5 Day Kuwait Forecast
Wooo HOOOOO Kuwait! Look at this forecast! Winter has arrived, not a single day in the upcoming five days expected to go to 100°F! Wooo HOOOO!
I woke up this morning to hear the wind whistling and we have lots of wave action today and the surf is up – not the glassy calm of the summer mornings.
Ansam, because you ask, sunrise was around 0600 this morning. 🙂
Mangaf, Paradise Garden and Beit Ash-Shar
Last week, AdventureMan and I were out looking for the private farm in Mangaf / Abu Halifa that blogger Bu Yousef wrote about. Imagine – fresh produce, locally produced. It is unbelievable that it exists in a burgeoning house-to-house suburb like Mangaf. Once Bu Yousef wrote about it, we couldn’t wait to find it and try it for ourselves. We LOVE local, and I am waiting for Yasmine Farms spinach to re-appear in the Sultan Center.
It is an OASIS!
AdventureMan said “it looks like Paradise!”
We got a little lost trying to find it – thank God! As we were driving around, looking for this farm/garden we spotted this:
In Jordan, these were called Beit (Beyt) ash-Shar, House of Hair. The panels of the tent were woven on small looms by the Bedouin women – the looms were made of sticks that could easily be assembled and disassembled. They had herds of sheep and goats, and the tent panels were woven of hair from their own sheep and goats. In Jordan, the nomads lived in these tents, picking up and moving as it was time to pasture their sheep and goats in the next place.
I can’t tell you how much this thrilled our hearts. Someone is using this tent – we believe – as an outdoor diwaniyya.
It’s a great day in Kuwait.
Hearts, Hands and Hope
Opportunities for you from Operation Hope – Kuwait:
Thank You all baking volunteers:
We at Operation HOPE want to express our thanks to all our baking volunteers for their beautifully packed and labeled donations. We appreciate your extra effort and work of excellence to support our mission. And a special thanks to Jaye Lynn and Emily Lester for manning the sales table!
Thank You all Tent clearance and inventory volunteers:
What a blessing when men, women and children, who represent multiple nations can come together for the good of mankind. Many hands did make for lighter work. As our tent was cleared, inventoried and then restocked. We are able to do what we do because of you.
Volunteers needed:
We are happy to announce our very first packing schedule for winter apparel for this year on Saturday October 18, 2008 from 7am to 10:30 am. At this time our goal is to pack 3000 bags each, with a set of thermal underclothing, pair of socks, pair of gloves and cap. Lend your help packing a few bags or all 3000 bags; but DO lend us your help. Please RSVP your commitment ASAP.
Flea market Saturday October 25, 2008:
Operation HOPE will have a Flea market at the OH head quarters (Rumaithiya, Block 9, Street 92, House 23) at 7am to 12 noon. We will be selling books, small appliances, electronics, gently used household items etc. All proceeds of the sale go to Operation Hope. We encourage you to spread the word around and bring in at least one friend with you.
Volunteers needed: to set up the items for the flea market, Friday, October 24, 2008 at 3 PM. Please RSVP your commitment to help as soon as possible.
Volunteers needed: to help at the Flea Market with sales and clean-up, Saturday, October 25th from 6:30 AM – 12:30 PM. Your RSVP is appreciated as soon as possible.
Laptop Needed:
The Operation HOPE administration has grown considerably and we require a mobile tool to keep on top of our busyness. We appreciate your consideration towards the contribution of a NEW laptop.
Demolish Tariq Rajab Museum?
I am horrified. Blogger Hanan reports that there are rumors that the Tariq Rajab Museum has received a warning to close or be demolished, that they have no permit to run a museum.
This family has two museums, two fine, fabulous museums, and admission to the public is free of charge. It is a bright spot in Kuwaiti Culture. (I thought there was a movement out there to encourage tourism? This is where I take my guests! This is where we tell tourists to go!)
I have no WASTA my friends. First, can you confirm that the museum has indeed been warned? Can you make this go away?
Johah and Yunus
Sometimes one of my fellow Christians will say “God never changes his mind!” I won’t argue, but if you read scriptures, you know that God changes his mind all the time. Moses bargains with God, Noah bargains with God, Lot bargains with God – and after the mighty fish vomits Jonah (called Yunus in the Qur’an according to Wikipedia) onto dry land and Johah does the will of God – goes to Nineveh and tells them to repent, because their destruction is at hand – the entire population of Nineveh repents and God changes his mind, he relents, he forgives them.
Then the story takes one of those strange turns that stories often do in real life. Jonah gets his nose out of joint because God changed his mind and allowed the Ninevans to live.
