Egypt Update April 2020
With all the world struggling with the pandemic, it seems timely to share this “good news” update written by the Rev. Nancy Fox, a former trustee of The Outreach Foundation and a frequent pilgrim in Egypt, experiencing “God at work” there. With your help, Outreach continues to stand beside the Church in Egypt, especially now, and has wired emergency funds to both the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo and the Synod of the Nile (additional information about their special emergency appeal follows this update). As I write, we are hoping to make another mission-vision trip to Egypt in November, if the situation allows. Additional information about that may be found HERE.
---Marilyn Borst, Associate Director for Partnership Development
Dronka Church-A Resurrection in Process
For sixty years, the church in Dronka, Egypt, founded and built by American Presbyterian missionaries in 1890, had been without a pastor. There was not much left but a decrepit, cracked, and crumbling church building too close to a busy highway. The church was empty but the village was full of need: deep poverty, high rates of addiction and abuse, poor health and lack of quality care, and a shortage of good news coming from too few churches. Dronka needed a resurrection.
And then, a little like the way God took the prophet Ezekiel to the valley of the dead, dry bones and told him to preach the word of the Lord to them, the Synod of the Nile sent a young lay pastor to revive the church body with the life-giving breath of God’s Word and service to the community’s needs. Dry bones began to connect and that old church began to cough and sputter with signs of life as a space where Muslims as well as Christians came for occasional medical outreach events with visiting doctors, where mothers could gain needed parenting skills, where children and youth could learn that God loves them in a place free of the dangers of substance and other abuses that surrounded them. Joyful singing, Christ-centered worship and the good news of the gospel - the sounds of abundant life – began to leak out to the village through the holes and cracks in ceiling and walls. Many more wanted to come, but engineers had declared the building unsafe, so they stayed away.
When our little team visited briefly in 2018, the small van struggled through the crowded and narrow streets to get us close to the church. Pastor Ibrahim (wearing a black shirt in the group shot above), just out of seminary and seven-days-ordained, welcomed us warmly (if a little nervously), along with other local church leaders and some of the members and neighbors who were around. It only took a few minutes to show us the two multi-purpose rooms with the open-air dirt “courtyard” in between. These spaces served every purpose from worship to medical clinic to playground, youth center, prayer meetings and Christian haven. We looked around (and upward) warily as we stood together and heard the exciting story but noted the dire condition of the church. The congregation had grown to 80 people (now membership is 50 families and 100 worship in two Sunday services). An astounding 150 kids attend “Sunday school” on Saturdays; 100 women come weekly for their program; medical campaigns are announced by the neighboring mosques as well as the churches; and the church holds evangelism days to visit and minister to people in the neighborhood and invite them to come…to worship the God of resurrection.
Dronka’s small congregation is too poor to build a new church on their own, but they have and continue to give sacrificially and have come up with $24,000 to build the concrete foundation. They are asking God to provide the rest---about $115,000. Other Egyptian churches have taken offerings to help Dronka, and so they took the bold step of tearing down the old building (before it fell down) and beginning with what they had. Members and other churches around Egypt again gave generously, and there is now a skeleton of what will be their new church. But COVID-19 and the associated lockdown has come to Dronka, too, and the village, made up mostly of day laborers, is surviving on the government bread, hope and prayer. The dry bones have come together, bone to bone, and the Spirit is already breathing life in and through the church body in their community, but the new church building needs outside help to “get its skin on” and be able to resume their vital ministry. Ours is a resurrection God who invites us in to his work.
This recent Easter morning in Egypt (April 12 this year, since our Egyptian Presbyterian friends follow the Coptic Orthodox Church calendar), I emailed “Christ is risen!” to friends. Tharwat Wahba, Chair of the Mission Department at the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Cairo and also of the Synod of the Nile’s council which supports the mission of the church, shot back with “Christ is risen indeed!” and included photos of Dronka Church’s new foundation and skeleton to illustrate our shared rejoicing. Friends, ours is indeed a God of resurrection! Let’s join in the life-giving work God is doing in Dronka, of all places – far away from our daily lockdown, Zoom calls and baking parties – sharers in our common pandemic siege, but more importantly close to us in the “communion of the saints.” Let’s help Dronka “get the skin on” that new building to better enable their desperately-needed ministry of resurrection life in that little village at the heart of Egypt.
-Rev. Nancy Fox
THE NEED
The Outreach Foundation is seeking $7,000 a month to support the planting/revitalization of Presbyterian churches in Egypt. You may make a gift HERE or by sending a check to our office.
From Synod of the Nile on their COVID-19 Emergency Appeal:
Egypt has been greatly affected in the last two months not only from the COVID-19 pandemic but also from heavy rains that hit the country in the middle of March. Due to the lockdown and curfew, many small businesses have been shattered and many families have lost their income.
As a result, we are taking some initiatives:
· The Pastoral and Outreach Ministries Council (POMC) is working with other Synod of the Nile councils to offer 5,000 boxes of dried food for 5,000 families in villages and new church development areas. Local churches are trying to help needy people from Christian and Muslim backgrounds. We are preparing for another initiative to distribute 5,000 more boxes to needy families in newly planted churches, Sudanese churches in Egypt, and village churches. One box will cost about $6. The total need will be $30,000.
· Some pastors have lost part of their monthly income as they serve in poor and needy areas and the POMC is trying to help with financial support. These pastors face huge challenges in the communities they serve such as drugs, prejudice, ignorance and violence. We are eager to help them continue in their ministry to impact the lives of the people in these communities. This includes more than 30 pastors who are planting new fellowships in new areas. These areas are in villages, slums around big cities and new neighborhoods. The need for this is approximately $20,000.
Please join us in praying for these needs and consider giving financially.
THE NEED
You may make a gift HERE or by sending a check to our office. Please designate your gift to COVID-19 Emergency Appeal-Egypt.