Thomas journals

After three years as teaching missionaries in Seoul, Korea, God called us back to the Middle East, to teach in Qatar. Our years in Saudi Arabia have made our transition here easier - we already know the culture, the religion, the environment, but more importantly, how to be Christian in an exclusively Muslim country. We look forward to supporting the Christian community here and modeling Christ’s love to our students. We are settling, in our apartment in Al Wakra, Qatar (yes, emphasis on the first syllable: QATar with a sort of soft initial K sound).  The apartment is spacious and solid, with good air-conditioning and reliable electricity and fairly reliable water.  The school owns the building, so we know all our neighbors automatically, and we leave our door unlocked.  We are about 5 miles down the coast from the airport, so we can easily pick you up if you come to visit!   Most of the teachers are US or Canadian, with a few Europeans and Middle Easterners in the mix.  Most of t

An idiosyncracy of living in a hot climate where water supplies are often scarce is that your household water is often provided from a tank on the roof.  Most of our VISTA apartments are supplied from water tanks on the roof, where they get the full sun of the day: solar heat!  Because our summer nights are still hot, the water tank never really cools much.   Typically, each room has its own electric water heater, powered by a(n unmarked) switch on the wall. The water heater is either in a closet, or the ceiling, or the wall -- so it does not get any solar heat!   Thus, counter-intuitively, in summer, we: 1- leave the hotwater power switch off; 2- turn on the “cold” water tap for hotter water, and 3- get cooler water from the “hot” water tap. Thus in full summer, it is better to take showers in the morning can be rather scalding, when the tank has had a chance to cool somewhat. At some point when there is less solar heat, we switch back to normal operation -- maybe l