The Evangelical Theological Seminary (ETSC) held its 152nd graduation exercises at the Heliopolis Evangelical Church. Seventy graduates received diplomas, including 12 MDiv ordination track students, 1 Master of Theology student, and 33 Master of Theology students. The MDiv students will be taking ordination examinations with the intention of serving as pastors in churches across Egypt. The other students will move into various positions of service.
Read MoreIn February, I was pleased to lead a small team back to Egypt to be “mutually encouraged” by our partners there. A member of our team, Rachel Segars, was making her third trip with Outreach. In this excerpt from one of our trip blogs, she beautifully reflects on our visit to ETSC. Marilyn Borst, Associate Director for Partnership Development
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 MoreWarm greetings from ETSC where we are now in the middle of the spring semester and our final year students are beginning to be excited at the prospect of graduation and what lies beyond. It has been an eventful year so far, including two big book launches!
Perspectives
On Friday, March 9th ETSC celebrated the book launch of the Arabic translation of Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. 150 people gathered to hear speeches by Dr. Atef Gendy, ETSC's president; Steve Hawthorne, the general editor of Perspectives; Dan McNerney, a representative of Frontier Fellowship; and Swailem Hennein, the translation supervisor. It is the culmination of over ten years of work, which was initiated by Swailem Hennein in 2006 and involved 17 people translating the136 articles on mission which make up the collection. The book has two volumes and is accompanied by a study guide.
Greetings in Christ’s name from an exceptionally hot Cairo! The seminary has become quieter with most of the students away on their summer internships, so it is a good time to look back and reflect on the busy end-of-session period. Amid all the excitement and preparation for graduation in May, the ETSC community received a double blow as it learned of the deaths of Jack Lorimer and, two weeks later, Ken Bailey. Both were missionary giants, who in their different ways made an immense impact on the life of the Egyptian Church and indeed internationally.
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