Weekly Photo Challenge: Community

It’s easy to come up with photos for “community” as the word “community” automatically brings thoughts of “church” or “community of believers” to my mind and it’s been a pretty busy week for the Protestant Church in Oman during this 3rd week of Advent! 🙂  Here, as with each of the 4 weeks of Advent, one family from the congregation lights the previous candle(s) of Advent and then lights the next candle until the 4th is lit on Christmas week.  This ancient tradition is one way for the church to celebrate the first Advent (“Coming”) and anticipate the 2nd Advent of Christ.                                      One important aspect of community in the church is fellowship and the breaking of bread together.  This photo was during the last Tuesday night Bible study of the year.This photo was from Friday’s event known as “Christmas Joy” , which is an outreach party to give an evening of joy to female migrant workers in Muscat, Oman (next year is the men’s turn!).  This was the 7th annual Christmas Joy in Oman!  Outreach and charity are important features of any healthy church community.

I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of “community” for this photo challenge.  Finally, here’s a short video from the Children’s Nativity Play this past Friday morning in which the children and youth led us in celebration of Christmas Worship Service”: 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Grand

From WordPress: “Grand. We’ve hosted a “Big” photo challenge in the past, but for this week’s challenge, we want you to consider not just the size of something, but also that special element: the “wow factor” of a scene or subject that makes a picture so stunning. That magical quality you’re always out looking for and so excited to capture with your camera…We want to see your interpretation of grand, from festive holiday city scenes to the Christmas tree in your living room to other shots that will make our jaws drop. We look forward to seeing your images!”

Well, “Grand” certainly brings Jamal Shams to mind as it’s known as “The Grand Canyon of Oman“, being the highest mountain range in Oman.At 3, 024 meters, it’s a long way down.How about this scene from Bimmah Sinkhole Park? This says “grand” to me:And looking down on this grand spot:The eastern coast of Oman with its white sand beaches and limestone cliffs is pretty grand:The largest dam in Oman, Wadi Daqa Dam, certainly qualifies as “grand”:Royal Opera House Muscat (ROHM) has been called “grand” and “majestic” by many, both inside:and out:Check out other entries for “grand” listed at the bottom of this blogpost.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Let There Be Light!

A great wordpress weekly photo challenge theme for this week: “Let There Be Light!”.How’s the Burj Khalifa lit up on the very night that Dubai learned that they won the vote for Expo 2020 for a light source?! (In case you don’t know, that was last night!)  They had it lit up with this special blue lighting which made it look so “otherworldly”!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unexpected

This scene screamed out “UNEXPECTED” to me as I was shopping with the family in Carrefour Muscat City Centre this week.  I’m reminded of my 1st Christmas in Oman 6 years ago.  I think it’s safe to say that almost no one coming to Oman for the first time expects to see such Christmas decorations in a Muslim land!  The reason it was unexpected for me this year is that Christmas had not been on my mind at all and suddenly, boom, there’s santa and all the bells and whistles you would expect at a department store back home staring me in the face!  Surprisingly, there are only like 30 days left till Christmas!  Hope you enjoyed my entry for this week’s photo challenge from the folks at WordPress.  “Ho!ho!ho!” and all that jazz! 😉

Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

After 3 months of “Photo Apps” and “Phoneography” (March’s theme), WordPress is finally back to weekly photo challenges.  This week, ”

In a new post created specifically for this challenge, share a picture in which color takes center stage.

You can post a single photograph featuring your favorite color or many colors, or take one of your images and experiment with color effects in a photo app or online photo editor (which we introduced in some of last month’s posts). For those of you up for a multi-photo challenge, play around with this theme in a gallery.”  I decided to try out one of the galleries available for pics from WordPress.  Colors of Oman!