On our own again today, Denise and I went to church at St. Andrew’s United Church of Cairo. The big service is on Friday, so on Sunday morning there were just six of us plus Martha Roy on the organ, Pastor Lewis, and seminary intern Tim. Now in her mid 90s, Martha plays the organ beautifully—Tim would just hum the tune and she would play it from memory. It was Pastor Lewis’ last day to preach at St. Andrew’s; after four years in Cairo he and his family are moving back to the States. So we had tea with mint and cookies from the bakery for a special farewell fellowship time after worship.

Denise has Arabic class on Sunday so she scooted off right after the service and Tim kindly offered to have lunch with me while she was busy. We went to Maadi on the metro to his favorite low-cost restaurant chain—GAD. For about 20 Egyptian pounds (4 dollars) I had a GAD special meal of hummus with cucumber & carrot slices, pita bread, rice, kababs of kofta & beef, fries, and crème caramel for dessert. Tim is in Cairo for a year; he elected to do an international posting for his intern year at seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He’s a great guy and we enjoyed our meal together. Denise met us at the restaurant and she and I headed back to Ramses.

Later on in the evening Nabil and Safi came by with the twins for a quick visit and to confirm plans for the next few days. Simon and Skylan are toddlers now, but I don’t think toddling is what they are doing. They are running at top speed! Nabil has lined up a visit to New Horizons and Old Cairo after our meeting with the Egyptian Crafts Center tomorrow. Unfortunately the visit with the group in north Sinai is canceled; security clearance is taking too long.