Pictures 'n Stuff (Edited on 9/3)

Yeah for more adventures! Here's a rundown of what we've been up to since Thursday night:

Thursday: study & prayer with Toasty and Tea (Toastmaster and Good Earth Tea are too long of names). :) Pizza for dinner here at the apartment, provided by T & T.

Friday: Before arriving at Tripoli, we had a lovely breakfast downtown, visited Jeita Grotto (an awesome cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites), and ate an amazing Lebanese lunch complete with raw beef (see picture of T&T above). We then attended Toasty's Toastmaster meeting (Chicken Wing was surprised to be selected as a an impromptu speaker regarding "migration" AKA "emigration"), and were welcomed Lebanese-style into the home of native Tripolians. :)

Saturday: Ate a Lebanese breakfast before leaving the Tripolian home, toured the ruins of Biblos, went to the candy factory for treats, and came back to the apartment.

Sunday: Prayer time, met with friends and their little baby from Iraq at the Jaana beach (yeah, it's rough swimming in the warm Mediteranean Sea), and had great conversations there (see pictures). Toasty and Wing talked with Steve about the kingdom, and Tea and I talked with Wendy about cultural differences, family life, view of Americans, adoption, food, and other things. :)

Monday: T&T had Arabic study/class again, so Wing and I romped around the city, purchased items for dinner from multiple street vendors, had an adventure with the ATM machine, and made T&T dinner. Quite fun and interesting. Wing accidentally used red pepper powder instead of chili powder for the veggie stew, so it was more like "Crazy-Monkey-Hot-Try-to-Taste-the-Veggies" stew. We also had great sharing and prayer time with guy/guy, girl/girl time.

Tuesday: Went to friend Ali's carpet shop (AKA Persian Rug Store) to look at a Persian Rug as a souvenir. We sat down and talked with Ali for about 30 minutes, looked at rugs for 30 minutes, and then sat down and had Lebanese tea and talked for another 45 minutes. Soooo, buying things takes a little bit of time since you can't just pop in, buy something, and pop out. Ali was great to talk to... the Lebanese people in general are very expressive and animated! At one point, we were certain we heard multiple gun fire, but were later told that it was fireworks (!). All the people around us didn't seem to think it was a big deal... we judge our reactions to things by looking at the Lebanese. Then we went to the Methalf, which is the National Museum of Lebanon. It was reopened in the late 1990's after the civil war was over. Pictures to come. You'll be amazed! Hailing and negotiating a far with a "Servees" (cab) to the museum and back was an experience in itself! Toasty and Wing then returned a car we were borrowing, and Tea and I got our hair cut and "brushed" (AKA styled) together. Then we all had a very late dinner, which is typical here. I think 9:00-11:00 pm.

Wednesday: It's our last day here... we're going out to negotiate deals on presents. Wish us luck! We also hope to have really good prayer time with each other. Please pray against distractions and other things that could come up and interrupt this time together.

We probably won't have time to write another post today, so please also pray for safe travels tomorrow! We leave Beirut at 9:30 am and get back to Sac at 8:30 pm, even after 24 hours of traveling. Hum. And I thought my concept of time was wacked out before now....

See you soon! We love and miss you.