In the fall of 2005, Amy Spaulding attended the Middle East Studies Program.  Upon her return, she wrote a bit of advice for others considering the program...

Better than Single Ply

Amy Spaulding, MESP Fall 2005

You’re a college kid.  A Christian college kid that is, and you’ve pretty much got your life figured out.  Okay, maybe not the rest of your life, but at least you’ve got the Christian college system down.  Wake up five minutes before chapel, sleep through chapel, go to class, eat, participate in some physical activity, read, nap, eat, stay up most of the night while eating, sleep…wake up five minutes before chapel…

Your routine is interrupted by the casting of furtive glances at your future fiancée (you hope) and the occasional movie.  And admit it, sometimes you think to yourself: could life get any better than this?

Well, my Christian college-going compadre, it can.    

Or at least it did for me.

I lived in Cairo with other Christian college kids for a semester while participating in the Middle East Studies Program.  And believe me, it was anything but routine. 

But my life is pretty good here.  I hear you say.  Why should I leave the comfort of single ply toilet paper, semi-controversial chapel speakers, and the future fiancée I have yet to say “hi” to?  Well, I’ll tell you.  In fact, I’ll make it interesting and tell you my top ten reasons why I think you should break from the Christian college bubble like I did and embark upon a MESP semester.

Amy’s Top Ten Reasons to embark upon a MESP semester:

10.  The scrapbooking possibilities are literally endless.

9.    Semi-extreme sports:  snorkeling in the Red Sea, climbing Mount Sinai overnight to catch the sunrise, cruising down the Nile in a cruise ship, riding a camel named Moses next to the pyramids, leading a worship session on the Mount of Olives, SANDboarding down desert sand dunes, tripping over mummy wrappings and human bones strewn on the ground, becoming one in spirit with Indiana Jones…

8.    The following are actual prices in Cairo:

• Arabic lessons covered by tuition: $0
• Full dinner of a noodely goodness called kosheri: $0.26
• 15-minute taxi ride home: $0.85
• Being able to yell at your taxi driver IN ARABIC while simultaneously consuming noodely goodness:  Priceless.

7.    If staying in Egypt isn’t enough for you, there’s this thing called “travel tour” which involves traveling around other Middle Eastern countries for a month (like Lebanon and Syria and Israel) and talking to political/religious leaders.  My MESP group talked to a man named Elias Chacour.  If you don’t know who that is, put down this piece of paper and read the book Blood Brothers.  Or just read sections in your Bible about Jesus because this guy’s almost as awesome.

6.    Celebrating Ramadan.  This is a month-long Islamic holiday where everyone sleeps all day and eats all night.  An entire country living like college kids.  Yes, it IS as wonderful as you’re imagining.

5.    Oh yeah, and you read some good books.  And write papers.  And get a full semester of college credit.  Sweet.

4.    Inside jokes with your group of about twenty-five other MESPers.  Example:  Andrew whipping out his velocia raptor impression pretending to be the young of that one falcon-like ancient Egyptian statue.  But you had to be there.

3.    Service projects.  Every week, I taught Sudanese refugees what speaking English is all about.  They taught me what surviving a civil war is all about.  Wow. 

2.    HOMESTAYS!!!  This includes the following:

• Staying with a Muslim family in Egypt for a week
• Being forcefed an unnatural amount of ridiculously good food (Egyptians think that hospitality = more food)
• Interfaith dialogue
• Not ever wanting to leave these people who are so different from you and yet so amazing

And the number one reason you should embark upon a MESP semester:

1.    You learn so much about the Middle East and who you are and who God is and how you fit into this crazy world that your mind bursts and you realize you have a burning desire to tell everyone about it, especially other Christian college kids who might go, and the only way you know how is through writing random articles that try to convince people that they don’t want single ply toilet paper when they think they do.

So my goal in writing this article is that reason #1 would someday apply to at least one of you Christian college kids.  Maybe, just maybe, I’ll read something a year from now written by one of you who wanted to take a chance on MESP and now has to tell about it.  YOU could be that one.  YOU could take that aforementioned chance on MESP…

 Or you could get to chapel because you’re late.  I hear there’s a semi-controversial chapel speaker speaking today.  Should be a good time…