Monasteries and Birthdays

Some people seem to think I needed it, but unfortunately, I did not spend by 21^st birthday in a monastery. I did spend the day before at the retreat center/monastery of Anaphora.

Anaphora is located in the desert about halfway along the Desert road from Cairo to Alex. Although everything else around it is a sandy yellow, the monastery is full of green growing things and sparkling pools. They have dug a lot of wells and are growing all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and cereals organically. Winding throughout the land is the irrigation system. In the living area, the water system is shaped into a series of pools and fountains which can be either for decoration or swimming.

People are welcome from all over the world to come and relax for a few days. Some people, from the Mennonite Central Committee for example, stay for several months working to support the monastery's farm work or helping Bishop Thomas with his writing. This time, we just stayed for one day, but at the end of our semester, we will go back for several days.

We were joined there by Coptic youth from the Mar Girgis church. We spent the day enjoying the monastery surroundings and discussing how evangelical and orthodox Christianity compare. We talked a lot about the persecution of Christians (less pronounced in cities, more significant in the towns) and some about theological points of difference. What we did, and what Bishop Thomas teaches are very unique for Orthodox Christians. Bishop Thomas is very ecumenical and did not seem to follow many of the more controversial, questionable teachings of the Coptic Church. (non-copts are saved, less emphasis on works).

The only drawback to our day was that we had to get up really early (7:30) and didn't get back to Cairo till midnight. On the plus side, we ate more traditional Egyptian food than we've had most of our time here (date jam, halava, bitter orange preserves, belilah, pickled lemons).

For my Birthday, I slept till 11 and then wrote 4 pages of a Koran research paper in record time. Then, I ate lunch and absolutely pounded one of my flat-mates in backgammon. Later, I went to my cousins flat and promptly got locked out. Because the key was still in the lock on the inside, it took almost an hour to get the door open again. We finished off the day (around midnight) with cake and pizza (or maybe it was pizza and cake).