Rest, The Romanian, and Eid

I keep telling myself that Saturday is my day of rest (it’s your Sunday/last day of the week or first depending on your preference.)  Not much activity happens on a Saturday because people go to the Mosque or Church on Fridays.  So I stay up late usually Friday night to sleep in on Saturday, the later I stay up, the longer I sleep in, so I don’t have to face the day being completely alone.  I don’t like being alone, but for this season in my life, perhaps I’m called to it.  Usually I have work to distract me from my solitude during the week, so I easily work 12 hours a day, but when its fun, its not really work.  I don’t like being in the apartment by myself, that’s probably why I spend so much time online. 

I did sleep in and prepared my day to be alone.  I had an agenda of things I wanted to accomplish.  I was supposed to meet The Romanian later in the day for dinner before she worked her flight to Paris.  As I was heading down the stairs, I got a text from her, wanting to go see a movie.  This was perfect, since I was planning on seeing a movie anyway, so I head over to pick her up five minutes later and we’re off to breakfast.  This girl is absolutely delightful, so full of life and joy.  You would swear she was a Christian already.  She does believe I God, and believes that God speaks to her.  I think she has a relationship, but she has never really learned about it nor confessed it with her mouth. Like I said before, she knows God, she just doesn’t know His name.  She is amazingly healthy mentally…(and physically but that’s another topic.)   Im certain, its only a matter of time.  I just have to continue to be a strong witness and not let my slip-ups damage my testimony. 

I should admit, im totally attracted to her spirit and energy, but im not acting on it.  We are trying to keep this strictly a friendship.  There is a big age difference 40-26 even though I’m very immature for my age.  We just get along great.  She really has quickly become my best friend on the island.  I’d rather have a friend…than not.  So I’ll do my best to keep it strictly platonic.  I have to control those urges and keep everything in God’s perfect timing.  This whole delayed gratification thing, while healthy…totally sucks. 

After breakfast I took her by the mall to see how our pictures/gallery was doing.  There isn’t a lot of traffic yet.  Eid is still three days away.  Eid is the Muslim version of our Christmas, so I have three days next week where the office will be closed. Eid al-Adha is also the Festival of Sacrifice, a religious festival celebrated by Muslims worldwide in commemoration of the willingness Abraham to sacrifice Isaac as an act of obedience to God.  This is interesting that they do this, since the Jewish lineage came from Isaac while the Muslim lineage came from Ishmael.  You’d think that the Muslims would have wanted Isaac to die.  What Muslims and Jews share, is that Abraham is considered the patriarch of both.  So they are both alike in celebrating his willingness to sacrifice.  Again..the whole conflict with the Jews and Arabs comes down to “Dad liked you best.”  In a way, its kind of an extremely aggressive version of the Smothers brothers act.  The Eid festivities last for three days. Eid al-Adha occurs the day after the pilgrims conducting Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat. It happens to be approximately 70 days after the end of the month of Ramadan.

There now if Eid is ever a category on jeopardy, I expect you all to do well.  And if the category is Hot Romanian platonic friends ever comes up…I expect you all to ace that one as well.

After the mall we went shopping to get some games to play next week during the break.  Tanya, wanted to have a quick meeting with a very talented girl name Ila who has done freelance work with us in the past.  So I swung by the office.    Ila used to own an ad agency in the U.K.  Tanya is trying hard to recruit her to come back and work for KSDI.  I wanted to meet her, to put in my pitch for her to come aboard.  Things are looking so promising right now for KSDI.  Tons of very positive meetings.  We are hurting on cash flow, as the first month, I’ve focused on upgrading the equipment, personnel and operating structure so that when we do become busy, we’ll be ready for it.  I think its all coming together.  Right now we have 15 employees.  By this time next year, I anticipate we’ll have 30, the year after that…60.  By then, hopefully we’ll be setting up our first feature film.

I mentioned before that I believe that God called me change the world.  (I think all Christians are called to do this.)  But with the media…im going to change it in a big way.  Its really cool and encouraging to see it all come together. 

After the meeting The Romanian and I went to see Mongol, the story of Genghis Khan.  I love foreign films.  Well I guess every movie that comes here is foreign.  But what bothers me, is that they don’t subtitle the films here in English..only Arabic.  Instead they dub the films with English voices that usually aren’t very good.  It totally takes away from the dramatic impact.  Oh well. 

If you want to impress your Arab friends next week.  Tell them “Eid Mubarak” which is essentially saying Merry Christmas in Arabic.