HOME

Our place is really looking like home now. We actually had friends over for dinner twice last week.

At least two night a week we are invited out to dinner to friends homes. This Friday night we had a special treat a Counselor of the Baha’i National Teacher Center gave an amazing concert. She had a master in Music and you can tell that she is so in love with music. She is an American and lived in Africa for few years where she studied African music. She also talked about the important of music in the Baha’i faith and the effect it has on the soul. I could not help but watch the way the kids were intensely watching and listening to everything she said. The next morning Yasmeen wake up and said mom, I had a dream that Mr. Lincoln is living with us and she played the piano every morning.

The kids’ school is good. Friday after school I brought home five girls from Yasmeen and Nadia’s friends and had a great time watching them trying to communicate. I am the official translator now but I have a feeling that few months from now they will be speaking really well. They are trying and the kids in school are very supportive and loving with them.

Watching the girls at school is constantly reminding me of myself as a child and my first HOME. Going to the market speaking Arabic, the food, the music is bring all these amazing memory of my childhood with my sisters and brother and wonderful parents. I guess after 20 years being away from this part of the world to come back makes me feel as a child again. It also makes it harder in some ways. I am not only home sick to America which has been my HOME for the last 20 years and all the friends and family that I left behind. Being here makes me home sick to my first home also. Yet there is a part of me that feels closer to my parents here. Last week I went and bought some sweets from this place that my mom had told me that my father used to take her to. I remember the pictures that my dad took while working here and can almost close my eyes and see him. Next weekend we are planning to take the kids to old Akko for the first time and get them to see the place where my mom was born and grow up. In that holy city that Baha’u’llah was exiled from his home and imprisoned and spent years of his life.

Being close to all these holy places not just for the Bahai Faith but for all the other religion. Thinking that we are walking where all these prophets of Gods walked and breath the same air is a feeling hard to explain. Being here close to the heart of administration of the Baha’i faith's makes it is easy to look at the Baha’i world and see the large picture. How everything fits to together in God’s plan. When I left to come here one thing I had a hard time with is feeling like I am giving up my carrier and that when I come back I will have to start over. Yet, that fear is slowly going away. I am starting to feel stronger and think that the job is not about the title or the large office. It is about waking up the next day and feeling I did my best and I can do that anytime any where.

I miss going to work even thought I hardly have time to think. I have couple of option for work at this point but I am most likely going to wait for couple of months before I start working. Naim’s job is very demanding for his time and the girls’ school is very demanding for my time. Between helping both girls I spend about 4 hours after school studying or negotiating things to do if we study. There are also a list of books that I been meaning to read and just never had the time to read so this is my chance to do so.

This week Naim and I will be starting Hebrew classes twice a week. He will attend Sunday and Tuesday and I will go on Monday and Wednesday evening, for five weeks. That is going to make things a little more crazy but I think in the long run will be good for the family and our service here.

This is it….. Until next week.. Take care and Be Happy..