Culture Change!

Hello! Greetings from Georgia (The country). My Squad has been in the country of Georgia for about a week and a half. My team of 6 spent some time in the capital, Tbilisi, before moving West to the coastal city of Batumi. This area, along the Black Sea, is one of the regions that the apostle Andrew went on one of his missionary journeys! We are focusing on prayer, worship, evangelism, and will also have some upcoming opportunities to help the local churches in this area. We are excited to be here and see what the Lord has for us in this city this month. Here are some prayer requests for our time in Batumi…

1. Please pray against strongholds of apathy, distraction, fear, complacency, and tiredness that we have been sensing in this region and country. 

2. Wisdom, favor, boldness, and obedience as we are engaging in evangelism conversations

3. That the hearts of people will be open to a personal relationship with Jesus and not just follow the traditional cultural Orthodox rituals that are common here.

4. For the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that there would be peace and preservation of lives and for safety and protection of the women and children leaving the country. 

5. For our future partnerships and opportunities to help the local churches. That my team would be a blessing to them and encourage them and the community who we will be meeting with. 

Thank you for your prayers! Your prayers are so powerful! 

I am attempting to get caught up on my blogs 🙂 I am excited to share stories of our time in Jordan! It was incredible and a very different experience than what we had previously experienced in Eastern Europe. 

Traveling to Amman

On December 14th, my team left Uzhhorod, Ukraine and drove about 5 hours up to Lviv where we would be flying out of the next day. We drove along the western border of Ukraine and could see the countries of Slovakia and Poland as we drove north. We stayed the night in a hostel in Lviv before heading to the airport bright and early the next morning. All of the teams meet up to travel together, so at 6:30 am everyone starts showing up and hugs and stories are shared as we wait for the gate to open up. We have a couple hours to kill, so we all head to a corner and sleeping pads get rolled out and several people take a quick nap while we wait. Eventually, the gate opens and big packs get checked in and we head to security. We boarded our first flight, which was a quick flight, and then settled into our 8.5 hour layover in the Istanbul airport. Typically, M Squad heads to a good space to chill and settle down with our bags to make our home base. Then people start pulling out the card games, adventure through the airport, scout out the food options, sleep in a sleeping pod, catch up from the last month, or head to a corner with headphones for some introverted time as 30 Americans all reconnecting can be kind of crazy! We hung out for several hours and then boarded our last flight at 10:00 pm to fly into Amman, Jordan. Around 1 am in the morning our plane lands and we all head to baggage claim to collect our belongings. We start pulling off all of the airporters (big duffles that cover our hiking packs during travel) from the belt as they come through. We count the bags and head to the baggage information counter to figure out where the missing three bags went. Eventually, ALL bags make it through the baggage shoot which was a FIRST for M-Squad on this trip. (Thanks Jesus that since then all the bags have made it with us after a flight!) From there, treasurers start pulling Dinar (local currency) out of the ATM to get the teams started for the month and then we head to our mini-bus to take us about 40 minutes to the hostel for the night. Sleepy and tired we check in and each head to our rooms and crash to end the over 40 hour travel day(s) from Uzhhorod to Amman. 

(M-Squad crashing in the airport in Amman while waiting for bags)

(View our First Morning in Amman)

The next morning, I woke up and had breakfast at our hostel which included hummus, olives, bread, jam, yogurt, an omelet with tomato and cucumbers on the side and coffee! I look out our window from the 3rd floor and see the city for the first time. It is beautiful and as I look out I am thrilled to be back in this culture again. We learn at breakfast that the hostel offers a walking tour twice a day to see the city of Amman and can organize some other tours of places we all wanted to see. Since a few of us have specific roles on our teams that require us to have SIM cards, that was the first task on the agenda for the day and we went out in search of a place to get SIMs. As we are out and walking I take in the sights, sounds, and the smells as we walk. We walk through the city and the smells of cardamom spices coming from Arabic coffee stands, the dust of the ground, car exhaust from the streets, and cigarette smoke all mix together with the sounds of car horns blasting, and people saying “Welcome to Jordan” as we pass on the street. I can’t help but smile as this culture is somewhat familiar to me already even though it is a city I have never been to. One of my teammates looks back at me and sees me smiling and he turns to me, smiles, and says, “You look happy”. I pause, and think “Yes, I feel like I’m at home”. As I was taking in all of the sudden changes from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, being in this culture reminded me of my summer spent in a different city in the Middle East. There were a lot of cultural similarities and being in this city brought me back to a sweet season that the Lord invited me into in the summer of 2019. It was beautiful to once again be back in Arab culture. For lunch we stopped at a busy restaurant for some falafel, hummus, and pita before we headed back to our hostel to meet up for the city walking tour. The food was delicious! 

Here are some pictures from our Walking Tour on our First Day in Amman…

(Spice Stands-Look at those colors!)

(A pretty street)

(Kunafa- A Classic Jordanian Dessert made with thin pieces of phyllo dough and melted cheese topped with honey and pistachios)

(Indoor Market) 

Thanks for following along! I can’t wait to share very soon some more adventures that I had in this amazing country.