A friend of mine put together this excellent look into the faces and backdrop of Kurdistan. Enjoy!
May 24, 2012
April 12, 2012
Video Update on the Building
I wanted to give everyone a chance to celebrate with us as we have completed the stone front of the building. Praise God!
If you would like to help us finish off the first floor of the building, we are in need actually of a $5,000 gift this very month. Click here to donate now.
March 29, 2012
Newroz
Every year the Kurdish spring comes like a rolling thunder, cascading over the mountains. And this year was no different. After suffering with below freezing temperatures for months in a land not normally known for cold, the Kurdish people have been wishing and hoping for the coming of spring like never before.
March 21st is the day that brings Kurds together from all over the world. It's a day for dancing, for picnics larger than life, for dressing in exotic colorful garments that bespeak of blaring festivity, for the intake of food in massive quantities, for more dancing, guns, kites, and great big bonfires.
Check it out a 100+ dancing line, can you imagine?
It's a day for Kurds to declare to the world, "We are who we are. There is no other people quite like us!" and to renew their commitment to their identities as Kurds and to one another.
Typically, whole cities are cleared out by 10am, as Kurds flock to the hills en mass vying for the best picnic spots covering the mountains, and this will go on for days.
Ours too was an early start as we loaded up the car with goodies, picnic gear, and headed for mountains with a train of other cars seeking the 'wild' country where picnics of this kind are celebrated the best.
It's hard to overstate the importance of the Kurdish New Year that they call Newroz. Like the Hebrew calendar of old, Kurds date their years from the beginning of spring.
Perhaps, a good comparison would be the combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas blended with an out of control 4th of July celebration, all in one week. For Persians, it may last as long as two weeks.
Not wanting to be left out, we lighted our own bonfire nearby our house with the help of a dab of kerosene. It was awesome!
As the flames struck the night sky, the winds swirled around joining the smoke of literally hundreds of fires all across the city and into the hills -- a virtual offering of smoke to the 'gods'.
Newroz is not centered in Islam in any way, and the most argent followers reject it's unIslamic background. But, Kurds don't mind. It's in their blood. It's something they've been doing for as long as they can remember, and the tradition only seems to be in the upswing.
This year, however, something completely new was added to this centuries long tradition. A small oblong shaped ball, known as an American football to some, snuck into the foray. Before anyone realized it, 3 of them were being thrown around in topsy turvy ways, and a seed was planted that might just begin to change the way this decidedly Eastern tradition is celebrated. Or, I could just be dreaming.
If you ever get to celebrate this special time with a Kurd, you'll never regret it. We had a blast!
Getting a Face Lift
While visiting my family in the States last year, the boys had a terrific time enjoying catching up with their cousins. After playing around awhile, one of their cousins asked them, "Where do you live?" and Jonathan promptly said, "We live in Eer ock." The proper way to prounce the country we live in, I might add, rather than "i" rack that is more commonly heard in the States.
Some moments passed and with a look of consternation, said cousin approached her mommy and declared, "I don't think they live in a rock. How could they live in a rock?"
Well, if you were to just spend some time out in the countryside in our neck of the woods, you might just notice that this land really is filled with rocks and stones everywhere. Farmers have such a hard time of it, having to clear the land of all the rocks piling them up along the borders of their land. We may not live "in" a rock, but we certainly are surrounded by them.
Just trying to plough through hard ground like this must just take it out of you.
But what makes life difficult for farmers makes buildings around here really beautiful. Stone, in particular, from the plains of Mosul is trucked all over the country drapping homes, businesses, and government offices in a modest sandy hue.
When we were considering the next steps in our building project, we looked around to see what other buildings were doing. Taking a hint from the Post Office next door we decided to do the same thing with the front of our building.
Here it is taking shape:
In a few days, it will be finished. We're really happy about the way the building is truly shaping up. Thanks for all your prayers and sacrifical giving that make this all possible.
March 14, 2012
Building Update
Well with weather like this perhaps you can see why we've been having some delay in getting work done at the center.
But the clouds are starting to part and the sun is beginning to make a more substantial impression on our land.
With the funds that we received at the end of the year, we've finished the electrical system for the main floor, put up curtains in the women's center, and begun tiling the inside walls.
Here are a few pics to show you:
Next week is the Kurdish New Year, so I doubt we'll get much done then, but we have lined up workers to begin putting a stone facade on the front of the building and to finish plastering the outside of the rest of the building.
