And there is joy...-- Lena

I have noticed, as of late, that our blog has had a melancholy note to them. I thought today would be a great day to rectify this situation, because we are not a particularly melancholic group. In fact, I would say that we verge on the side of silly. So I thought today would be a good day to relate some of our more silly stories. First there was our attempt at exercise. Now some of us do better than others when it comes to moving around, however, one day (one that will go down in infamy) we decided to exercise together, our form of exercise was to turn ABBA up as loud as we could and dance around like a bunch of idiots. It was fantastic and, lucky for us, Zach decided it would be a good idea to video our endeavors. If you are a member of facebook you can see the video here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=58174207958&subj=501191784

Another incident, which we don't have video proof of is our joke evening. It was after one of our group meals, and we were sitting around telling jokes. Zach decided to tell a fairly corny joke, with the best results. The joke goes: A duck walks into a hardware store and says, "Got any Gwapes?" The guy behind the counter replies, "Of course not, we're a hardware store." So the duck leaves, the next day the duck walks into the same hardware store and asks, "Got any Gwapes?" The guy behind the counter says, "I already told you we don't have any grapes, now get out of here." Third day the duck walks into the hardware store, and the guy behind the counter says, "Listen buddy, we don't have any grapes, if you ask me one more time I'm going staple your bill shut." So the duck asks, "Got any staples?" The guy behind the counter answers, "no." so the duck replies, "Got any gwapes?" This is the point at which Tine loses her mind laughing, which in turn causes all of us to do the same...I'm pretty sure we laughed uncontrollably for 15 minutes.

Now this last tale I will tell wasn't very funny at the time, but looking back on it, it's pretty funny. I would like to believe I'm much braver than I really am. In fact I'm pretty much a sissy when it comes down to it. On our trip to Petra we stayed in the little village just outside of Petra called Wadi Musa (which you have seen videos of, or read our blog about). On our first day there we decided to take a little hike, which started out pleasant enough, and we even did a little climbing. Towards the end of our day Zach decided to follow the goats up to the top of the little mountain we were on. Of course we all wanted to go. So up we went. The trouble was we couldn't really get back down the way we came. The rocks had come loose so that trail was pretty unstable. If you could have seen the state I was in. I was scared and angry. I was pretty sure we were either going to die trying to get down, or be stuck on the mountain and die there... (the goats got down, I'm not entirely sure why I didn't think we could). The sure footed Zach led Emily and Tine to safety one at a time by the most direct route, straight down. I'm pretty sure he slid down most of the way on loose rocks, while Emily and Tine scooted their way down on their butts. I, on the other hand, was having none of that, I made Lewis take me a round about way. It took twice as long to get down as it did to get up, but we made it safely, and without a scratch. Tine and I said we would never do anything like that again....Until, of course, the next day when we went to Petra and I just HAD to climb to the opening of the lions den. Its never the going up that gets you, its the getting back down.
We live in some somber times, it seems like everywhere you look there is more bad news. It can, and is, and should be sobering. There is no way to look around at the suffering in the world and not be affected by it. I'm a firm believer that God didn't place us on this earth to be miserable. We may go through tough times, but there should ALWAYS be joy. We've been blessed with lots of joy here in Amman. Whether it be seemingly harrowing situations that turn out just fine, inane conversations around the dinner table, acting like goofballs, or visiting chubby babies at the Creche (day Care), we have joy. I can only hope that our wonderful blog followers are enjoying the simple things as well.