Henry & Evan

Well, the big news is that I got my OS CD last night (a few people went into Baghdad for about 24 hours in order to pack up things to send out to us since we'll be here a while). The MS tech support people told me to repair my installation of Windows (btw, I've been bumped up to a "higher level" of tech support). When I tried it, instead of showing a Windows installation, it showed that about 95% of my hard drive has a format which is "unknown." What does that mean, you ask? (Well, those of you who didn't just get nauseated.) That means that it's highly likely that everything I had on my computer is completely gone.

I _think_ I have most of my pictures, since I just sent my parents some CDs of pics and I'm pretty sure everything else is still on my camera...but a year and a half of journal entries...months of work on some language stuff I was doing for the Company...(this is very important to the Company) all of my monthly financial reports...the work I was doing on my own with my language tutor (fortunately, I have hard copies of at least the basis of this)...copies of online receipts...basically, everything...

So my "hope" for the day is that He will restore my computer miraculously. I've recently come to the realization that while I have a great deal of confidence in His ability to protect me, I have very little (almost no) confidence in His ability to do the miraculous.

In other, but somewhat related news, Evan's been giving me some "serious" trouble this past day or two. Today especially, he's been rather painful and there's not really a hormonal reason for him to be that way right now. I'm looking down the road and foreseeing a lifetime of chronic pain and it's not a happy thought. So here's another chance for my faith to grow. "Hope" with me that He will help me through this either by removing Evan (which would be miraculous), or removing the pain (also miraculous), or by doing something else that would be more than I could ever ask or imagine.

And thanks for the perspectives and encouragement that y'all have given me concerning being here in Amman at this time. I'm still working through what the possibilities are for me here. We're getting together each morning and studying both the chronological Qur'an, and right now the Gospel of Mark. After about five hours, we're about 2/3s of the way through the first chapter of Mark. :) But the time of study is really productive for me. As I manage to borrow time on other peoples' computers, I'll try to relate some of what I'm learning.

In the meantime, it's pretty discouraging to be here, despite some of the reasons that I see even now for us being here at this time.

The world goes not well, but the Kingdom comes!