The Outreach Foundation works closely with Egypt's Pastoral and Outreach Ministries Council of the Synod of the Nile (POMC). The vision of the POMC is to disseminate the gospel in locations where God's Word can be planted, multiply, and bear fruit so that everyone can hear the good news of Jesus Christ. POMC’s Marina Wagdy writes:
Read MoreIn November, a team from The Outreach Foundation made a trip back to Egypt (the second one in 2022) and traveled to the south of the country, not far from the border with Sudan. This southernmost Presbytery of the Synod of the Nile is geographically large, but the Presbyterian churches are few — but not for long, as a vibrant church planting initiative is on the rise here. Rev. Kimmy Briggs (on her fourth trip with Outreach), reflects on a day of visits to a country rich in culture and history — and in opportunities for the Good News!
Read MoreSharona Island is a medium-sized village in Upper Egypt that is actually an island in the Nile River. With a majority Christian population, the Presbyterian Church was established in 1898. The ministry of this church grew rapidly in recent years under the leadership of Rev. Mahrous Ayed, a graduate of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Cairo (ETSC), an Outreach partner.
Read MoreAfter decades of difficulties and hesitation to build churches or renovate the old ones, the Egyptian church is now able to build in a massive way. Many building projects are taking place in different parts of the country. A great example is a church in a village in Upper Egypt called Kalandol. This church is very old and has a building that has been there for almost 100 years without any kind of renovation or reconstruction. Peter Gamal, a new graduate from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, was sent to pastor this church. Miraculously, he managed to get a license to rebuild the church — and the entire congregation is involved in the project!
Read MoreYellow Mountain became “Green with growth”
“Yellow Mountain” is a rather picturesque-sounding name for a sprawling slum area in greater Cairo to which many people migrated from other parts of the country to find more opportunities. Most of those people are from poor backgrounds and had lived in small villages. About 10 years ago, one of the seminary students from ETSC (Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo), Jimmy Wageeh, went to the area to meet some of those families. He started by visiting them in their homes, forming a Bible study group, and then serving kids. After the number of families increased, they rented a place to have ministry and worship. The church grew in both number and quality of services.
Read MoreA New Church Begets a New Church!
The population of Egypt is more than 100 million people, making it the 14th most populous country in the world. The phenomena of internal migration opened many doors for God’s work as thousands of families began moving to megacities like Cairo and Alexandria. As a result, the need for new churches continues to grow. The Egyptian government will give land for churches in new cities but the building must begin within 3 years or the land will revert to the government. This is both an exciting opportunity and a big challenge! In previous eras, churches had a very difficult time obtaining permits to build, or even to make minor repairs. Thus, this season is a “golden window” that the Church in Egypt is trying to take advantage of while it lasts.
Read MoreAs the Egyptian church is growing in church planting ministry, there are many stories about honest and dedicated lay people who gave their lives for the Lord. Although they might be simple in their appearance, their faith is very strong and deep.
One of these stories is about the head of a family in a remote village in Upper Egypt. Al Kom Alahmar is a village on the edge of the desert that is home to Bedouin tribes. Some of them are fundamentalist in their attitude against Christians and the work of the church. Our story is about Elder Khamis, the head of a Presbyterian family in the village. He passed away this summer but he was a man of integrity who built peaceful and healthy relationships with the neighborhood. He dedicated himself to the work of the Lord when he gave part of his own house to be a church and invited ministers from the Presbytery to hold Bible study and prayer meetings. He began to win over those who were against the work of the church as this house church served the needs of the community in healthcare, education, and other services.
Read MoreHis name means “Job.” And for Ayoub, like his namesake in the Bible, God’s call to be faithful came with costly discipleship. As a young man, Ayoub, pictured right center, had a vision to plant churches around Ismailia, a city in northeast Egypt (aka the Delta) on the Suez Canal. For over 20 years, he nurtured four new congregations, sharing the Good News, and seeking to meet the needs of these largely poor communities through microloans and agricultural training, along with medical care and projects to improve local education.
Read MoreA Pastor with a Mission Heart
Pastor Manassa Nesem Sadek graduated from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC) in 2008. As a student, Manassa’s heart was captured by the mission classes that he took. Then ETSC arranged for him and another student to do a mission internship, twice, in Sudan. Traveling throughout Sudan and South Sudan, preaching, teaching, and encouraging the churches there, was deeply impactful to him.
Upon graduation, Manassa received a call to be the pastor of the village church of Al Tayeba, located in Minia Province, about 150 miles south of Cairo, and quickly led his congregation to be missional. He discipled many young people in mission, evangelism, and church planting, and within a short time, the congregation had planted three new churches in other villages in the nearby desert.
Manassa’s congregation began offering literacy classes and health care to the needy in the community. Manassa and his congregation are helping the village of Tayeba and other small villages greatly during the pandemic by providing medication, oxygen tanks, masks, sanitizers, and food supplies for the poor.
Read MoreWith 20 million people, Cairo is the largest city in the Middle East and is home to 20% of the population of Egypt. It is growing at a rate of over 2% a year which doesn’t sound like much until you “do the math” - that means that Cairo adds over 400,000 people each year. Or think of it this way: each year, Cairo adds the equivalent of a Tulsa or a New Orleans. Every year. These new residents come from other (often rural) parts of Egypt, hoping to find better jobs and better schools for their children. They end up living in “suburbs/extensions” of Cairo which are makeshift and ramshackle communities often with poor roads, dense apartment complexes, and few available services.
