This is the outdoor amphitheater that seats 20,000. All seats are filled on any given service.

Many bible stories and figures are carved into the cliffs.

Crosses were everywhere, subtil at first, until you began to look for them. Negotiating the big tourist bus we were traveling in was truly remarkable. Some places only afforded inches, several point turns to get through. We headed to the top of the city where 2 amphitheaters have been carved out of the cliffs.

Today we went to Simon's Church in Garbage City. Garbage City had sprung up over people sifting through and sorting usable/recyclable material in the local dump. The people there were generally all maner of unsavory character until 1972 when a Christion man (I forget what he did as a living, I'm working on slim memory here) began to minister to the people there. He began a wholesale change where today, most of the residents are Christian.

Wednesday:
Sorry about the delay in postings. A hectic schedule coupled with intestinal problems left no time or inclination. Whew!

Sorry about the fuzzy pictures. I forgot to turn my flash back on. Had to show you this lady, one of 2 that carried our bags up the stairs to the 2nd floor. This is Steve’s bag which weighs 50 or more pounds.

Meg with her new girlfriend. She is one of the girls that did her own alterations. Notice the side arms are switched so that this high arm rest is in the front. This aids in her manuvering in and out of the chair.

This is the girl’s home. We didn’t have too much to do. Some of the women had altered their chairs to fit their own conditions. Quite impressive. And they all we really happy to be with us and fun.

These are brothers with muscular distrophe. They were quite fun, although Brother Raafat said they were subdued today by our presence, though it’s not the norm.

These are the boys after we were through. Brother Raafat is standing at the far left.

Tuesday:
Therapists Diane and Meg and mechanics Steve and myself with Inez as interpreter went back to the coptic care home for boys and another for girls also run by Brother Raafatfor proper seating adjustment and repairs, having wood, vinyl and foam available. Others returned to the White Angel disability center to help out for a few hours. Also, more home visits.

Monday:
No pictures today. Coptic care home for boys. Nice, large facility that houses 10 boys, 9 of which use wheelchairs. The facility is run by Brother Raafat and is capable of housing up to 70. This day was mostly for assessment of the chairs and training by the therapists for lifting, transferring and etc as there was little time for Brother Raafat to devote to us. We mechanics got to use our tools for the 1st time fixing what we could on the chairs. Yahoo! On the way home, therapist Diane, support Rachel and mechanic me along with another team were dropped off for home visit. Ours was a famous comedian and movie star George who had a stroke about 13 years ago. He was married 3 years prior to that to his lovely wife Linda who has been caring for him since. They are Christian. Linda needed a little training on care but for the most part was doing really well already.

The women: Diane Sanker, Elyse Cartmell, Meg Mueller, Meghan Lyndsay, Rachel Hetzel, Jenny Lotter, Patsy Lawton, Cindy Fahy, Jasmine Crawford, Eunice Galloway, Inez Joseph, Nivin Joseph, Donna O’Connor, Judy Soares with Blakely Pollock wandering elsewhere.

The men: Dr. Bill Lawton, Jim Cowart, John O’Connor, Nick Frey, Steve McKenzie, Craig Garner with Gordon Soares wandering elsewhere.

Elyse and Rachel just as a gust of wind came up.

Sunday:
This morning we went to the largest evangelical church in Egypt. The service was about 1 1/2 hours long and translation over headphones was provided. The sermon was the wonderful message of Jesus and the Canaanite woman at the well; how she at first misinterpreted his message to mean earthly water rather than the heavenly slaking of thirst through our Messiah and then later to be so excited that she left her bucket at the well to tell the all of her village the good news. A perfect example of how we want to tell, with great excitement, all the people of the world of the good news. Aahhh, we were at home with our brothers and sisters in the land of Moses.