It really will be shaping up soon. Thanks for your continued prayers and support for this vital project in our region. Stay tuned as we begin to really put this building to work.
Already, we are having over 40 ladies in the neighborhood taking some basic English classes in the finished women's center, and we're slated to begin a sowing and knitting class towards the end of the month. Praise the Lord!
January 12, 2012
Getting Involved
We have had so many visitors seeking to be a part of God’s work amongst the Kurdish people, just in the last year and a half we’ve helped host 15 international teams. This is in addition to having our own local friends stay with us on another 10 separate occasions. Our home has seemed like a revolving door sometimes as guest after guest pays us a visit and the shoes pile up at our front door.
God must be up to something.
One of the things that really makes this possible is the wonderful home he has provided for us. We have an entire extra floor with 3 spare bedrooms, bathroom, full kitchen, and living area so that visiting teams can feel more at home. Also, many in-country expat groups have made use of our space to hold their own team retreats, personal retreats, and even mini-vacations as we are located up in the mountains amongst some beautiful surroundings.
In addition to the extra floor we have a smaller top floor that naturally became our “Upper Room” where we hope to encourage all of our guests to sow seeds of prayer into this land.
Some of the activities that we’ve been a part of with these groups have been: prayer walking the neighborhoods, passing out Samartian’s Purse Boxes and other humanitarian aid, visiting with local Kurds in outlying villages as well as in the bigger cities, refugee camps, meeting with government officials, joining in local soccer games, hosting soccer camps and games for the children, even arranging for some simple diagnosis and treatment with the help of doctors from the States.
And now, that our community center is nearing its initial stage of usefulness with the completion of the conference room/women’s center, we have even bigger plans to reach out and help the local community with an emphasis on the widows and orphans in our region.
Please be in prayer for us as we begin to offer classes. Pray for wisdom to know what direction to take, the proper teachers for us to work with, and for God’s grace and favor to cover it all.
If you would like to take part in this ministry and get your shoes on the ground here in Northern Iraq, write us an email, and we’ll see what opportunities the Lord opens up.
January 10, 2012
Soccer Days
Well, we wouldn't be touching the Kurdish soul if we didn't engage with them on some level with their love of soccer. So, this past fall, we coordinated with two Brazilian soccer players, one who used to play professionally to put on an incredible 5 day soccer clinic complete with a final, organized tournament.
We opened it up to the children that live all around our community center, and boy, was it a hit. We only wish we could have allowed more of them to participate.
The first 4 days focused on a different aspect of the game: passing, shooting, dribbling, etc. matching each skill to an important "life lesson" for the children to ponder and take away with them. Then, we divided up the children into different teams representing famous "soccer countries" that competed for the final prize.
All of them got a medal, with special awards given to the top goal scorers, top overall players, and the winningest teams.
Both girls and boys participated, so when the final day arrived the stadium was converged upon by masses of parents and extended family to root for their favorites. What a day it was!
Perhaps, you can capture a bit of the excitement in the following pics:
January 02, 2012
A Pajama Day for a New Year
The first day of the year began slowly. Getting up we looked out the window to see a multi-chrome picture of greying skies without the least bit of evidence of our helium engorged friend.
It was clearly one of those days. As I was trying to figure out our new, fangled coffee maker my eyes started to swim and my body instantly told me that it did not like my bi-pedal stance. Quickly back to the bedroom I sank into bed with my wife’s words hanging over me, “maybe you just need to stay in bed today.”
For the past 3 days we had been traveling around Kurdistan back and forth from the capital city a couple of times, down the Kirkuk road to visit some earthquake refugees, and over to another Kurdish college town to visit some dear friends with children the same ages as our own. It was a fun-filled time, but nevertheless, exhausting.
New Year’s Eve passed somewhat prematurely at the Ray home as we crawled into bed well before the midnight hour. And now, it was New Year’s Day with the sinus pressure in my head making even thinking a chore.
Dawn prayed for me, then passed me some blueberry muffins and a hot cup of coffee. Ahhh, marriage, isn’t it wonderful!
Before I knew it I was up again, but keeping the pjs on in case my world decided to suddenly take another quick spin. No pressing work to do on New Year’s Day anyway, I thought to myself.
Kurdistan in the winter can be quite the dreary place up here in the mountains.
The rain has been constant the last few days making our world a very muddy, wet place indeed; lack of proper drainage canals or even proper roads make it all the worse.
