Girls, Girls, Girls

Kendra in her new sweater from Grandpa and Grandma.

Katrina with a nine-day-old baby donkey - we could not get enough pictures of this little guy!
Here are the girls and their friends riding a donkey for Palm Sunday.
The baby is in the background.
Henna! This is a dye that you leave on for 1/2 hour then scrape off.
The temporary tattoo (light orange) then lasts for a week.

Katrina showing off her sweater from Grandma and Grandpa.

Kendra under the cherry blossoms.
Katrina loves to jump from this branch!

Cousin bridge!

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter to all of you! We are celebrating here with Morocco's amazing cobalt-blue skies and refreshing blossoms. With spring rains Morocco turns from a dusty, rocky brown to a lush carpet of green. It doesn't last long - all the more reason to ooh and ah at the beauty of it all.

I suppose I should also mention that it did snow hard on Easter morning. The girls were very worried that the trees would be confused. None of the snow stuck and we are back to our normal skies and slowly-rising temps.

For Easter, our pastor talked about the contrast of power on Easter at the tomb - guards with swords, might and strength - standing right across from the two Marys - weak, weeping and hopeless. But with the arrival of resurrection power, the guards fell down as "dead men" and the women were filled with new life and joy!

May you be filled with that same resurrection power which pours hope and strength into your life for each and every day - no matter what you are facing.

Good Friday

Good Friday
By Kathy Coffey

It pulls at some deep corner
this scene of mother
holding battered child,
cradling a son become a worm.

The hair she had combed,
blood-matted the silken skin, gashed.
"What have you done to him?"
turned to "At least you can do no more."

In crushed silence, we enter
the empty night of those
who murdered God,
vowing we will
not add another splinter to that cross.

Zaouia

About 15 minutes from us is a Zaouia - a shrine sometimes surrounded by a village. There are many of these all over Morocco and each one is also named after the Muslim saint buried there. This particular one is unique in that almost all the homes in this tiny town have at least one room that is a cave. "Ifrane" is thought to mean cave because of this village and the many small caves in the area.

Karen and I went to go visit a woman there who had a small cut on her foot a year ago. It got gangrene and she had to have almost all of her leg amputated. This is one of the many sad, sad examples of seeking medical care too late.

To get to the woman's house, we passed by their stable (first picture) - I had to peek inside to make sure Mary and Joseph weren't in there too! The third picture is the woman's daughter-in-law who was fixing us some tea. As you can see, their kitchen is in a cave. The left wall is bricked in as is the wall connecting the kitchen to the rest of the house. Everything else is the cave. You can see how low the ceiling is and that it is impossible for an adult to stand up inside. Amazingly, they had electricity coming in and the kitchen even had a refrigerator!

Later we were invited into another home pictured second. Passing through the rest of the house, we entered the cave through a round doorway and went down several steps into the room. All the walls had paintings telling the story of the wiseman who founded this town many years ago. You can see our friend telling Karen the story in this picture. And yes, the little pink marshmallow is Kendra.

The story goes that in the 1100s, a wiseman and his wife settled in what is now Ifrane from the Sahara Desert. From here there are two tales of why he moved - one is that his wife said it was too cold and wanted to move below the snow line - the other is that he loaded his donkey and followed it to where the town/zaouia is today.

In those days, the king of Morocco lived in Fez - an hour away (by car, that is!). The story goes that one of the king's wives was a little risky and decided to take a bath outside. Much to their shock, the king and several other men discovered her bathing a little while later. She quickly scrambled up a tree leaving everyone with quite a crisis - how to get the queen down from the tree while preserving her dignity and the dignity of the king??? So the wiseman was called and consulted. Again, there are two stories as to what happened next. One is that he prayed and clothing came out of heaven for her. The other is that he told the king that she simply needed to wait for the night - and that the darkness would clothe her. Either way, it is said that she got down without too much humiliation (other than the fact that people are still talking about her 900 years later). In gratitude, the king gave the wiseman and all his descendants freedom from military service, a great deal of land, and an annual stipend. Each king has had the option to sign this agreement since then, and amazingly, each one has except for the current king, but he is expected to do so as well.

Lenten Thoughts

Our chaplain sends out a Lenten thought every day. Here are two I would like to pass on to you. My thoughts are in italics.


Holy Jesus,Your forgiving love saves and disturbs me.
Without it, I am lost.
Yet, if I receive it, I must practice it.
By your mercy, make me merciful;
By your forgiveness,
help me to forgive as I have been forgiven.

Amen.--

Peter Storey (from a book entitled Listening at Golgotha: Jesus' Words from the Cross)

I think of how easily I accept God's forgiveness and how reluctant I am sometimes to pass it on!
++++++

The circumstances of our lives are another medium of God’s communication with us.
God opens some doors and closes others....
Through the wisdom of our bodies, God tells us to slow down or reorder our priorities.
The happy coincidences and frustrating impasses of daily life are laden with messages.
Patient listening and the grace of the Spirit are the decoding devices of prayer.
It is a good habit to ask,
"What is God saying to me in this situation?"

Listening to our lives is part of prayer.

- Marjorie J. Thompson
Soul Feast

"The...frustrating impasses of daily life are laden with messages..." For many years now, God has been teaching me that interruptions and annoyances can become so much more if I listen to what He is saying to me through each situation. Often the point is obvious and could be life-changing...but am I willing to follow through?

For example - a human interruption of my 'important' duties and schedule is a lesson to be less goal-oriented and to notice those whom God puts in my path. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get it, but I can tell He's going to keep trying until I do!