Winter 2004: A Short-Term Teaching Mission and More
INSTALLMENT 8 OF THE HISTORY OF THE OUTREACH FOUNDATION IN EGYPT
by Jeff Ritchie
The Outreach Foundation had been taking groups to Egypt for 5 years. The first two trips concentrated on new church developments in the areas around Cairo and Alexandria. The May 2003 trip took us briefly to Upper Egypt, but it was mostly for sightseeing. We realized that to know the Church in Egypt, we needed to see the Church in Middle Egypt, where the church was strong and had a great vision for outreach, and to spend more time in Upper Egypt where the church was weakest and most in need of creative new mission energy.
We also decided that this trip, scheduled for January 2004, would be more than the usual Outreach “vision trip,” a trip on which we introduced American Christians to our global friends and ministry partners. Our host for the previous trips to Egypt, the Rev. Dr. Abdelmasih Istafanous, had requested that we bring some people to encourage the pastors and leaders of the churches in Middle and Upper Egypt through teaching, preaching, prayer, and fellowship. We agreed with his idea and, while he set up two retreats, one for Middle Egypt and one for Upper Egypt, we recruited a couple with connections to The Outreach Foundation, the Rev. Dr. Julius Scott and Mrs. Florence Scott.
Dr. Julius Scott was a retired professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and the brother of David Scott who was mentioned in the last chapter. Florence Scott, also theologically trained, had her own connection to The Outreach Foundation through her sister, Elizabeth (“Bibby”) Swayze. Bibby, along with her husband, the Rev. Dick Swayze, were The Outreach Foundation’s Mission Consultants for Brazil. From David Scott and Bibby Swayze, we learned that Julius and Florence had done similar short-term teaching in Malta through the AWEMA (Arab World Evangelical Ministers Association), a mission which we had met in previous trips to Egypt. As we got to know the Scotts before the trip, we learned that through their missions in Malta they met a couple who were physicians in Aswan, a city in Upper Egypt. They had hoped to meet this couple again someday, and our trip provided them with just that opportunity.
Others on the trip included the Rev. Philip Keevil, pastor of Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Wichita, KS, Elder Walter Lewis, also from Eastminster, now on his third trip to Egypt in as many years, the Rev. Hank Keating, a retired minister who had been on our 2002 trip, and Mrs. Maude Wells, a layperson from North Carolina whom Hank had recruited.
Strategic Meeting of Mission Leaders: We started the trip with an informal meeting of mission leaders from the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and The Outreach Foundation. Our purpose was to take our partnership in mission to new levels of cooperation and to think how that may be coordinated, not controlled, and facilitated, not regulated. The meeting was a time for brainstorming ideas for mission and evangelism. One of the most promising suggestions was shared by Dr. Atef Gendy, who proposed that the Cairo Seminary cooperate with the Church Development Council and the Social Services Council of the Egyptian Church to develop a Lay Pastor Program to revitalize the 100+ rural churches that had no pastor.
Visits to Urban New Church Developments and Ministries in Cairo: On this trip, we saw the progress on the new church developments we had first visited in 2002 in Alexandria and in the city of 10th of Ramadan (near Cairo). We were pleased to see that the Presbyterian congregation in 10th of Ramadan had a worship space that could seat 400, and the membership was continuing to grow. One of our trip participants, the Rev. Philip Keevil of Eastminster Presbyterian Church, preached at 10th of Ramadan.
We received updates on the ministries of the Cairo Seminary, the Bible Society of Egypt, and Kasr el Doubara Church. We were especially blessed by the amount of time we were able to spend with Dr. Sherif Salah, mentioned in Chapter 6. Dr. Sherif had finished his studies at the Seminary and was now assisting Dr. Swailem Hennein in the Mission Department at the Seminary. Dr. Sherif became an integral part of our team when we traveled to Middle and Upper Egypt, and we had the delight of being in his home in Minia, in Middle Egypt.
The Church in Middle and Upper Egypt: After these days in Alexandria and Cairo, we journeyed to Minya in Middle Egypt by train then took a car to an extremely rural area where we spent time with the First Evangelical Church of Tayyaba, the church which was mentioned in Chapter 6 as being particularly strong in outreach. We wanted to see the new churches we had heard about the previous year from Medhat Saied, now graduated and Coordinator of Outreach for the Tayyaba Church, and the Rev. Isaac William, its Associate Pastor. In the car which Eastminster Presbyterian had partially funded for the church’s outreach ministry, Medhat drove us to five of the six new fellowships that the church had started. We also heard about the church’s other outreach programs such as a clinic, a pre-school, ministry with disabled people, and a home-building in partnership with Habitat for Humanity.
In addition to the joy of seeing the Revs. Medhat and Isaac again, we had a surprise. One of the elders of the Church in Tayyaba told us that he had a daughter in Nashville. It turned out that she and her family lived just five miles from the house where I lived. I promised Elder Helmy that I would meet his daughter, Amal when I returned home.
The following day was the first of the two conferences during our trip. Over 170 pastors and leaders from three presbyteries came to the ITSA Conference center of the CEOSS (Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services) to hear Julius Scott speak on the theme, “That You May Know the Saving Acts of the Lord.” The pastors and leaders then shared their challenges and opportunities for which we prayed.
