Study

"A lesson in patience" by Dave Handley

What we learned was patience... incredible patience. The Apostle Paul wrote, "Love is patient...." Now I know why. It takes incredible patience for this Christian minority (Egypt is 15 percent Christian) to live daily with official and unofficial bias, intimidation, and bureaucratic obstructionism. There is freedom to worship, but the government finds ways to make it very difficult to get a permit to build a church. So, the Christians apply and wait, and then wait some more. One church we visited in the desert outside Cairo was finally being built, with financial help from a church in Houston, 13 years after applying for a permit. In the mean time, the church meets for home Bible studies, starts social service centers to help the poor and disabled, and guess what? They worship in a room in the social service center, but don’t call it a "church." I asked Dr. Sweilem Hennein, the venerable soon-to-be emeritus professor of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Cairo, how do these pastors and people stay resilient and not hold resentment toward their Muslim neighbors? "Yes, that is a continual

struggle. But in God’s grace, perhaps this is the way the Church is supposed to be anyway -- helping the poor and forgotten, letting that light of Christ shine, and counting on the Holy Spirit to do the rest."

I came home with a renewed conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus and His saving message, and a determination to focus my efforts on the Great Commission ("Go and make disciples, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you." -- Matthew 28:19-20), helping our members embody Christ to the world, through their acts of mercy and caring, especially for those who reject their Christianity. As our Egyptian mentors showed us, it is at that point of rejection and even persecution, that the Gospel has the most opportunity. When Christians respond not "tit-for-tat" with rejection or animosity, but with acts of love and mercy, the unique power of Christ in a life shines most brightly.

-- DAVE HANDLEY