After 25 hours on the plane or in the airport, we arrived dead tired in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Saturday morning at 4:30 a.m. Because of the British Airways crash the day before, our connections were all messed up and we missed our connection to Dubai because our flight was delayed 3 hours in Seattle. We took a later flight into Dubai and arrived dead tired--slept 3 hours--and began sight-seeing on Saturday late morning. I have never seen a combination of wealth and building projects in my life. It is amazing. Put any city building project you've ever seen and multiply it by 100 or a 1000. Cranes are everywhere, condos are being built and they are only being built after every condo has been pre-sold! The prices range from $1 million to $15 million for units on the beach and there are literally a hundred thousand being built--I am not exaggerating. Don Beck, our micro-economic specialist with us who knows his concrete, says that there are so many concrete making machines that make the concrete from scratch right on the spot. The world's tallest building is being built. Presently, it has 85 stories built and it will end with 150. I'll post a picture of it for you. It is a beautiful, clean, well-ordered city.
This will be much different from the city of Peshawar we will travel to on Tuesday morning at 4 a.m. for a three hour flight. We are traveling to the Swabi district of Pakistan to assess the possibility of being a project called H.A.N.D.S.--Helping Another Nation Develop Schools. We are going to Pakistan's most lawless area to build western style schools for the children there and combine it with micro-economic projects to give jobs and a future to the people there. We will also travel to Islamabad and into Kashmir during the next week while I am there, and the rest of the group with me will continue on for another week.
I'll keep you updated as often as I can. Things don't work like they do in the States so we'll do things the way they work in Pakistan. Pray for us as we talk to many, many people--some who are in favor, some opposed, and some figuring out how they can turn it to their own advantage. We need all the prayer support we can get.
The weather here is excellent--about 60 degrees each day. Feels like spring to us--cold to everyone around here. Enjoy the week-end. Bob
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