Wow, I can’t believe it has almost been a month since I have posted on this thing- so sorry! I feel like this semester has been defined by getting settled back into living here, setting up house, being tired, and things being broken…

I am going to attempt to explain one of the many “broken” stories in our life right now… sorry if it is hard to follow!

A week ago I drove to Dubai for the first time by myself (with my friend Jord, her baby & her mom) without Chase for a girls shopping day! Now normally this wouldn’t probably be a big deal except for the fact that we have to drive through mountains to get there & once you are in the Big city there is lots of traffic, big round abouts, & its hard to navigate around, which Chase is great at… so all this to say it was a pretty big deal that I did this! I was super proud of myself- (only got off track twice- which is pretty good for me)…. All was going great, we had a successful/fun day shopping, packed our car out with new purchases for Jordi’s new house… until we came to one of the border crossings before we entered the mountain….As we pulled up I heard something strange- thinking it could be a flat tire we decided to pull over. Jord & I get out and try to evaluate the situation- no flat tire, but smoke coming out of the hood… we figured this was probably not a good sign.

So we popped the hood, turned the car on to listen & it didn’t sound normal, but in all reality neither of us really knew what we were listening for, so we decided to go ask the boarder guards if they could help us or see what was wrong…

As we pulled up, I hopped out and asked if anyone spoke English- No. So I took a deep breath and thinking awesome, I am going to have to bust out some Arabic not only to men (which I usually never talk to out here in Arabic), at night after a day of shopping & about car stuff- which I barely know vocab for in English! I think I got my point across with Jord’s help & after they didn’t believe us at first- I am pretty sure they were thinking “these stupid American women they don’t know what they are talking about…” But once they realized my steering was no longer working they saw there really was a problem & were super helpful, respectful, and nice.

here we are waiting for Chase to come pick us up!

After a little bit they called the police & a tow truck to come help us out (in the meantime Chase was picking up an SUV from a friend to come pick us & our stuff up- he was about an hour & a half away…). Once the police got to us he started talking to me in what I thought was Arabic & we didn’t understand him- Jord said I think he is speaking to you in “borken-hindy Arabic” (which is sort of a slang Arabic they use with the Indians, Pakistanis, etc here)… so I went up to him they next time he started talking to me & asked him to not speak to me in broken Arabic, but in real Arabic— he smiled & started talking to me again & I understood him way better than before! I was beginning to think I knew nothing- was super thankful Jord was there to help!

Eating dinner while we waited...

there goes our Soda! (kead named her that- it means black in Arabic)

It was quite the night, and could have been much worse, but were so thankful for our experience with the boarder guys, the weather was gorgeous, Evie was content & thankful that we live in the country that we do- the people truly are so kind & helpful.

All this to say,  our car has been in shop for a week because a few days after this happened the country had a local religious holiday- so everything has been shut down for a few days! So we decided to rent a car to share with the Remkes so we all wouldn’t be car-less for the week. Praise God our car is fixed now!

I am also learning a lot about my brokenness and how sinful I am. I have had a hard time trusting & feeling settled when it feels like everything around me is broken (our fridge,/freezer, electricity in one room, etc) but then I remember that I am broken as well and am reminded how thankful I am for JC and his Redeeming cross.