Interlude in Cairo: Before going to Upper Egypt for the next conference and church visits, we returned to Cairo. I had a meeting with the Rev. Dr. Andrea Zaki, the Chairperson of the Synod’s Council of Services and Development and learned more about the proposed Lay Pastor Program discussed at the Mission Strategy meeting earlier in the trip. The whole group then visited the Kasr el Doubara Church and met their beloved senior pastor, the Rev. Menes Abdelnoor, who told us the story of how this large, imposing church had received permission to be built in a very high-profile part of Cairo.
Luxor and Aswan: The next day our group flew to the south. Most of us got off at Luxor, but the Scotts went on to Aswan to meet the two doctors they had gotten to know through their short-term teaching for AWEMA in Malta. Doctors Samia and Kamil Shoukrallah arranged for Julius to preach at the Evangelical (Presbyterian) Church in Aswan and learn about an outreach to the Nubian peoples who live in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. It was quite a rich time for them.
Meanwhile, our group had a day and a half of sightseeing among the amazing antiquities in and around Luxor. We also visited rural churches in the Luxor area. Most were in great need of repair and renewal of mission vision. We sensed deep discouragement on the part of the leaders of these churches and realized their need for spiritual refreshment and encouragement.
When the Scotts rejoined us, we began our second conference. Between fifty and sixty pastors and leaders from three presbyteries of Upper Egypt came to Luxor for two days. As was the case in Middle Egypt, Julius Scott gave a talk focusing on the “Big Story” of the Bible, and Florence Scott followed up with a brief study of Ephesians showing how it was part of the “Big Story.” There was a good time for sharing and prayer with these hard-working servants of the church in Upper Egypt.
Final Days in Cairo: Upon our return to Cairo, we spent time at the seminary. It was in the last days of the January term, and we sat in on a lecture by the Rev. Dr. Jerry Andrews, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, Glen Elyn, Illinois. The church Dr. Andrews served was already supporting the seminary and the new church in 10th of Ramadan City after one of its elders, Lee Mulder, returned from the 2002 trip and gave his report. (Lee was featured in Chapter 5). Now its pastor, a scholar on the Church Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries, was teaching a short-term course on Augustine and Pelagius. We were impressed!
The group had a final debriefing meeting at which time we discussed what the priorities for mission engagement in Egypt should be for The Outreach Foundation. First of all, we were committed to the visionary people we had met over the past three years—Dr. Swailem, Dr. Atef, the Revs. Darren and Elisabeth Kennedy, the Rev. Tharwat and Dr. Sherif. Each one of them was a deeply committed servant of the Lord.
Programmatically, the Cairo Seminary with its Mission Initiative and a proposed Center for Middle Eastern Christianity continued to be our top priority, along with support for the Rev. Tharwat Wahba in his Ph.D. studies. We also reaffirmed our commitment to the new church developments in two satellite cities of Cairo: 10th of Ramadan and 15th of May. However, the greatest “felt need” that emerged from this trip was the plight of over 100 rural churches who were without pastors or any kind of trained leader. They needed people with a mission vision to lead them. How timely then were the conversations we had heard at the beginning of our trip about a Lay Pastor Initiative to train lay pastors at the seminary with a missional vision. These lay pastors would then be sent to churches without a pastor for a three-year period to revitalize the church and get involved in their communities. We had heard this vision cast by Dr. Swailem two years before when he spoke of “primary workers” who would engage in “reconciliation evangelism.” We looked forward to hearing more about this initiative.
The rest of the group departed while I stayed an extra day to see the Cairo International Book Fair that we had heard so much about from Ramez Atallah and the Bible Society of Egypt. Then I returned home by way of London.
London: My first visit in London was with the Rev. Tharwat Wahba who had begun his Ph.D. studies in the fall. I spent a day with Tharwat and his family and visited the London School of Theology where he was studying. He showed me an outline of the Ph.D. dissertation, and it seemed to me that it would make a significant contribution to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt as it reengages in mission and evangelism in the coming years.
I also visited the Agape Arabic Christian Book Centre whose director, the Rev. Wagih Abdelmasih, we had met on our May 2003 trip. I met with the Board of the ministry and learned how Agape was providing opportunities for dozens of Arabic-speaking people to explore Christianity. The ministry also provides opportunities for short-term evangelistic outreach by Egyptians who come to London for two weeks or more of outreach.
To end this trip with a glimpse of the global outreach of members of the Church of Egypt was very fitting. We were seeing that the dream of the first American Presbyterian missionaries who had arrived 150 years before was finally being realized. There was a core group within the Church in Egypt who shared God’s heart for the world. They were committed to living out that vision in missions at home and abroad as well as casting that vision to the next generation of leaders through the Cairo Seminary. Now The Outreach Foundation had the privilege of being connected to them as friends and mission colleagues.
Epilogue: The Story Beyond the Story
The short-term teaching mission of Julius and Florence Scott was just the beginning of a series of invitations to return to Egypt. In early 2006 Dr. Julius Scott gave one of the first scholarly lectures of the Cairo Seminary’s new Center for Middle Eastern Christianity (the subject of the next chapter). His talk was on early papyrus versions of the Bible which were discovered in Egypt. On another one of these teaching trips, the Scotts visited a Coptic Orthodox monastery and saw a rare manuscript of the Bible that few people are permitted to see. The Abbot of the monastery pleaded with the Scotts to return and give his monks a full week of biblical teaching. Julius and Florence also continued teaching in Malta for leaders of Muslim-background churches throughout the Middle East and North Africa. They were much beloved by their Egyptian friends.