living in seattle

Yesterday afternoon while we were unpacking, we had our windows open and could hear a guy across the street playing Beatles and Neil Young songs on his guitar. The college students must be getting back into town, we said to each other. (UW doesn't start until late September, and we live five blocks from campus.)

Last night we woke up at 3:30am. A woman was screaming across the street. (The college students must be getting back into town, we said to each other.) We went to the window, then to the porch. Other neighbors were out of their houses too. (I guess that's a main difference between NYC and Seattle: here, when people hear screaming in their neighborhood, they actually check it out.) Our worries dissipated when we figured out that she was high. But we couldn't get back to sleep for a while. The cops showed up, their lights flashing through our window until nearly five am.

Some facts we've learned about Seattle and ISI:

--Population: 565,000

--Number of Mosques: 40
(In contrast, the country Muslim country Qatar, which has about 700,000 residents, has only six Christian churches.)

--One of six residents in Seattle is foreign born. (In the USA generally, one of ten residents is foreign born.)

--There are approximately 150 days of rain per year

--Boeing, MIcrosoft, Amazon, and Starbucks are headquartered here, and draw many international employees

--There are 13,478 international students in Seattle

--ISI exists "to share Christ's love with international students and equip them for service in cooperation with the local church and others."

--Last year, ISI staff in Seattle met 1600 international students. About 1000 of those are still in continuing Christian community.

--At Seattle University, a Jesuit school, the Campus Minister told an ISI staff person: "We exist to make Muslims better Muslims, Buddhists better Buddhists, and Christians better Christians."

--One married couple on ISI staff has been living in community since their third year of marriage -- twenty nine years ago. They've hosted international students for nineteen of those years.

--ISI works with international students all over the USA, but Seattle is the only city that has an "ISI House" like ours.