In the last 20 years, the Church of Egypt recognized the importance of planting churches in these new communities. Planting a church is not a luxury or an extra place for people to only practice spiritual activities like worship and Bible study. The new church is a place of enlightenment, services, and refuge for many people.
An established congregation in Ain Shams, located in the northern part of Cairo, adopted a vision of planting new churches in some of these new communities. It is one of the churches that recognized the call to go out and spread the message of salvation and hope. Pastor Eid Salah and elders from the church are eager for evangelism and church planting.
Read MoreLuxor: An Old Church is Destroyed…and a New One Arises
American Presbyterian missionaries came to Egypt in 1854. They sailed the Nile to share the Gospel, and in 1907 a Presbyterian Church was established in Luxor, the site of ancient pharaonic temples across the river from the Valley of the Kings.
For more than 112 years, this place was a witness for the Gospel and reached out to many villages around the city. In 2012, the Egyptian government decided to renovate the Avenue of the Sphinxes that joins Luxor Temple with Karnak Temple. That Avenue went underneath the Presbyterian church, part of the Presbyterian school, and some other nearby buildings and so the government ordered their removal.
Read MoreInto the fields: Egyptian pastors visit their people in fields
One of the most difficult challenges that many pastors face in Egypt during this COVID-19 crisis is how to communicate with their people. In villages, the church IS the center of the social and spiritual life of the people. But now they are not allowed to go to church because of restrictions on social distancing. In many villages, the churches used to have meetings almost every night. People came from their farms by sunset, had a meal, and then went to church where they spent the night singing and listening to God's word. Now they cannot go to the church and they cannot enjoy worshiping together. In the village of Manshat el Dahab a young pastor, Rev. Medhat Mourice, who has served in his church for about five years decided to find a creative way to communicate with his people. Many of the people in this church can access the internet; however, the young pastor also manages to visit members in their fields. He organizes Bible study groups and has singing with his people. He is encouraging them and praying with them so as to overcome the difficulties of these days.
Read MoreDuring this time of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Egyptian Church has not given up its ministry. Pastors are committed to spreading hope and the Good News of the Gospel. In one of the villages in Upper Egypt, a new graduate from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC), Peter Gamal, is creatively serving his church and community. Peter’s church is closed for public meetings because of the coronavirus. But despite the restrictions, several days every week he visits people in their homes who are in need.
Read MoreWith 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
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.
Read MoreA message from Dr. Atef Gendy, ETSC President
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. John 1:14
Although the Church in the East formally recognizes Christmas on January 7, I feel blessed to begin my celebration in December with my friends in the West and continue it through January 7. While the traditions surrounding Christmas vary throughout the world, there is a shared belief among us that the coming of Jesus was and is the most significant event in human history. He is indeed full of grace and truth. Whether our celebration resembles that of those lowly, bedraggled shepherds or that of the well-to-do mysterious wise men from the East, matters not. We come together around his manger-crib with hearts overwhelmed with joy and gratitude.
For those of us at ETSC, it is indeed a time for thanksgiving. Not only do we give thanks for the coming of Christ, but we also pause to offer our profound appreciation for God’s work in and among us this past year. Let me express our gratitude for the following blessings:
Read MoreIn November, I led a team of 17 to Egypt to learn from and celebrate the ministry of our partners there, one of which is the Synod of the Nile’s Pastoral Outreach and Mission Committee that is planting new churches and revitalizing old ones. My colleague, Rev. Mark Mueller, was part of this team and reflects here on what he encountered.
Marilyn Borst, Associate Director for Partnership Development
Lessons
by Mark Mueller
The Middle East has many lessons to teach the church. In Iraq, the church has remained the faithful remnant despite war, sanctions, and upheaval. In Lebanon, the church moves forward amid protests, poverty, and instability. In Syria, the church is rebuilding after invasion, strife, and migration. In each of these countries, the church has served as a model of resiliency and faithfulness.
Read MoreDRY BONES?
Then he said to me [Ezekiel], "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, `Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.’”
A ninety minute drive south of Luxor, along muddy canals and through sleepy villages, brings you to Adaima, a place that, like much of rural Egypt, seems a bewildering mix of past and present: a languid donkey “parked” alongside a dusty Toyota in front of a farm stand selling Pepsi and plump pomegranates, batteries, and bananas…
We pull up to a colorless, three-story mud-brick façade, where the only obvious clue that we have arrived at the Presbyterian Church is the equally colorless cross over the well-worn courtyard door. The door swings open and out bursts Rev. Shenouda Girgis to greet our Outreach Foundation team – we have arrived at our family-by-faith!
Read MoreNote: In November I led another team to Egypt with a key focus of our journey being visits to some of the new church developments and church revitalization initiatives of the Synod of the Nile. Of the 400 congregations which comprise the Presbyterian Church in Egypt, 100 have been planted or revitalized in the past 10 years! “Revitalized” churches are historic congregations – some more than 100 years old – which had dwindled in size usually because members moved to larger cities for jobs. In danger of disappearing completely, they could no longer support a full-time pastor or basic ministries.
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