2003 Follow-Up Trip: Deepened Bonds with Egyptian Friends and New Ministry Partners
INSTALLMENT 6 OF THE HISTORY OF THE OUTREACH FOUNDATION IN EGYPT
by Jeff Ritchie
Gulf War Changes Our Plans
The 2002 trip to Egypt marked the beginning of many wonderful mission relationships in Egypt. Churches began to commit themselves to the mission initiatives at the Cairo Seminary and to new church developments, especially the church in 10th of Ramadan City. The Kasr el Doubara Church in Cairo also had attracted the interest of several of the trip participants.
The Outreach Foundation was eager to build on the relationships that had begun with this trip, and we planned a follow-up trip for May 2003. However, as we were in the process of recruiting for this trip, the events leading to the Second Gulf War were unfolding. We canceled the trip, but one participant, Walter Lewis from Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Wichita, KS, had a message from the Holy Spirit while he was on a mission trip in Hungary. The Spirit said, “Go to Egypt.”
Walter shared this message with me, and I wrote to our friends in Egypt to ask if the current Gulf War would make it impossible for them to receive us. They replied, “Come,” and so Walter Lewis and I found ourselves in Egypt once more in May 2003. Eastminster’s Associate Pastor for Mission, the Rev. Tom Edwards, also joined us.
A Visit to Upper Egypt with the Rev. Dr. Abdel Masih Istafanous, General Secretary
Our church host again was the General Secretary of the Synod of the Nile, the Rev. Dr. Abdel Masih Istafanous. He was eager to take us back to two of the new churches we had seen in 2002. He also pointed out that we had not traveled to southern Egypt, or Upper Egypt, on our previous trip. No visit to Egypt would be complete, he said, without going to Luxor where 25% of the world’s antiquities were located.
We were glad to take advantage of his offer and spent the first few days of our 2003 trip admiring the tombs of great Pharaohs and the ruins of the Karnak Temple in and around the city of Luxor. We were overwhelmed with the splendor of Ancient Egypt and grateful to our host for his encouragement to learn more about the history of this amazing land. While in Upper Egypt, we also saw some churches of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt that were over 100 years old. Some of their buildings needed extensive repair and restoration. In others, the migration of people from the countryside to the cities had decimated the membership, but there were still many people living in these rural towns and communities. Church revitalization and repair were among the many needs of the Presbyterians in Egypt, and they would become part of the mission of The Outreach Foundation in Egypt over time.
Over this time in Upper Egypt, we spent many hours with Dr. Abdel Masih. He was a scholar in Reformed Theology with a Ph.D. from Princeton Seminary. He served as Director of the Bible Society of Egypt for a time and was a professor at the Cairo Seminary. In addition, Dr. Abdel Masih was part of the Middle East Reformed Fellowship (MERF), a ministry to promote Reformed teaching among the churches of the Middle East and North Africa. He also had a personal mission, named Philip Ministries, which was especially focused on support of the Church in Sudan. We were glad to have such a committed church leader as our host for this trip.
Cairo Visits
Returning to Cairo, we visited both the 10th of Ramadan Church and the 15th of May Church and saw the progress they had made on the construction of their sanctuaries. Each had a place in their new buildings for the congregation to worship.
At the Evangelical Theological Seminary, we had a wonderful session with Dr. Atef, Dr. Swailem, and the Rev. Tharwat concerning his plans for Ph.D. studies. Rev. Tharwat had spent the 2002-2003 school year as a Th.M. student while exploring schools in England and the United States. The consensus among Dr. Atef, Dr. Swailem, and Rev. Tharwat was that he would enroll at the London School of Theology and that the focus of his studies would be on the mission endeavors of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt from its inception.
At an update on the new Missions Initiative at the seminary, Dr. Swailem introduced us to a psychiatrist who was studying theology, Dr. Sherif Salah. Dr. Swailem saw potential in him to become part of the Mission Department.
Two other persons who were part of the Missions Initiative briefing were so interesting that the Revs. Darren and Elisabeth Kennedy arranged a separate meeting with them. The Rev. Isaac William and Mr. Medhat Saied were from the Evangelical Church in Tayyaba, a rural church in the middle part of Egypt. The Rev. Isaac was Associate Pastor at the church and Medhat, currently a seminary student, was part of the church’s outreach team. They were excited to tell us about their church and especially about some new fellowships the church had begun in remote areas beyond Tayyaba. We were intrigued by the grass-roots initiative of the church in Tayyaba. It was modeling what Dr. Atef, Dr. Swailem, and the seminary were hoping that all the churches of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt would be and do as a result of the Missions Initiative.
Our time in Cairo continued to be blessed as we spent much time with the leadership of the Kasr el Doubara Evangelical Church. We had an informal dinner on a boat on the Nile with three of the pastors and their wives. The next day one of the co-pastors, the Rev. Sameh Maurice, and Elder Fayez Ishak, the coordinator of all the mission and evangelism work, took us to their ministry center in Wadi el Natrun, half-way between Cairo and Alexandria, where they introduced us to their sports ministries and their drug rehabilitation ministries. It was a time of bonding with the leadership of the church that would lead to a long-term friendship between the Eastminster Presbyterian Church and Kasr El Doubara.
The focus of The Outreach Foundation has been on equipping our global partners for their evangelism and mission work. On the 2002 and 2003 trips to Egypt, we had found a great vision at the Cairo Seminary, new churches supported by the Egyptian Church as a whole, and individual mission efforts in Egypt and beyond being carried on by large churches like Kasr el Doubara and smaller churches like the Evangelical Church in Tayyaba. We were to meet one more entrepreneurial missionary before we left Egypt.
The Rev. Wagih Abdelmasih is a missionary to London serving the hundreds of thousands of Arabic-speaking residents and visitors there. The Rev. Wagih was in Egypt representing his ministry at the Cairo International Book Fair just at the time we were in Egypt. While there, Wagih contacted the Cairo Seminary and asked if there was anyone visiting the seminary that he should meet. We were delighted to meet him and learn about his ministry, the Agape Arabic Christian Centre. It was a further joy to learn that he was the brother of the Rev. Anwar, pastor of the 15th of May Church which The Outreach Foundation was supporting. As we parted, the Rev. Wagih welcomed us to “stop by, the next time you are in London.” Walter was there twice before the year ended, and I visited him in early 2004. The Agape Arabic Christian Centre soon became another part of our Egypt mission.