School's Out and other Tidbits

Schools out for Summer! Can you hear me cheering and doing obscene gestures with my hands, ok probably not because the kids might see me but in my head I’m doing cartwheels and such! Now the process of waiting for grades to be posted, I did hear that they have to be done by next Friday, so that’s not too long.


My son (13yo) and I did something very interesting yesterday; we went to a worship service or prayer service at a mosque. We had to take our shoes off to enter and the men were very nice. I say men because the women go to a secluded room to worship and hear the sermon so we never saw them. The gentleman in charge answered some of our questions about what to expect and other things about India and Pakistan. We sat on chairs in the very back corner of the room and watched as the men came in and did their private prayers and then there was a 20 minute sermon which was basically keep your prayer live in tact because that will be what keeps you from doing wrong and how you can’t go and do something wrong thinking your prayers will make it all right. It sounded a lot like what I would hear in a church of my own faith. Then just as we thought it was all over the men all move forward and stand shoulder to shoulder as tightly as possible and pray together. When they sang (chanted) together it was truly breathe taking and beautiful. Afterwards my son asked some questions about things like why they touch their face, hands open by the side of the face. He was told that it is a sign of submission to God that they are here and listening. Also when the wipe their faces after prayer it is to remove the prayer from their lips and leave it in God’s hands. It was interesting because the men all come from different countries or sometimes just different regions of the same country and might do the gestures just slightly different because of their culture. The men did not shake my hand but were very warm to my son and shook his hand and wanted him to ask questions. In preparation for the two of us to go to India next summer we have volunteered to help some of the new refuges with their English, especially the women. There was one college student young man who spoke English fine (along with 6 other languages) but wants help with writing. So my son and I are looking forward to helping him because he is going to teach us Hindi and Arabic and will help him writing and conversational English.