Evangelical Presbyterian
Church
624 North Oakland Street, Carbondale,
Illinois 62901 - (618) 529-1616
a member of the
Outreaches
Sudan Interest Group
Tent Maker Project
Sudan Interest Group
This sort of report from Egypt is so typical of what has happened in Sudan, and it could be reported by us that way. Sudan and Egypt are neighbors, and we are concerned for all these brothers and sisters in Egypt.
Wyatt
Dear Friends,
If you want to know how Muslims treat Christian minorities in their countries, look at what's happening in Egypt. I know that such incidents are common because I've had students from Egypt who have told me about them.
Sincerely yours in Christ, Ruth Marie
Eshenaur e-mail addresses: reshenaur@amisb.org (or) marie@saintmail.net Tel. Hm. (031) 263-9128; Of. (031) 263-7450; 265-1455; 266-7451-4; Fax: (031) 266-7450 The American Coptic Association P.O. Box 9119, Jersey City, NJ 07304 (E-mail: LetUsROLLlUSA@aol.com)
February 25, 2002 PRESS RELEASE by the Coptic Church
Egypt: home for International terrorists & violator of religious freedom
President Mubarak must be held personally responsible
On Tuesday, February 19, 2002, without reason and using bulldozers, the Egyptian Army attacked and destroyed a center that has been serving the local community for fourteen years. The center served mentally and physically handicapped children and orphans. The Center is legally registered with the Egyptian government.
The Patmos Center, located about 20 miles east of Cairo, suffered structural damage in the attack. Both the concrete columns and limestone blocks were damaged. Some twenty-five meters of the perimeter wall were leveled. The authorities detained an engineer who was working at the Center, apparently just to terrorize him. During the same attack, several people were beaten, including a teacher who had his arm broken.
This was the fourth time that the Center has endured an attack. Previous assaults occurred in 1996, 1997 and 2001.
Anyone familiar with Egypt would know that the Egyptian Army would not dare to plan and execute such a disgraceful and cowardly attack without the full knowledge and personal approval of President Mubarak.
Only nine days earlier, on Sunday, February 10, 2002, Coptic Orthodox Christians were gathered in the small village of Bani El-Walmous, to celebrate the consecration of their new church. Then they were attacked with rocks and firebombs by a Muslim mob near El-Minya, located 140 miles south of Cairo.
The simple ringing of church bells during the consecration ceremony enraged the Muslims. They proceeded to attack and destroy the church's cross and then set the pews on fire. The local Muslims tried to burn down the church. Scores of Christians were wounded, Coptic homes were burned, and others looted.
It is important to note that Mosques use loudspeakers five times a day to call Muslims to prayer. The first call is at dawn, around 4 AM. Christians have tolerated and lived with this practice without incident, for generations.
Even though the local police and security authorities were informed in advance about the consecration ceremony for the new church, they did not appear at the scene until four hours later. The police force appeared only after the church leaders reportedly telephoned security police authorities in Cairo to request protection for the local parishioners and their guests, caught under siege inside the church. The attack began about 9 AM, but no police officials appeared until 12:38 PM.
On December 16, 2001, only few days before last Christmas, a church located outside Cairo was subjected to an attack by the city's mayor and the police force, resulting in its destruction. Adding insult to the injury, ten of the church members were arrested. The first phase of that church's construction had only been completed the previous day, and December 16 was the day on which the first prayer meeting was held at the church.
This was not the first time President Mubarak has issued permission to build a church only to be destroyed by the local government officials. The Egyptian government gives all incentives to its local officials to stop the construction of any church. To humiliate the Christians in Egypt, the Egyptian government requires all new churches to obtain permits that must be approved by President Mubarak personally. While this bureaucratic process can take years or even decades to acquire, Mosques are not required to obtain any presidential permits whatsoever.
While the Egyptian government tries to portray itself as a peace loving and democratic nation, standing with the United States against Islamic terrorism, it has failed miserably to protect its own Christian citizens, who represent 20% of the Egyptian population. In addition, the Egyptian government has over 6,000 Islamic Schools, similar to Pakistan's infamous Madrasas, in which the Taliban and members of Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network were brainwashed in Islamic radicalism. In these schools they teach Islamic Jihad and holy war, promoting the pure hate and the necessary killing of infidels (i.e. the Christians and Jews). A product of these teachings is Mohammed Atta, an Egyptian, who was the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks against the America.
