS patients next month too - we have funding but are waiting for one more training session for the medical staff. Please pray that it really happens and works well, as we will be the first people to provide ARVs for refugees here, and there could be complications but we hope it will be worth it and really help these people.
I can't think of anything extra crazy that has happened here recently (or maybe crazy things are just normal for me now?!). I got stuck for a while on a 'pedestrian' bridge the other day as a donkey cart with a lot of vegetables and a delivery guy on a motorbike tried to pass each other, and was thinking that I will miss things like that in England! I won't however miss the guys in the street...! I really couldn't imagine the snow on Easter Sunday when it was 40 degrees here... It's cooled down to about 30 now, and I really hope that the summer won't be too much hotter!
So, that's what's happening at the moment. Thank you SO much for your continued prayer and support, it really means a lot, and while I was not coping so well at the end of last year it was really a big encouragement to me. It's so good to be able to write you a happy email - I'd love to hear from you too and hear how things are going. At my church here we have had some difficult times and a lot of change, and recently one of the pastors likened it to having been in an open space and then going through a valley for a long time, and now again coming out into an open space - and the valley is pretty much all the time I have been there, so I was at first kind of disappointed that have only been there in the valley and I am going to leave and miss the time of new things when I'll be back in England. But then I realised that God has really been preparing me and teaching me a lot, and actually it seems to be a time for new things not just for that church, but also for me personally and a lot of other people I know, and I think also for our church at home... so I am really excited about what God is doing and is going to do, and that I get to be part of it! I think he can even do exciting things in the UK! Maybe... ;)
Hope to hear from you soon! Lots of love, Kezia
'Be not afraid... for the open pastures are becoming green.
The trees are bearing their fruit;
the fig-trees and the vine yield their riches...
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.'
- Joel 2:22-24
19th February 2008
'A video! Kezia's exploits in Egypt - a largish download but well worthwhile' - Webmaster, click on the image below to start the video
4 November 2007
Hi everyone!
For some of you it's been a very long time since I've been in touch - sorry. I have been meaning to write this for ages but every time I think of doing it something else crazy seems to happen and I wait for things to settle down again!
Really a lot has happened since I came back after being at home in June, which now seems a very long time ago! The summer was quite difficult because a lot of people were away and it was just too hot to be able to do very much which was quite frustrating. I did help with the summer school though, and was pleased that teachers were using the ideas I prepared in the workshop I had to give to lots of teachers just before I came home.
A lot of crazy stuff happened at work since then - the previous development officer (the person who communicates with donors and writes reports and proposals etc) left and I kind of took over from her, with the help of another volunteer, Gillian. Gillian was already overwhelmed with responsibilities and so I tried to take on all of the work, and became very stressed because no one had really explained how to do the job, and because we also recently lost our accountant and coordinator earlier in the year, it seemed that there were also some financial problems that no one seemed to be aware of except me! So to cut a long story short, I started to think that I was responsible for everything, and got really stressed and was doing much too much. I realised it wasn't right as I was having to cut out the other things I do which are more people-y (ie the things I came to do!) - teaching English and teaching art in the school. So now, while I am still doing the reports and proposals job, I am trying to see the other things as my priority like they are meant to be, and it seems to be working better! If I get the balance right I will really enjoy it because I get to do art, working with children and teenagers, and doing research and writing etc for the office stuff.
Another thing that has been difficult for me since coming back is knowing where I'm meant to live and who I'm meant to be living with. In September an American volunteer who came to work with Refuge Egypt moved in with me, but this didn't really work out and she also had to stop working with RE because of some policies she broke, which put me in a really difficult position for a while which was quite stessful, and last week she moved out, so I'm back to being by myself again. Dave and Viv (my friends downstairs) have also left, so I'm very alone! I think I will move somewhere else when my contract ends at the end of the year as it is very expensive, but I really am not sure where - a month ago I thought I would be able to move in with a family I know but then they changed their mind about that so that also made me a bit confused about everything! I don't like living on my own but now I really only want to live with someone if I'm sure it's what God wants as it's really too stressful otherwise!
