New Church Development in Egypt - January 2021 Update
Flowers in Cairo?
With 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. In the last few years, this church planted a new church that became independent with ministry and sustainable resources. Last year, they found a nearby community where many families live without any kind of spiritual or social services. Ain Shams church went to this area, called “Al-Zohur” (“the flowers”), where they found hundreds of families with needs in every aspect.
They began their ministry in Al-Zohur with home visitations, Bible study groups, and small prayer meetings. Then, they extended the work to social services including medical campaigns, microloans, illiteracy classes, and financial aid for the poor. The ministry expanded to serve 80 families with a large number of women and kids. They rented a place to gather people and established a non-profit to have legal status in front of the government. Soon, they found a piece of land upon which to build a church, which they hope to purchase. The new congregation has made great progress in self-sustainability by having a place to meet, training its leaders, and maintaining stability in their social services. It is a miracle to have a church like this in one year!
The Pastoral and Outreach Ministries Council of the Synod of the Nile is helping the church in Ain Shams to buy the land. The Outreach Foundation brokered a sister-church relationship between Ain Shams Church and the First Presbyterian Church in Greenville, SC. This partnership is a gate for both sides to learn, pray, encourage, and support each other’s ministries. Please pray for more open doors so that the Presbyterian Church in Egypt can expand its work for the Kingdom!
Grace and peace,
Dr. Tharwat Wahba, Egypt Mission Consultant for The Outreach Foundation
Professor of Mission, Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo
The Outreach Foundation works closely with the Pastoral and Outreach Ministries Council of the Synod of the Nile which has identified three areas in which God is calling the church to pursue outreach: 1) revitalization of village churches, some of them centuries old and primarily in Upper Egypt, 2) planting new churches in urban suburbs, and 3) planting new churches in the new “satellite” cities. The Council works very closely with the seminary in Cairo which is producing excellent students who are called and equipped for ministry in a remarkable season for the church’s mission.
Read more about New Church Development in Egypt HERE.
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.
Before the pandemic hit, leaders from Ain Shams and Al-Zohur congregations gathered for a leadership training. (Rev. Eid Salah is in the blue shirt, far left)