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It has been a week since I returned from my pilgrimage to Egypt. The first few days were spent sharing gifts and stories with my wife and children and readjusting my body clock to the seven-hour time change.  It will take me some time to process the profound experiences I’ve had meeting some of my largeContinue reading “Blog Post #11: Egypt Pilgrimage Postscript”

Day 7 – Luxor (continued) Monday morning began with a leisurely chat alongside uncle Ramadan over Turkish coffee. My uncle is full of thoughts and ideas about everything from the Egyptian economy and state of tourism to domestic politics. He then took my friend, Adam and I on a driving tour of Luxor during theContinue reading “Blog Post #10: Alhamdulillah”

Day 4 – Cairo (continued) On Friday, my eldest sister, Yousra asked if we could spend the day together. After a wonderful conversation over coffee, she took me to lunch at an upscale Cairo restaurant full of young Egyptians. After a while, we were joined by my gregarious and outgoing cousin, Sohila who wanted aContinue reading “Blog Post #9: Arrival in Luxor, where (almost) everyone is a Haggagi!”

Arrival and first day in Egypt – On Tuesday afternoon of February 11th at 4:30pm local time, after nearly fifteen hours of travel, we finally arrived in Cairo. Words cannot describe the emotions of setting foot on Egyptian soil for the first time. While weary from the jet lag, it was thrilling to begin thisContinue reading “Blog Post #8: Cairo Homecoming”

Fresh from a wonderful send off at church, where my family received cards from St. Stephen’s parishioners and were prayed over at the end of worship by Bishop Charlie vonRonsenberg, I now sit at the airport in Atlanta awaiting my flight to Rome. My traveling companion, Adam, flew in shortly after I arrived and weContinue reading “Blog Post #7: 3, 2, 1…Liftoff!”

As the day of my departure draws near, I am finally beginning to get at least some semblance of a plan for my time in Egypt.  After we arrive from Rome on Tuesday, February 11th, the first several days will be spent in Cairo and specifically, as I noted in my last post, in theContinue reading “Blog Post #6: Countdown to Egypt”

My long-awaited pilgrimage to Egypt is now less than two weeks away and I increasingly find it hard to think about anything else.   The plan is to meet my travel companion (a Lutheran pastor friend, also named Adam, who worked for a year in Egypt) at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on February 10th.   OnContinue reading “Blog Post #5: Living History”

My eldest sister, Yousra, stayed in touch with me during my father’s imprisonment and provided updates whenever possible. For all its drawbacks, social media enabled us to do that and has aided me in maintaining some meaningful contact with other family members in Egypt over the last several years. In time, my father was releasedContinue reading “Blog Post #4: The Mo Salah Effect”

My mother told me before she died that her biggest regret in not taking me to Egypt was that I never got to meet my paternal grandmother, Sania. The name “Sania,” means brilliant in Arabic and it is clear that my mother found that a suitable title for a woman she fondly remembered as aContinue reading “Blog Post #3: From Darkness to Light”

My mother wrote scores of lengthy letters during the years she lived in Egypt. In reading through them now, over forty years later, I am struck by the radically counter-cultural life she embraced in marrying my biological father. These very personal missives give an eye-opening glimpse into the life of a young American woman, inContinue reading “Blog Post #2: The Great Divide”