Month: April 2021

I’m getting a Covid vaccine tomorrow. They’ve been giving them here for the past 8 months and I’ve finally gotten to a place of acceptance. Basically we are going to have to get one to function here, and we’ve been resisting because the only one authorized in our city/state is one that I have many objections to — such as, be honest about how effective it is, allow it to be evaluated by a neutral party, don’t say it’s optional and then make it virtually impossible for someone to refuse it (required for work, travel, etc), don’t say it’s 93% effective and then require even vaccinated people to be tested every 7 days along with everyone else — in short, I’m opposed to a lack of transparency.

Josh and I had talked about getting one when we come home this summer so that we can “pick our poison” and hopefully not have to wear a prison bracelet when we return home after our trip to the US. One of the reasons we live overseas is to be able to travel and we can’t do that if we have to burn 10 days every time we come home. Heck, we can’t even go an hour up the road for an appointment without having to take 3 PCR tests. There isn’t a benefit to being vaccinated in our extra restrictive state at the moment because everyone has to quarantine after travel, but they can’t keep this up much longer now that 10 million vaccine doses have been given out in a country of 10 million people and over 50% of the population is fully vaccinated. People are getting restless and summer is coming.

After a recent spate of articles that revealed that the shot that they’ve offered here is less effective than promised, there have been some rumblings that other options were coming to our town. Sure enough, the first shipment of Pfizer arrived last week so we’re joining the masses and getting vaccinated ourselves. As someone who doesn’t take a flu shot because I’d rather have my immune system do the work, I’m opposed to this shot too, but in the cost/benefit analysis for us, this is what we’re choosing to do.

So far we can get around restrictions by having a PCR covid test — I had to have a test within 24 hours to visit a friend in the hospital and Josh has to test 2 days before meetings in certain buildings or on military bases, but the proposed restrictions are for things like malls, movie theaters, gyms. etc. It’s possible that nothing will come of the threat, if there’s enough pushback, but in general, I’m over it. Let’s put this in the history books and move on.

Update: I had the shot 1 week ago and aside from feeling ALL the imaginary side effects possible during the 10 minute waiting period after the shot (to make sure you don’t have an allergic reaction . . . ) I was fine.

Me in my head: I’m feeling a stabbing pain in my stomach. Is that one of the side effects? Also me: You do not feel pain in your stomach, that’s just sore abdominal muscles from setups yesterday. Me in my head: Are you sure? When I poke my stomach, it hurts. I don’t think that normally happens . . . I didn’t even do that many situps yesterday. I bet I’m the one in a million that has a bad reaction to this shot. It’s getting ready to take me down. Now there’s pain in my leg. That can’t be normal . . . Also me: This is why you still take Zoloft. Chill.

Theme: Praise the Lord

Thank you that we have the freedom to worship and praise your name in person. I thank you for these glimpses of Normal life that we are getting now that we are meeting together as a church in person. 

I pray that things will continue to open and that more people would be able to worship in person and that all the churches in UAE would have freedom and the ability to meet legally in person. I pray that all paperwork would be in order and all the applications would swiftly be approved. I thank you that our services are full and pray that more would be able to attend in person and that the restrictions would lift, allowing us to have more people in each meeting.

Thank you Lord that as we begin this season of Ramadan that you first sacrificed for us. Thank you that we don’t have to earn your grace and favor but that the price has already been paid. I praise your name that you offer us SURITY of salvation — that we don’t have to wait and hope the scales balance in our favor, but that you have preloaded our side of the scale to overflowing. When we are measured at the end there is no doubt that we will be judged as worthy because you are worthy. 

Thank you for all the people in unseen roles here who work to make this country successful. The builders, the cleaners, the street sweepers, the car washers, the security guards, the entire hospitality and service industry, and many others. UAE is prosperous because all of these people who are serving. I pray that you would bless them in their work, protect their families back at home, and I pray that these sacrifices would be short term with long lasting blessings. 

I praise you that you care about us and want to have a relationship with us. I pray that the world would be awakened to the knowledge that they are able to have a personal relationship with Lord and Creator of all. 

Thank you for the various ways you communicate with us: through your word, by your spirit, and through dreams. I pray that over the next 30 days that people who don’t know you would be filled with dreams of you reaching out to them. Please make your greatness and your grace known to them. Amen. 

PS: this one is shorter because of a Ramadan scheduling fail. I ended up praying in my car before and after a dentist appointment that I forgot I had. I’m always annoyed that all offices call to remind and confirm the appointment the day before (even if I made the appointment an hour earlier for the next day!), but this time I was happy for the reminder.

Ramadan Kareem! I’ll be sipping coffee under my desk for the next 30 days.

Not much has been going on here in the land of sand and skyscrapers. We’re plodding along, thankfully still in school, but Josh is still working from home. Camille goes to campus every day and Caleb goes 2 or 3 days each week and the rest is online. The biggest change to our schedule has been church starting up in person 2 weeks ago.

Masks on, groups of 2, seating every other row, but it’s better than being stuck at home! We are meeting in person, but in limited numbers, so are also live streaming each service. The technological wizardry that goes on behind the scenes to make that happen is incredible.

This is one of 6-8 tech/camera people working on a Friday morning: The Producer. All the feeds from the different cameras, computers, slide overlays, sound, etc all come to him and he chooses what is broadcast at the moment. Since they needed volunteers, I joined the AV team last week and I’m one of the people who is in charge of throwing the correct slides over the stream, whether it’s song lyrics, name tags, preaching slides, video clips and whatever else is needed. I thought it was going to be as easy as advancing the slides in powerpoint. Um, no. Technology has advanced well beyond what it was the last time I did this and the night before I was scheduled for service I had a nightmare that I had forgotten to set up the projectors and couldn’t find the Clear All button so all the slides were displaying on top of each other.

Thankfully, I had Caleb to help me with the projector set up (Thursday evening service has a small tech crew of 2), and to show me how to get the image from the computer onto the wall and I was able to use the Clear All function without issue. Not bad for week 1. I’m committed to in-person church so I’m happy to volunteer. Whatever it takes to keep us meeting.

The Thursday night location requires that everyone, even those from the same family, sit 2 meters apart. It feels a bit like we’ve all been put in Time Out.

Ramadan begins in 2 days, Inshallah, based on the moon sighting and all that, but I’m not sure yet how it will change life for us. Last year we were in the middle of Covid (are we still in the middle of Covid? Please let us be past the middle) so we spent the month sitting on the couch and there may or may not have been a curfew at that time. I think most things were closed/restricted and we were doing school from home so Ramadan 2020 had a very minor impact compared to all the other restrictions in our lives at the time. I could go back and check my blog for April/May 2020 to see what it was really like, but I don’t want to relive that era until we are well past it.

For Ramadan 2021 we’ll be in school (as long as we don’t have multiple positive tests in our biweekly school testing), malls and restaurants are open, and things are mostly normal. Fake normal. We still can’t have people over to our houses “legally” and only 3 people in a car, (but in tonight’s carpool we had 6 . . . ) so the rules exist, but implementation is questionable so bending is happening. But with Ramadan starting there may be a stepped up reinforcement of the rules and fines. We’ll see . . . Still no school sports, but we have both kids signed up for sports with outside organizations — Caleb is running and Camille is swimming.

Something that makes me happy: when Camille and Caleb are getting along. It’s like spotting a unicorn, but I keep hoping for it to appear.