Nov. 19:IRIS Presentations

 IRIS Presentations

The boys made their IRIS presentations tonight at youth group. It was very interesting, and they did a really great job! The kids all really seemed fascinated and asked really good questions.

Alex:

In school, there are 50-60 kids in a class, and the teacher moves from room to room. There is no air conditioning. They have year round schooling with short breaks in between the semesters. Each semester is 13 weeks. They get off school for Muslim holidays. 90% of the students at school are Muslim.

Alex showed us a map of Nigeria & the surrounding countries. The flag is vertical stripes with green-white-green. The green is for agriculture. People do a lot of walking or riding motorcycles.

Alex discussed the bombing of Christian churches in Nigeria. People are afraid to go to church because of this. He told the true story of 3 ministers who were captured by some Muslims. The Muslims asked the clergymen to deny Christ, and 2 of them did. The Muslims killed them, because they knew that if the clergymen were asked to convert, they would lie about it and deny it later. They let the minister go that did not deny Christ. I believe there is a lesson there for all of us.

In Alex’s family there are 4 kids. One brother wants to work and not go to college, 1 sister is in college, 1 sister is admitted into college to study estate management. Alex wants to be an accountant. They have 2 cats & 2 dogs. They own a Toyota van just like ours.

The traditional way to greet an elder:

Jer:

He shared map of Egypt. Aswan (his town) produces 90% of the electricity for Egypt. Cairo, the capital of Egypt, has 12 million people. Aswan has blue water in the Nile, because it is purer than other places.

He gave everyone a bookmark made of papyrus. The kids were very excited by this.

Jer tried to explain why they all have different last names in the same family. They each have 4 names, including their father & grandfather. Women do not take their husband’s name. I would be known as Mrs. Krys at school, to show that I am married.

94% of Egyptians are Muslim, the rest are Christian. 99% of the Christians are Orthodox like he is. He is not recommended to take communion outside of his church. You should go through confession before communion. Women cover their hair for communion. You do not eat anything for 9 hours before communion. If you are late for the prayer time, you can’t take communion. His church actually has 2 sanctuaries, 1 above the other. The lower church is for families with kids, and the upper one is more calm and for mostly older people. The church service is 3 and a half hours long, and is kind of like an open house. The beginning is a prayer service that begins at 6:00 am!

Kids go to an international school or private school for the best education, but they are expensive. Most kids go to public school because you only pay for the books. It is cheap. 30% of the kids at Jer’s school are Christian because the owners of the school are Christian. Most schools have more like 10% Christian kids and the rest are Muslim. The kids are more tolerant of each other at his school. His best friend is Muslim, and the kids all get along pretty well.