A lot of people have been asking me about the safety of Yemen and I assume more questions are forthcoming after yesterday's horror which claimed the lives of 96 Yemeni soldiers. The following is a blog post from Gregory Johnsen, one of the top scholars on Yemen, in which he describes the origin of his interest in the country.  

Sorry for being absent this spring. School has gone well and I am all but done with my first semester. I'm moving to a downtown apartment on Thursday and I look forward to being more in the center of things this summer. I'll be studying Arabic and possibly teaching English throughout the summer. I'm also very excited to host some NH friends when they come to visit me in early August. Can't wait!

Here's a clip of Matt Chandler talking about the prevalence of gadgets.  Not as funny as Seinfeld but probably more profound.

This is a funny clip from Jerry Seinfeld about smart phones which articulates my feelings about many of my fellow classmates here at AUC (American Univ. in Cairo).

A favorite mentor of mine, Mark Smith, back in Virginia once taught me that there are no grandchildren of God.  He meant that there is no getting into heaven on your parents' ticket.  Every person at some point in life must personally bow their knee to Christ and trust in him. 

Famously, Jesus explained the paradoxical "work of the Lord" in Matthew 7: 

On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you'.   

The work of the Lord is to believe and trust in the son.  The paradox is how work = faith, which is really not work at all. It’s not about what family you're from, or the things you've done for God—it’s about knowing him. Do you know God?

I’ve asked many cab drivers and other locals over the last month about their beliefs.  About 20% of the people I’ve asked have told me that they’re Christian.  However, upon further questioning, I realize that they only mean that they come from a Christian family.  They don’t read the Bible; they don’t pray; and they make no attempt to love their neighbor (Muslims). They don’t know the Lord.  Or as they might say in the medical world—if you don’t have the symptoms, you probably don’t have the disease.

This week I heard of a prayer meeting on campus, so I went.  There I found a group of about 20 students from my university who are honestly seeking the Lord, meeting regularly, praying and worshipping together, encouraging one another, asking the Lord to use them for his purposes. Some of them come from Christian families, others don’t.  But in the final judgment, it won’t matter who your parents are, when you were baptized, or how many old ladies you helped cross the street.  The only thing that matters is whether you know God or not.  “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12)

I'm in my second week of classes now and I've enjoyed diving into some new material, namely, economics. I have to take 3 prerequisites this semester before starting the graduate coursework because my bachelor's degree was not in economics but rather psychology.  I'm finding the matieral to be very interesting and I really feel blessed to be here.  I'm getting used to the Egyptian Arabic but it is still difficult.  I think I will take some Egyptian lessons over the summer to get more proficient. Living in the dormitory is OK.  Lovely location but a bit too modernized for me.  In the next few months I'll be looking for a new place off-campus with more of a traditional feel to it.

With 80 million people in Egypt, it's hard to believe that only 5% of the country's land is inhabited. Check out how the population centers have crowded around the Nile River Delta.

Picture:  USGS Eros Data Center Satellite Systems Branch/NASA

I've been in Egypt for one week now and it has been so much fun.  I'm the elder statesman at my dormitory, living with mostly undergrads and American exchange students who are just here for the semster.  I feel like I just jumped back 5 years in time.  I live in a dorm with a 20-year old roommate from Alexandria; I'm taking three undergraduate economics courses; most nights I find myself staying up late with the foreign exchange students and waking up later than usual.  

The picture is of some friends and me at a Yemeni restaurant here in Cairo. So far I've also met at least 5 other Yemenis who are undergraduate students at the university.

I arrived safely in Cairo yesterday and am now settled into my downtown dormitory which is a 5-minute walk from the Nile.  Most of the students will arrive tonight and tomorrow, including my roommate Ahmed, whom I have yet to meet.

Today I took a long walk through town and if nothing else, I learned that Cairo is huge.  Like NYC huge.  Much less efficient though.  The people seem great-- very friendly and helpful.  The dress code is more like America than Yemen.  I went to a coffee shop near my dormitory, ordered an Americana and noticed many men and women mingling together, much like they would at a Starbucks in the States. The long-bearded men and the fully-covered women are around, but not in great numbers as they are in Yemen.

I found this picture at Boston's Museum of Science in an exhibit about diets around the world. Pictures of Yemeni women are rare because most Yemeni men do not want their women to be photographed-- especially if the picture is bound for the internet. Notice too that all the food is laid out on the floor, an old Arab tradition still practiced by Yemenis today.