Day 5 - Fishless sleep? Sleepless Fish?

I wake up after 1 and half hours of sleep (I should have just stayed up!), and had to wake poor Samuel up at the same time to give me a lift to Big Samuel’s place to meet up with Morris and Sayedna. Freezing cold (getting used to it now ( ) we jump into the car and zoom to the other side of town, where we were greeted with loads of food on the table, that we no one touched!

After negotiations whether to make it to Stuttgart by car or by train, we end up taking the car for exactly 1 km before deciding that the train will be more convenient. Typical Egyptian ( So small Sam drops us to the train station where we get tickets for the fast train (ICE reaching speeds of 250km/hr and beyond). Tickets were really expensive being at 140 Euros for the three of us … one way! Anyways, that done we wait for the train drinking some coffee and chatting to make sure we are alive and awake.

Train comes, no place to sit … we should have reserved spots the night before. We find Sayedna a place to sit (and sleep) while we stand outside the cabin, close to a stinking bathroom … and just started talking. It was practically the first time after the airport pickup that Morris and I get to actually talk and have an intellectual discussion. He was a bit bothered about the reaction Sayedna has regarding the level of service in Germany, in which he holds Morris partly responsible. I had to agree with Morris that, sometimes we all get this reaction from Sayedna, because he is holding us responsible to the level of service in our respective areas.

He is holding us responsible, us who have felt and seen God’s wondrous work when we dedicated part of our time serving Him in Africa. I don’t blame him … and I actually take it as a new starting point for our service. If we do not continue the work, who will? The work of the Lord. I am not saying this being pompous about it, but rather being humbled by the fact that my life lacked the love needed to serve the people I know. There is no pride in service …there is no level of achievement to pursue … there is no reason to even to boast about previous outcomes, which were purely God’s work. Loving those whom God loves (everyone!) makes more sense than any other work in the world. My earthly job pays me really good, gets me a lot of prestige and high level of experience, and definitely something that I enjoy doing. Although I fulfill my responsibilities and even go beyond that, there is something else about serving God … that takes up your whole heart, and your life … even if you are leading a working life. This is a challenge on its own in this world, to learn the actual balance of work and Work: I take work as nothing else but means to pay for my personal expenses related to Work. That is a very difficult concept, that even I find difficult maintaining … but it is what I would like to achieve. My life is the Lord’s … not work, not friends, not even service as an action … my life is Love.

So we reach Stuttgart, where continue to carry Sayedna’s ten million plastic bags (actually poor Morris carried most of it!), and then head outside to wait for the character that made my day (and probably the others too), a very miserable day. Mr. Fish (no real names involved ;) ) picked us up with his new car, took us to the 4th underground level where he had his private parking, and took us up to his posh office in a prime location in the city, overlooking a nice looking clock tower. Sayedna was here in Stuttgart to visit many Germans who contributed and are willing to contribute to the new Hope Centre in Kenya, to help out with HIV that is killing more people than ever imagined. Mr. Fish is a very influential person with a lot of good contacts, who usually tries in his own way to help Sayedna find sponsors for this service. However, the way he spoke and the way he tried dealing with different matters, looking down at Morris as being incompetent and challenging him in every way possible, and at the end he just simply got on our nerves.

We had to stay there the whole day (

So our rounds of visiting friends (kind sponsors) of Hope Centre began, where Sayedna left them a box of fancy chocos as a small gift for their contributions. That was the easy part. The rides from and to these places were the nerve wracking bit. Without mentioning a lot of detail, Mr. Fish was involved in organization of a super massive Euro youth convention that housed more than 800 youths from the whole continent. That event was apparently a big flop, with little spiritual gain, and with big immoral incident happening. As expected, Mr. Fish started throwing the blame on everything else, but the fact that it might have been a bit TOO BIG to handle. He continued to show off about all the preparations involved, and how beautiful it was (not what I heard from the youth) etc. With a lot more local church politics involved, he continued to bother Morris the whole time, and I was just … quiet and not interested, but rather getting agitated for wasted time as well as for Morris. I could feel him burning up more and more, with everything that our slippery friend was mentioning. This was heightened by the fact that we were tired and lacked a lot of sleep.

The day came to a grateful end at around 4pm (from 9 am!), where took the train back. We were supposed to get some sleep … however: Since I forgot something in Mr. Fish’s car, I had to run back and get it. Coming back to the train, I hear the bells ringing announcing that they will close the doors, so I jump into the first carriage, thinking that all carriages are linked … nope! Morris and Sayedna were in a totally different section … and we had a problem: only one ticket gets printed (with the value of three tickets), and Morris had it. If I was in an English speaking country, I would have reasoned with the conductor, but since German is not a favorite language at the moment, I had to go hide in the bathroom until I can get to Morris. Halfway, I find out that I had the ticket in my pocket! Uh-oh! So I go outside and wait for the only stop between Stuttgart and Frankfurt, before I run and join Morris and Sayedna, who were worried that they will have to pay again for a ticket + fine ( So yeah … no sleep there!

We get to church, were there was a general meeting with Sayedna with the whole of the Frankfurt congregation (I thought it was only the youth!). It was a nice wa3za (sermon), but I continued to fall asleep in many parts. They asked me to do taranim for the prayer session before the sermon, and it was miserable as I had nothing to do taranim from, and their knowledge of Arabic praise is restricted to what the older generation knows and got to transfer to the younger ones; basically not my day (

A long and very strong prayer session followed, which sadly I slept throughout. Then I just gathered myself and asked Samuel to drop me back home. I know he wanted to be with Sayedna, but I couldn’t stay up any longer … and to think I had a flight to catch at 6 am the next day!

EuroTrip is about to move to Vienna …