Today’s News from Cairo and a request for prayer

Monday, November 21, 2011 6:03 AM

Beloved friends and prayer partners,

Thank you for your emails and concern for the situation in Egypt at present, we greatly appreciate and need your continued, persistent prayer for our country!

We are all fine, the church building is fine, but many of our church members have been very close to the conflict in the last two days in downtown Cairo. Last night, as the conflict between the demonstrators and the Egyptian army escalated and became extremely violent, we opened the church building to be used as a clinic to treat the wounded. Tens of people came and received
treatment from various doctors, and many of our church members were there to help as needed.

It is a confusing situation for us, to be honest. We are hoping for a peaceful election process, and yet are keenly aware that the new political parties are not ready for such a huge step and are unsure what the results will be. There is a general sense of frustration in many people, as we aren’t seeing any of the promised changes taking place in the government or in civilian affairs. There is still so much aggression and abuse from the police towards the people demonstrating and now from the army as well. This all reminds us that we still need to continue to pray fervently.

Because the elections are coming up very soon, some of the more radical Islamic parties made a “power show” last Friday, trying to show the public their influence and their intent to impose their opinions on the new constitution. Simultaneously, thousands of nonreligious demonstrators showed up, expressing their frustration with the army for trying so many civilians in military courts, continuing to arrest citizens unlawfully, and many other serious errors the army has made as they continue to hold the political reins. Many youth feel that nothing has changed in Egypt, that we are still being oppressed by the same old regime with the same aggressive spirit. There were a number of casualties and hundreds wounded since violence erupted on Saturday between the demonstrators and the police and on Sunday with the army.

Simultaneous with the radical Islamic demonstration, we held an all-church prayer meeting last Friday from 11am-4:30pm. As I wrote before, we also participated in the region-wide prayer meeting that was on November 11th. We think around 50,000 attended this prayer meeting, which was held in Abouna Simeon’s “Cave Church” in Garbage City. It was an amazing event, as tens of thousands of Coptic and Evangelical Christians and Catholics came together to pray, seek the Lord’s face, and raise the Name of Jesus in the face of all that is taking place in our country. The Spirit of God was clearly at work and evident in the faces and prayers of the people attending as well as in the Orthodox leaders who led from the front.

We feel the urgency to continue pressing on in intercession. Please continue
to pray with us!

In Him,
Fayez

(Sent to Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding (EMEU) by Pastor Fayez Ishak,  at the Kasir El Debara church in downtown Cairo.)

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