Monday, October 12, 2009

Arabic I

Last week I started my first Evenings at Emory class learning Arabic. I'm so excited about this course but know after the first class that it will be very challenging. I've been interested in Middle Eastern culture since my days at SMU as a Religious Studies major. Last year, I took a trip through Buckhead Church's Global X to North Africa. During our 9 days we traveled to various cities and lived with different Muslim families. We took classes to learn more about Islam and experienced their daily lives. If you want to read more about the trip you can check out our blog from the trip.

I think it is so essential in today's times that Americans and Christians work to understand Muslims. Just last week there was an article on CNN.com about how nearly 1 in 4 people are Muslim.

I hope that through this class I can begin to learn and understand their language, culture and religion even more.

2 comments:

Jean said...

this is so cool, emily! did you know that in israel, all students are required to learn hebrew, arabic, and english... i think we should offer arabic in the public school systems here...

we are about to read Three Cups of Tea in class - i really want my students to understand the Muslim culture and what's going on int pakistan. good luck with your classes!

Emily said...

I love that book! So glad you are having them read it!