So really I haven't been in touch as everything seems to have been changing so much and I never really know what's going on! Despite all the confusion I am still very glad that I'm here, and I really love the opportunities work gives me and now I have been there for almost a year I have really strong relationships with people at the office and I know that I will really miss them a lot when I eventually leave. Another volunteer called Marie is going to help me this year with the art lessons in the school and we are going to expand it to be more like an after school programme with different topics each week (like identity, talents, goals...) which I think will be great, and I have been teaching a new class at the English programme, a bigger group with 10 people this time, and I really like them - it's been great getting to know a new group and to build relationships with them. Another new thing is a small group for teenage girls I have started with my friend Eman from work, in a very poor area on the outskirts of Cairo (which involves crazy bus journeys!). We've been doing it for about a month now and have around 12 girls coming from about six families. My arabic is still very limited so it's a bit tricky for me as we do it all in Arabic (unless I speak!), and I mostly understand it. I really want to see it become a bigger programme in more areas, because this age group of refugees often feel neglected and have big struggles with their parents, and I really hope we can encourage them and help them to rebuild their family relationships. I'm still not sure how I can do this as I can only communicate with them on a very basic level! But I really think it was a God idea so I'm praying he will really use it and use us.
Cairo itself continues to be completely crazy every day - nothing really surprises me anymore, and I think I am going to find life really boring when I get home and things happen mostly in the way you expect them to! I've recently seen a bus which was falling off a bridge being pushed back onto the road by its passengers, seen inflatable snowmen hanging up above cows outside a butchers shop to celebrate Ramadan (another thing that made everything crazy!), and last week a taxi driver let me name his newborn baby which was born during my taxi journey.
I guess that's probably enough for now - again sorry for the delay! Thank you so much for continuing to pray for me, even when I am rubbish at keeping you informed with things to pray for. I would really appreciate prayer at the moment because I still feel a bit confused about things and would really like to hear what God wants to say to me. Please can you pray:
- That I will find somewhere to live for after Christmas, and with the right person or people
- That I won't take on too much stuff at work and will remember that God's in control of Refuge Egypt, not me!!
- That the proposals I have recently finished will be successful, especially with new donors - we are trying to raise the salaries for our staff who get paid very little, and it will be really hard without more funding
- For Refuge Egypt - to find a new coordinator soon - also as we are carrying out a review of our services and staff that God will guide that process and give us wisdom, especially if we have to end some programmes
- For the girls' small group - that God will use it and that the girls will be open to talking about the issues they are facing
- For the situation in Sudan - people are talking about problems in the South again
- I'm also currently meant to be applying for the masters I want to do next year - that I'll get references, get accepted and get funding, and stop procrastinating about it!!
Thank you - I really appreciate you reading this and your prayers and support. I'd love to hear how you're doing too if you have a chance. It's actually not long til I'll be home for Christmas (from the 18th December) and I'll be in Edinburgh for new year, so I hope that I'll see most of you then!
Lots of love, Kezia xx
29 September 2006
Hi everyone,
I think that most of you will know by now that I moved to Cairo a couple of weeks ago, and that I'm here hoping to get involved with work with Sudanese refugees (there are thousands here in Egypt and the number just keeps growing) alongside the local church here. For the past three or four years I have really felt God calling me to work alongside people who have been broken in some way and have maybe lost their sense of identity and value, and I felt torn between Africa and the middle east - so this is a combination of both. I really want to understand the issues around refugees, poverty and development, and so I'm hoping that I will learn a lot here and that God will be able to use me (even though I sometimes really don't see how He can!). Hopefully I'll be able to share what I learn with you. Like Meg, I really want to thank you for your support, in the many different ways it has been expressed - it has meant so much and encouraged me to keep going. It also means that God is using all of us in this, which takes the pressure off me! I really value your prayers.
At the moment it looks like I could be spending up to four months studying Arabic. I really enjoy it, as I have been wanting to learn Arabic for years. This will mean I don't start working with the refugees as a full time thing until the new year, which seems a long time away - but I am hoping there might be opportunities to get involved with things on a part time basis, as I seem to keep meeting people who vaguely mention these kinds of things! So watch this space. So generally at the moment my life is mostly taken up with Arabic. I've made friends with people at the language school, and the teachers are unbelievably enthusiastic! I'm gradually getting used to life in Cairo - it really is very hot! It is Ramadan at the moment, which is definitely an experience. I am also managing not to get run over! It would be great if you could pray that I will make some really good friends, that a slightly complicated situation with my flatmate (who I haven't met yet) will get sorted out, and that I will take the right opportunities and know the right time to be starting to do things.
Thanks again, it would be great to hear from you! If you want to get in touch you can get my contact details and some guidelines from my mum (hope she doesn't mind!) - lesley156@btinternet.com.
Kezia
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