Journey Back to Eden.pdf - St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Chicago

A TIME TO INTERCEDE 123Even more wonderfully, Good God, I observe the monksthemselves who are somehow a leaven in the dough of theirChurch, the heart of the heart of your kingdom here. I praiseyou for them, who summon their people, and even me, to riseup to the challenge of your Covenant.A Visitor from the StatesFEBRUARY 20, FRIDAYFather James Bump, a friend of mine for many years, has cometo visit! He arrived in the monastery late this morning, having beenoffered a driver by my associates in Cairo. However, I noticed thatthe driver was told to wait for us. So, a few hours later, after I hadgiven Father Jim a tour of the monastery, he announced that Iwould be going back to Cairo as his guest in the city, that we wouldnot be staying here in the monastery! I think that he was impressedpositively by the austerity of the monastery and its rustic simplicity,but decided that it was not his vocation to visit it at length. So withgood spirits and good humor, we returned to Cairo in the evening.How exquisite are Near Eastern monastic schedules; from day today and moment to moment, everything can change!FEBRUARY 21, SATURDAYWe visited a number of my friends in Cairo and made arrangementsfor a more protracted tour of the country in the next fewdays, as well as a brief tour of Israel thereafter.Good News!FEBRUARY 23, MONDAYSome very good news! Today I was able to go to Bank Misr andrecover the funds which I had originally wired to this bank when Ifirst left the States in September. For all these months I have beentraveling virtually without any money, although there has been noparticular liability about this when living in the monastery.However, now that I have left the monastery for a few days oftouring, it’s a great advantage to be able to draw from these re-