Author: Robin Chartier

Dear Lord, as we begin a new year, with fresh hopes, dreams, and goals, I pray that our primary desire would be to serve you and that our goals would be aligned with your desires for our lives. I thank you that your mercies are new every morning and it doesn’t take a January 1st to start over when we’ve fallen short. Please help us to be merciful with others as you are merciful with us.

Matthew 6:33 — seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you (RRV — Robin’s remembering version). I thank you that I don’t have to worry about daily things, but that if I follow you, all that I need will be provided. Thank you that what I want isn’t always what I need and that you protect me from things that I shouldn’t have by saying No.

I pray that as a church we would draw close to you through your word; that we would know your commands and follow them, even the difficult ones like “love your neighbor.” May the fruit of the spirit grow in us. May those around us see Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Kindness, Faithfulness and Self-Control when they look at our speech and our actions. May we look different than everyone else.

I pray as things move forward with the vaccine program here, that both leaders and residents would act with wisdom and not react out of fear. I pray for those who are required to take the vaccine because of their job. Lord, please protect them, help it to be effective, and may it be the thing that brings this sickness to an end in this country.

I pray for those who are making a decision regarding vaccination. I pray that you’d give them wisdom and assurance for the choice they have to make. I pray that you would open doors and close them, making the way clear. I pray that decisions wouldn’t have to be made based on coercion or fear, but that people would have freedom and autonomy over their bodies.

And I pray for those who are resisting on principle (ME!). That you would either strengthen or weaken resolve as required. I’m willing to do whatever for the sake of the gospel, but I don’t want to be unwise OR unnecessarily stubborn. I don’t have the answers and I pray that you would provide them to those who are similarly struggling.

I pray for those students who are going back to school. I pray that they would be able to go back without any delays and that they’d be able to remain in school. I pray for both mental and physical health as they get readjusted to being back in a classroom and around others — some for the first time in 11 months! I pray that education would be a priority and that the government would do everything possible to bring back much of what has been lost. Sports, clubs, service activities, community building events . . . so many are struggling with feeling disconnected and purposeless. I pray that you would restore what has been lost. Above all I pray that when people feel lost, that it would drive them to be found by you.

I pray for the economic health of UAE and its residents. All of the economic losses of the past 12 months are adding up and the full extent of the damage isn’t known yet. Father, please bring blessing to this country and shower it financially (and with literal rain, we can always use rain).

Finally I pray for security and safety. I thank you that we live in such a peaceful country and that it provides security to all of us. I pray that peace will remain. I thank you for the restoration of the relationship with Qtar and pray that they will continue to unite and strengthen relationships with other countries in the region. Thank you for how you have blessed us through living here and I pray that will continue. Amen.

In an attempt to retain my peace, I’ve decided that I’m taking an absence from Facebook and Instagram (and I don’t Tweet, so leaving Twitter is a non-issue). Between local online groups arguing about the vaccine, American friends arguing about politics and the 25th amendment, and the world arguing about covid, I need a safe space from all that discord. So I’m limiting myself to only reading Mumsnet, where the arguments over whether it’s classless and grim to have a toilet brush in the bathroom are a lot less personal. (Yes, that’s a real example.)

The final straw for me was this new vaccine mandate for public sector workers and for the service industry here. People are arguing over whether it’s fair or legal to force individuals into a vaccine by making their job dependent upon it. (It’s not fair, but it’s definitely legal here.) For example, the vaccine “isn’t mandatory,” but at least one major company has said you can’t come onto the premises to work unless you’ve been vaccinated. And in most cases here, leaving your job means leaving the country as your residence visa is tied to your employer. I’ve decided it’s not healthy for me to read all the back and forth and try to figure out when the rules will creep my way (into private schools — Josh thinks it will be soon) or into Josh’s place of business. They are still working from home, but if he’s not allowed to enter the military bases or meet with other government entities without the vaccine, then he can’t do his job.

Anyway, I’ve decided I can’t control it and I don’t need to feed my “what ifs” so I’m cutting myself off from all that. As things change so fast here and flip back and forth, I’m better off waiting until all of this has been ultimately decided and then we can figure out what we will do.

My latest local adventure/hassle has been trying to get a package delivered to my house. I ordered some yarn from the UK and it came into the country. It has my address on it, but someone always calls to ask for my address and set up a time for delivery. And they usually want me to send their driver a pin so they can locate my address. And if there’s no phone number on the package? They send it back without even trying (been there, done that 3 times over).

