it never slows down...

i promised myself i would never become one of those crazy twilight fans that obsessed over the books and movies, but i'm embarassed to say that i'm slightly starting to seem like that. i finished the first book and i'm frustrated because saleem has my second one, so i can't read it until he's done. haha.

my days are still busy busy busy. thursday i got the opportunity to go to Ramallah, which is a city in Palestine about an hour away, with jason and saleem to a day care/summer camp. we ran a program and played games with the kids for the majority of the afternoon, and they want us to come back a few more times throughout the summer which is a really cool opportuinity. let me tell you, those kids were adorable and SO much fun. my heart was stolen.
we had to take a taxi there because to get to Ramallah from Beit Sahour, you can you two ways. one all the way thru Palestine and one through Jerusalem which goes through Israel. we had to go the Palestine way because saleem has a Palestinian I.D. and therefrore cannot cross the checkpoint into Israel. we also had to take a taxi there because the checkpoint we had to go through only allows white plate (palestinian) cars and sarah and jason have a yellow plate (israeli) car. that is how most things work over here...very inconvienent. however, getting to experience the taxi ride was an adventure in itself. the way there was great. we had a really nice newer taxi, so it was clean and the seats were pretty comfortable. however, lesson #1 for my next taxi ride: take my iPod. the driver turned on the radio very very loud to a muslim preacher for the whole hour ride to Ramallah. luckily, jason had his iPod and was kind enough to share with me. the taxi driver was nice though because he actually turned on the a/c, and he didn't try to kill us with his driving...unlike the next one.
the taxi on the way back to Beit Sahour, however, was a completely different story. the taxi was older and run down a little so the seats were not comfy, it was dirty, and there was no a/c (which the whole ride to was through pure desert...so it was very very hot). not only was the taxi itself not so great...the taxi driver was insane. before we were even out of the parking garage that the taxis leave from, he had almost wrecked twice, yelled and cussed alot, and i don't think he had taken his hand off of his horn the whole time. and that's how he drove the whole way home. he was swirving in and out of cars, honking, yelling, racing, etc. it was one of the scariest car rides of my life, but i live to tell about it. :).

next week is going to be extremly busy and very tiring, so prayers are apprechiated. there is a group of about 10 college students coming from america tomorrow for a little over a week to help Paidia, and we are going to be working on finishing building the third side of the climbing tower as well as other various maintence things. it will make for some long days working out in the sun, so please pray for strength and cooporation for everyone involved. thank you so much for all your continued support!