New Prayerground

S.’s mom and uncle came into town on Monday to sign him out and move him out of the university. The thing that really scares parents is that once you get out, you can’t get back in. Apparently with all the students trying to get into colleges, it’s a real pain to get back into college, especially the specific one you dropped out of. What S. did though – in a smart move that really puts his parents at ease – is take a leave of absence of sorts. This will allow him to not study but keep his name on the list for up to two years. His family drove a car up from two provinces south of here (several hours – not sure how long it took exactly), and only stayed in town for about an hour and a half before turning around and heading back. Inconvenient, but his mom’s signature was necessary for making this happen.

They had to put a reason on the paper for why he’s taking a leave. For lack of better available categories, they chose – “annoyed by studying.” This whole dropping-out isn’t very normal. Last night at an English corner, I told some students that I was talking to that S. had just dropped his major, and they looked at me like I said half his face fell off.

So S. is all moved into the house where our church meets now. We had bought a bunk bed and mattresses and all that a couple weeks back, but he was waiting on this paper to get moved in. We’ll have a couple guys from the States arriving in about two months who will also move in. Fortunately, there’s plenty of space – there’s two bedroom-areas in the house – so one of them is now just “dorm/living space.” We’ve still got one as our very square, very miniature “fellowship hall.” And the big room.

Speaking of our building, it’s about 20 stories high. We’re on the eighth floor, so I don’t often run into reasons to go up to the top. But Sunday, I decided to run up there to check the door to the roof – which has always been locked. But wonderfully, this time the door was wide open, permitting access to the roof. Awesome view of the city! Of our area anyway. Not high enough to see the big picture of the city, but big enough to see our Jerusalem. I could see parts of the campuses of three different universities. Pretty amazing – and heart-breaking.