So, I had a missed call a week before New Years and I called right back, but it’s an automated system and supposedly they would return my call in a few hours when they weren’t so busy “because of Covid,” but nothing ever happened. When I finally filed a complaint online someone called me back and said my package had been transferred to the local postal system and I would have to call them to schedule delivery. Of course she had to give me a reference number to the package and I was out in public in a noisy space so our conversation went like this:

“ay bee eight three seven vee vee”

Wait, ay bee eight three seven vee vee?

“No, ay bee eight three seven vee vee“

What? Ay bee?

“No, ay VEE“

And continue like that for eight more painful digits. And the last two letters were “zee, zee” which I figured out after process of elimination ruled out vee and cee . . . I hate talking on the phone here.

So I’ve called — operators are busy, “because of Covid,” and I’ve logged multiple requests on the website which have been received and will be followed up within “3 business days,” but nada. How difficult is it to deliver a package with an address on it? But it won’t happen until I confirm that the address they have is correct and I can’t do that if I can’t talk to a human. I’ll be so annoyed if they send my package back to the UK without contacting me . . . #YarnWatch2020 has become #YarnWatch2021

In case anyone was waiting around for the resolution to the cat story, I won by eventually getting the cat outside, she won by leaving diarrhea and pee under my couch before she exited the building. So I guess it’s a draw? (Thankfully no carpets were harmed in the cleanup process.)

I know the world’s attention is on the dumpster fire in DC today, but all I’ll say is I’m thoroughly disappointed that our election and transfer of power this year looks like something out of a developing country. I expect that garbage from some of our neighbors over here, not from my home. I feel like a mom that wants to say, “you’ve all misbehaved, you’re all in trouble, and you all need to go home until I can think of a suitable punishment!”

Meanwhile, over here . . . my country of residence is cranking out the vaccine like it’s a newly discovered oil well. (I’m intentionally saying my country of residence because I don’t need a bot trolling the internet and finding this post and reporting it to the government. You think I’m joking . . . nope). In world record setting fashion, they’ve set a goal to vaccinate 50% of the 10 million residents by the end of the 1st quarter and in order to reach that goal they are making it extremely onerous to do anything other than line up and get the jab.

Since what they’re giving out hasn’t been approved by any internationally recognized body and they won’t publish the results of the trials that they conducted this summer AND because they still require people to be tested every two weeks even after having the vaccine, that’s a firm, “no thank you” from us. It may mean that we may have to exit the country as Josh won’t be able to do his job without the vaccine eventually, but we are praying that it won’t come to that. (They’ve already mandated it for public sector workers, but not for us yet.)

We’ll continue to hold everything loosely and be flexible, but I’m getting so tired of uncertainty. I thought that retiring would give us something to hang on to and that we could put stakes in the ground, but in spite of living in the same house for 2 1/2 years, I’ve never felt more unsettled month to month.

https://youtu.be/K2c-xTOQinc

And to end on a happy note, two things from my girl. First, her broadcast debut on the school webcast. She will hate that I made this public, but someday she’ll be happy that I saved it. And second, wintertime walks with her girl. Two things that brought me joy today.

First day back at “school” (online) and we wake up to a stray cat that came into our house last night and has taken up residence under the couch. At least it explains why the dogs were both barking and pacing in our bedrooms at 5am.

She’s a cute and quiet thing, but I’ve spent all morning managing riled up dogs who keep sniffing, whining, barking, and pacing. Just what Josh needed for his first day back at work and the kids’ first day back at school. At least I’m working from home today and can take on the job of animal wrangler. Currently I have each dog locked in a bedroom with a kid so things stay quiet in Josh’s “office” (corner of the living room).

The plan for later today is to lock both dogs in the bedroom, open the back door and gently encourage her to leave with a broom. Then we’ll be down to only 1 cat that the dogs try to antagonize. If only I could get them all to chill together . . .

It rained today! Our first rain of the year and our first rain in almost a year. We got a lot of rain last winter (when I say “a lot” I mean for here), but once Covid started, it dried up. Right before Christmas, the mosques all prayed for rain as part of their Friday service. I don’t know if it’s an annual thing, but it’s something they’ve done a few times since we’ve lived here. I’m going to start praying for rain because I miss it. And when it only lasts for 5 or 10 minutes, it leaves me wanting more. If we’re home for 2 weeks with remote school, we could at least have a rainy couch day to enjoy along with it.

Last year UAE did a bunch of cloud seeding — they fly planes into the clouds and shoot salt crystal flares into them to try to attract extra water so they get heavier and rain is released. I don’t know how much of it is due to the cloud seeding and how much is due to natural rainfall, but we did have more this past year when they did more seeding (over 200 attempts).

Star was not a fan of the mysterious wet stuff falling from the sky. She ran around a bit, slipped on the tiles, and then rapidly headed back inside to safety.