Jonah 3:1-10,4:1-11
3The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’ 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ 5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
4But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ 4And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ 5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
6 The Lord God appointed a bush,* and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’
9 But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’ 10Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’
So here is my question – what do Islamic traditions have to say about Yunus? I have read the scriptures in the Qur’an, they are sketchy, thin, but I also know that often tradition has more to say about the stories we share, and I am asking if there is any illumination about why Yunus felt angry after God did not destroy Nineveh?
Lazy Thursday Sunrise 16 Oct 08
Good morning, Kuwait! (biiiiig yyaaaawwwwwwwwnnnnnnn!)
Hope you slept well. It’s a beautiful day out there, hot, dry – and look! Humidity only 25%! We can live with that.
Up with the sun this morning, and another rosy sulphurous sunrise this morning:
TGIT! Hope you have a great weekend.
Enigmatic Sunset
Wooooo HOOOOOO! Enigma! She sends in a dramatic sunset! What do you think?
I am having so much fun with this Challenge! You guys have made my week. 🙂 It’s your last chance. Tomorrow is the end of the challenge – hit the sunset tonight!
BTW, have you seen the big huge full moon rising over the Gulf the last two nights? Grab your cameras! Run!
Sunrise Blog Action Day, 15 October 2008
A very rosy pink sunrise this morning, and, Thanks be to God, the humidity back down to 28%! High humidity is wonderful; it reminds us how good it is to have low humidity, LOL!
What Poverty Does to US (Blog Action Day 2008)
Today, Blog Action Day 2008, we are to write about poverty.
There are many levels of poverty, and I have seen the worst. I have seen people without the very most basic necessities of life, without enough food, without a safe place to spend the night, people who would sell their baby for another fix, people who live in filth. The very worst thing about poverty is what it does to those who see it, but are not poor – it hardens our hearts.
The overwhelming nature of poverty, the knowledge that we can only do so much, that our efforts are like little drops in a great sea, it can make you turn away from doing anything at all. Afraid to feel to much, we build a wall around our hearts, so we won’t have to feel. We judge, we walk away.
So who is poor? Does not God look at our hearts? He teaches us that the poorest of the poor, who shares one crust of bread with another, is more merciful than the donor who gives generously out of abundance. If we harden our hearts, if we turn away from these problems, who then is poor? Do we not have a deep inner problem, a severe inner poverty, a poverty of spirit?
One of the great God-jokes I see as I live my life is how what we see and what we learn is often the opposite of what God teaches us. He tells us not to put our faith on earthly treasures, our cars, our houses, our material possessions. He tells us the greatest wealth of all is in giving it all away and serving him.
As the financial markets dip and twirl on the roller coaster of doubts and fears and perceptions, as people watch their life savings dwindle, will we learn our lesson? (Can you hear God laughing?)
One of the great secrets of wealth is giving it away – ask Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world, or Bill Gates. They have made fortunes, walked away and given abundantly of their wealth to make the world a better place. God smiles on them. They learned the secret.
When you help the poor, you are blessed.
There is a story we tell volunteers about a little boy along the seashore. Thousands of starfish are stranded on the shore as the tide recedes and a man watches as the little boy picks up starfish and throws them out into the ocean, one at a time. After watching a while, he shouts at the boy “Give it up! There are so many starfish! You can’t save them all!” and the little boy, without pausing, shouts back “But I can save THIS one!”
I worked for a year with homeless families. As I worked with them, I found myself learning from their stories, and from their determination to make a better life for their children. Working with the homeless is like throwing starfish back into the sea. Some might make it and others won’t. There are dark days, days when you feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of those who need your help. By focusing on what you CAN do, you hope to make a difference, even in the life of just THIS family, or that child.
We need to ask ourselves, those of us who live in abundance, how can we receive this blessing, the blessing of working with and/or giving to the poor? Is there a food closet that needs your donations and your weekly volunteer effort? Is there a mosque or church that uses volunteers to serve a daily meal to the poorest of the poor? Is there a sandwich delivery to the street poor? Is the Salvation Army active in your area? Are there decent clothes in your closet which you have outgrown? Are there pillows or blankets you could donate to Operation Hope Kuwait? How can you serve the poor? How can you receive this blessing?
Donations of your time, your energy, your vision will not only be a small contribution towards improving the world one small act at a time, it will also lessen the soul-deadening impact of poverty, it will be a blessing to YOU. Working together, people can make a difference. You can make a difference in the life of the poor. You can make a difference, by serving, in your own life.
Q8 Geek Updates Submissions
Here’s the spirit! Q8Geek submitted some brand new photos trying to capture the Great Kuwait Sunset Challenge bragging rights:
I really love the way he has the Kuwait skyline in the background, and the way the foreground swoops! One tiny little flaw, and it’s just a personal thing . . . streetlights. AAARRGH!
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