Reflecting on middle eastern moments

Beverley and I are back from the middle east having supported a church there over a long w\e. We both spoke at meetings large and small and had lots of conversations over meals, coffee, tea and car journeys. The church there is doing very well despite some restrictions of meeting together and work visa challenges. Friendly, eager to learn, ready to worship and very multi-cultural - the church there is a great advert for how church can be, lots of languages and nations gathered together and folk from diverse economic backgrounds. Having lived in the middle east as a teenager much seemed strangely familiar to me: the heat, the sights, the customs, the call from the mosque, dust in your eyes, groups of men gathered at the road side, even the sweet\smokey smell of the local oil refinery!