Bridges Int’l 2004: Day 3

December 29, 2004 at 4:15 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Bridges Int’l 2004 is going great. It’s awesome to to meet new brothers and sisters and fellowship with them. The last couple of days I have spent here at the Days Hotel in Dulles, VA are memorable ones. It’s really amazing to get to meet friends from the Muslim world who are christians. Two days in here and I have become friends with brothers and sisters from Palestine ( Soha, Basil, Ramy, Elijah), Iran ( Farshid, Peyman, Peyjman, Ali,Mary, …), Turkey, Lebanon, Yemen( Sanad), Malaysia (Seong), Indonesia ( Hani), USA ( JMac, Patty, Nicole & Melinda( Miami University of Oxford, Mary,), Japan ( Satomi “Beatiful Home Town” fromWisconsin),…. The workshops are very enriching. They offer us great moments to share our experience as a follower of Jesus and to witness the unlimited and unconditional love of God. Jerry ( J.Mac) is a great instructor andwe have learned enormously with him during the last couple of days.
In the evening, after dinner, we listen to Mounir Farragal, a famous Egyptian writer, movie maker, and evangelist.
Besides the workshops and the program of the conference, my new friends are awesome and we really connected to each other. It looks like we have known each other for years. It’s beautiful and I will miss it when the gathering finishes on Friday 31th of December 2004.
Today, after the workshops, we had lunch and left at 1:30pm to visit the National Aeronautics and Space Musuem. I got to see the space shuttles, the Concord and many other inventitions that have revolutioned the world of aeronautics and aerospace. Then, we came back to Days Hotel and went straight to play soccer just behind the hotel. It was a nice game even though me and my team lost against Mary’s crew. Mary is a good soccer player. She scored a few goals against us. Peyjman is also a good player. Overall, everybody did well and we had fun. It was a good idea for me to put my soccer ball and my boots in my car.
Just after the game we came back to the Hotel and I talked to Nicole & Melinda from Miami University. The two girls are very friendly and I have had a good talk with them. When they left to go to a Church for an outreach session, seong ( my new friend from Malaysia) and I spent some minutes chatting with Dan and his daughter. Dan is married toa Japanese girl and they have a beautiful girl, Helena Me-i.
We went for dinner at 6:20pm. After the dinner was over, we have had the second talk given by “Uncle” Mounir Farragal. As I was a little knocked out after the soccer game, I was kinda sleepy during the talk but I remember the substance of it. It was about the next return of Jesus and how it was going to look like and where, we,as christians will fit in. The talk lasted 1h30mn. It ended at 9pm. Then, we have had the coffee house. I joined Mary, Peggy, and Elijah and another giril to listen to Elijah’s testimony about how hebecame Christian. It was a very moving testimony and Peggy was really weeping at the end. Elijah came from far away and he has really experienced God’ love, God’s mercy, God salvation in his life. It was really a strong testimony of the fact our God is an awesome and living one who reigns on us.
After that, a group of friends gathered the Reagan Room to listen to worship songs. I joined them. I left 30mn later to pick something in my car. When I was coming back to the Hotel, I ran into Satomi( satomi_akagi@hotmail.com) , a Japanese sister in Christ from Wisconsin. I met Satomi the night before in the Hall and she was very nice and very easy-going. So, Satomi and I sat down and talked for 30-45mn. It was good. I told her that I was a ” Kokujin Samurai” and she really laughed about that. I had a good conversation with Satomi and we exchanged our contact info and we’ll try to stay in touch after the conference. Satomi has become Chrsitian 2 years ago after she got to the United States. Right now, she is the only one in her family to become Christian. It is certainly a tough situation for her but I am sure God is giving Satomi the courage and the determination to stay the course and remain on the paty she has picked. I will keep you and your family in my daily prayers.
After Satomi, I joined my friends and we hangoutfor a few hours. We have just left and here I am sitting, typing in my blog.