While in the summer we regularly complain of not having enough water, in the winter, water damage is the norm: water seeping right through our walls, peeling back the paint, dribbling through the window frames and turning our house into a slick, damp, cold habitation. When you’ve got cement walls, well, you just have to live with it.
The morning temperature reading stays in the upper 40s most days – that’s inside the house mind you. Outside it usually hovers in the 30s, and this is Iraq you say??? Yes, this is Iraq at 2,300 feet above sea level with mountains as high as 8,500 feet at our door step. With extremes like this perhaps you can forgive the people for being well, a little extreme.
Summer time temperatures reach nearly 125 F, yet right now you’d never guess it as we huddle together in one room around a kerosene heater. We’ve all but forgotten that we have a second and third floor in our house – that’s the “see your breath” parts of the house that we try to avoid.
Central Heating? Ah, no.
This is probably not the picture of Iraq you have seen on television, and it certainly doesn’t hold for the whole of the country. Traveling just 2 hours south of us and down to about 400 feet above sea level, the capital city of Iraqi-Kurdistan, Erbil, rarely sees the kind of rain we get here, as life goes on almost in a near season-less cycle. It’s amazing what a few mountains can do to the regional climate.
We love our trips to Erbil now and then, to get out of the damp mountains and feel some warmer, dry air on our faces. But, we’d just left Erbil the day before, and today, I needed to face not only the wet weather, but a new year to boot.
The day wore on and still my pajamas clung to me, more like pasted to me. I’d been wearing the same socks for nearly 48 hours with long johns beneath. It had been more than a couple days since I showered. Taking a shower is kind of an extreme sport here when the tile floor feels cold enough to give you frost bite.
But by the afternoon, a warm, hot shower finally beckoned to me, so I placed one of our kerosene heaters into the bathroom to warm it up a bit, but alas, no hot water. Dawn had used up the hot water to do laundry, guess this new year’s day is turning more grim than I thought. Maybe I should have stayed in bed.
As the afternoon turned into evening, our power supply always makes a switch from the government electricity that we get from about 1-5pm, to a community/neighborhood generator that gives us another 5-6 hours of power (albeit reduced wattage), before the government power kicks back in through the night. The mornings (9-1pm) we usually do not have power and folks around here have just learned to live with that; for, it’s actually much better than it has been in years past.
We’re not sure exactly why yet, but whenever our power switches from government power to community power our fuse box flips requiring some oversight: the box is on the street by our house.
Below is a photo of our electrician with my neighbor holding the ladder, who came to our house no less than 10 times in the past 2 months to help us with our electricity. Here he is untangling the wires of our generator power cable and just below him you can see a little yellow cover (a Valvoline oil container cut in two) that contains our fuse box.
“Climbing” up the pole where the box is mounted means one thing to me – I better get some clothes on. So, as the sun begins to set (around 4:30 here in the mountains on the far eastern side of the time zone), I’m finally putting on some jeans and a sweater to go flip our switch back on. After flipping switch at least 7 times it finally sticks, and the lights in the house turn back on. Ahh, electricity.
As you can probably see, Kurdistan has a way of reminding one to be thankful for all the little things one normally forgets.
As the New Year dawns, I pray we’ll find our hearts more thankful than ever for all that God places into our path whether extreme cold or extreme hot, exciting mountain peaks or boring plodding plains, PJ days or days flooded with activity, gentle winds of friendship or the harsh realities of our sinful world. The New Year is God’s year, and I hope His pleasure beams over us more than it ever has before.
Praises for a New Year!
Checking email last night I was informed that we have received over $28,000 towards the building from one church in Niceville, Florida, (my hometown) the United Methodist Church. They decided to take up an advent offering all through December sharing about our work in Northern Iraq through World Orphans. What a joyous way to open up the new year! We are praising God for His abundant provision which continually flows down.
So, we are looking forward to getting to work.
As we finished out 2011, we literally used up all we had in the coffers to get the conference room ready which is really our welcome room right now. Here are a couple pics to show you the progress:
Next steps include finishing the electrical work for the rest of the building, then plastering the bottom floor, installing windows, then tiling. I'm so excited to see things coming together.
Thank you, Lord, for your abundant provision this New Year, and thank you to all who gave from Niceville First United Methodist Church. You shall surely have an inheritance in all the work that goes on here.
What great things 2012 will have in store for us all!