In Egypt and around the world, Muslim children are taught at home and at school to hate America, and the adult Muslims, call America the "Great Satan." The Koran teaches the faithful to "kill the infidel."
The international community must demand from Egypt the conversion of the Islamic schools into regular public schools where democracy, tolerance and respect should be taught.
As President Mubarak plans to travel to Washington, D.C. in few days, we call on President George W. Bush, his Cabinet, and members of the United States Congress to take the necessary steps, measures, and actions to protect Egypt's Christians. The United States must demand an immediate and permanent end to the severe atrocities that the Coptic Christians -- the original inhabitants of Egypt-- suffer daily.
We call on the United States to utilize a portion of the U.S. AID package that Egypt receives annually to compensate the Christians for their senseless and mounting losses. Thousands of Christians are without jobs and income in Egypt. U.S. AID to Egypt should be structured to combat the pervasive anti-Christian bigotry of the Egyptian government, and American companies doing business in Egypt should be expected to do the same. Egypt receives the second largest aid package given by the U.S. to any country in the world.
The reason for Islamic hatred of Egypt's Christians is simple; they are not Muslims. There is a plan in Egypt: eliminate its Christian population. Christians face kidnapping, rape, manipulation that leads into forced conversion and marriage to Muslims, forced economic distress, humiliation through the constant Jihad Islamic teachings, absence of protection from violence from radical groups, job discrimination, continuos attacks on the Christian faith in the government owned media, just to name a few. Left unattended, this situation will lead to the depletion-- and eventual elimination --of the largest remaining Christian population in the Middle East -today, still some 12 million people. This creeping genocide is accomplished with the complete knowledge, endorsement, and usually the participation and cooperation of the Egyptian government and its officials.
Before its conquest by the Muslims, Egypt was, like America, a Christian country. For fourteen centuries, they have endured persecution for the name of Jesus, but they have not surrendered. The Christians in Egypt share our faith, but not our freedom. They call out to the Christians in America, and all people of good will regardless of their faith, to help them. We must NOT be silent. We must not abandon them.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." Martin Luther King, Jr.
Here is another amazing story from Uganda, that I will tell in brief.
Pastor Ed Kasaija of Kampala Presbyterian Church did a funeral of a woman who had deeded her property to Ed, in a community called Sumbwe, a Muslim and traditional spiritist village. There is no church there at all.
At the funeral a few Muslim elders heard the Gospel and invited Ed to put one of his churches on the property. Ed put up a fence around the property, using local labor, and gave the neighbors permission to remove anything growing on the propert that they could use, a scattered assortment of fruit and vegetable trees/plants. It was his intent to cultivate it using Sudanese refugee labor for their food supply and income. On the front of the property he intends to establish a church.
When Jack Van Der Slik and I were there in January, Ed walked us around the fence line and at the back, over the fence, was a pagan Shrine. Ed commented that when the church comes in, the temple shrine would leave because the spirits cannot tolerate the Gospel being proclaimed nearby. At some point that day we prayed for the establishment of a PCU congregation there, and for God to deal with the spiritist temple.
Early this week Ed sent an e-mail telling that the Shrine leader was now in jail for sacrificing a man to his god, being charged with murder. The police then came and burned down the Shrine.
"How Great Thou Art!"
Plans have changed somewhat, for the Sudanese project will not happen after all, but Ed is establishing a store at the front of the property, next to where the church will go, presumably to help finance the beginnings of the Gospel witness in that unevangelized community. A church in our presbytery (Illiana) has helped with the funding to establish the witness there.
My estimate is that another $1,000 will complete the store and begin its stock of goods, in a matter of weeks, if the money should become available.
After that will come Gospel outreach, and plans to begin construction of a church building.
It amazes me how much the Lord uses Ed in these strategic developments. Please pray for success of the store, for the preparation of minds to hear the Gospel, and give thanks for victories already over the spiritists, re. the community leaders, and the neighbors where the church will be established.
Wyatt George, pastor EPC, Carbondale, IL
