Egypt #1: Miracles Continue at Cairo’s Mount Mokattam
Miracles Continue at Cairo’s Mount Mokattam
By Nancy Fox, National Presbyterian Church, Washington, DC and Outreach Trustee
Our compact team of four encountered as much of Egypt as we could in 4-5 days, December 7-11. Commissioned Pastor Anne Keener’s sabbatical (from First Presbyterian, Franklin, TN) prompted the trip when she and her father, Tom McDow (Outreach Trustee/Westminster Presbyterian, Nashville) decided to see the exciting mission of the church in Egypt on their way home from a Holy Land tour. After making their arrangements, I found Evangeline Paschal, a key mission elder at National Presbyterian in DC (where I serve) was eager to join up for the short trip, so she and I met up with Tom and Anne in Cairo.
Evangeline and I arrived a day earlier, and spent our first day in the Mokattam Garbage Recycler’s Village, where residents recycle well over 80% of Cairo’s garbage by hand. On this day, we visited beautiful ministries that are not part of The Outreach Foundation’s work, but organically linked through precious relationships build over the years. The natural hazards of work and growing up in an environment dominated by trash have taken a toll on many families. Cooperative efforts of Coptic Orthodox and Evangelical (Presbyterian) Christians in and outside the area grew over the last 18 years into the beautiful Center of Love, a vital ministry which serves special needs children and youth in the area and lovingly teaches them employable skills. Founders Mahrous Fakhry and Rebecca Atallah and Director Sherry Shediak and others hosted us for a tour, orientation and visits with the students in their class and work-rooms. (See centerofloveegypt.org/en.)
We met Maged Metias, the Egypt/Africa regional director for Touch of Love International (TOLI) and Saed, the local Mokattam staff guy, who explained the ministry as they walked with us from the Center of Love through the busy and winding streets of Garbage Village. We listened to brief stories, observed their work projects, and prayed with two female clients of this small but growing Christian micro-finance ministry. Saida, with her sister, is a recycler; and Mona, a street-side shopkeeper. Both businesses are producing income, enabling repayment of the loans. The repaid funds are then “recycled” also, to extend loans to other neighbors. TOLI’s mission is to bring “dignified, sustainable, Christ-centered transformation to families and communities around the world” – from its humble beginnings in a village in Egypt. (See toli.org)
We walked a little further up the hill to the Mount of Mokattam, to see the two largest of the famous seven Coptic Orthodox Cave Churches of Saint Samaan the Tanner. (He is the key human figure in the story of Mokattam – check Google!) Many miracle stories and legends are associated with the place, from which the love of Christ later transformed the people (and the area). The residents went from seeing their lives as the trash with which they worked to living a modern miracle of transformation. During the time of the Revolution, on the night of November 11, 2011 (11-11-11), 71,000 Christians of all denominations (and others) united in the Cave Church for 12 hours of prayer through the night for the healing of their land.
A decade after that historic prayer gathering, our little group of four gathered in Cairo for a brief pilgrimage of listening and prayer, so we can share the stories of what God is doing in Egypt now and continue to build the unity of Christ’s body. It is always a joy to walk in the land of Egypt, where our Lord Jesus likely learned to walk himself, as a refugee in that part of God’s Holy Land.