Bridges International 2004, Washington, DC

December 28, 2004 at 2:16 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

This December 27, 2004, I drove to Washington,DC to attend a conference the Bridges International is holding. It was 7:45am when I pulled my car from my driveway this morning. Direction, Wahsington, Dc to attend a conference organized by Campus Crusade. The weather was really bad this morning. We got a lot of snow last night and the temperature was way below 32F. I spent almost 20mn sholving theh snow and warming my car. After I left my place, I stopped by Chrispy Creme on jefferson rd to pick Dev. Shenoy and join Carol and Me Young, two other friends from BCC who were heading to DC in another car. We departed around 8:30am from Rochester, NY. Because of the heavy snow, it was pretty tough to drive, especially around Rochester, NY. My windshiled was not working properly because of the ice. I could barely see through. After a few miles, I pulled on the side and put some windshield water and remove some ice from the windshield. The visibility became clear after that.


A few miles from Rochester, NY, the roads were ok. No snow, no rain, no nothing. It was sunny even though it didn’t do much to change the freezing temperature. Driving was fun though. I put the heat to the top to warm up the inside of the car. Dev was a very helpful in chatting with me when I was driving. We talked mostly about Computer Engineering, Intel, AMD Athlon, IBM processors and their performance comparisons. We also discussed about our musical tastes. Dev likes music that has no voice on it. I mean, he like instrumental music, and trans. On the contrary, i like everything, including country music. Some of my friends find it weird for me, a guy from Chad, to enjoy country and go almost everyday to a country showcase to enjoy the music and see people dance.


Dev also shared some of his souvenirs from Australia about Sharks, gelly fishes, snakes, spiders with me. It was a fun talk and I liked it. I had never seen Dev talk that much before. So, I listened carefully.
Around noon, we stop by a subway in williamsport, PA to have some food and get gas. Then, we continued our trip. The weather was great ahead. No signs of rain, or snow, coming up. After 8h or driving, we got to the Days hotel located at 2200 centreville rd, Herndon, VA 20170. we went through the registration process for the conference and we started meeting and chatting with new people from all over the world who came. After the introductory step which allowed everybody to introduce themselves, we had dinner and start getting to know each other. I have met Soha, a nice and young Palestinian girl who came with her brother, a nice guy himself. Soha and I spent a fair amount of time talking about Chad, Palestine, her school ( pensacola christian college), the fact we misss pur homes,…It was a great talk with Soha and I really enjoyed it. She showed me the website of her university and I showed her my websites. Soha is the first Palestinian girl and Christian that i have met in my life. The first Palestinian I have met was Rima Kapitan from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. She was the President of the Student Justice for Palestine. Rima was a Muslim and all her other friends I got to meet were Muslims. This Bridges conference has just given me the chance to meet other Palestinians, and Christians. Is that awesome? Besides Soha and her brother, I met Elijah who is from Bethleem. he is the first person from Bethleem I have met. We sat down on a couch and talked for a while. t was nice. I also got to befriended many Iranians. One of them( farshid) has even offered to offer gas so that we go visit places. I agreed and we will talk about that this Tuesday night.
There are also a few Morrocan borthers and sisters here and i spoke French with them. It was nice.
Ok, the serious things related to the conference start this morning. I gotta go get some rest before waking up. Will continue inch’allah next time when i got more energy.

Xmas dinner with the Balajthy

December 25, 2004 at 10:40 pm | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Today, the Balajthy have invited me to join their family for the Xmas dinner. The Balajthy are a wonderful family from my church at Browcroft. Janet and Ernie are also our instructors in our Sunday school. They are very supportive and up lifting people.

They extended an invitation to me for Xmas. As my friend Wu came from Athens, OH to stay with me, I asked the Balajthys if it was ok to bring Wu along with me. Without hesitation they say yes.

Around 2pm, Wu and I drove to the Balajthy house. Ernie and Janet and their kids David and Sara were there waiting for us. We started out by playing society game and chatting, waiting for dinner to be ready. Janet and Ernie were working hard on it in the kitchen.

The dinner got served at 5pm and it was so delicious.  We had steak, mushed potatoe, bread and veggie. It was a great meal.

After dinner, we went back to the living-room and kept playing games.

Wu and I left around 7pm to come back to my place after we toolk pictures with them.

It was definitely a memorable souvenir. My friend Wu enjoyed it.

On my behalf and on Wu’s behalf, I would like to thank the Balajthy for everything and I ask God to bless for reaching out to me and my friend.

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