Sunday and Monday

Oh, come let us adore Him!  We had the privilege of worshiping last night in  one of the largest evangelical churches in Cairo where about 1,000 people came together for passionate worship and praise.  One of our local women's leaders shared the message about the power of prayer, our desperate need for it, and a challenge to be true pray-ers.  During Ramadan, many believers here, including this entire church, have committed to pray daily for unbelievers to come to know God in a personal way.  Tonight we went to their weekly Monday night prayer meeting; we guessed that there were probably 1,200 people there to pray!  It is especially heartening to see so many men involved in worship and prayer. An enormously gifted man led the worship tonight with a version of the ancient lute, accompanied by traditional drums, cymbals and other instruments.  The songs were so powerful with rich, meaningful words (they have headphones for translation for visitors so we could understand what being said and sung). There was a genuine crying out to God for Him to touch Egypt, fill it with His Spirit and turn the hearts of the people to Him.  There was special prayer for the president and other officials here.  At each point of prayer, we could substitute our own country's name when they were pleading for Egypt.  They were acknowledging their deep need for Him; how we need to do the same.

We spent the day with one of our ministry partners here, going with her to a very poor area where she has been ministering for seven years.  They were already singing when we arrived and greeted us with huge smiles and kisses on both cheeks, the traditional way of greeting here.  Several of our team members shared encouragement and words of hope from the scriptures, then we ended with a time of praying individually for these sweet women. It was truly a tender time of very sweet fellowship that will remain in our hearts for a long, long time.  Many of them brought their young children with them, beautiful children.  Afterwards, we got to spend the afternoon with our partners, learning more about their media ministry, their heart for their country, and there passion to reach the lost.  We got to view some of their productions and realize more how vital the media is today and what an enormous tool it is for sharing the gospel, especially in this region.  We are praying for them, that their ministry will be blessed and greatly expanded.

Tomorrow we will meet with more of our ministry partners here, and then the conference with the women begins tomorrow night.  Please pray for each woman coming to the conference, that this will be a time of refreshing, encouragement, and strengthening.  The work here is difficult; there are many, many challenges, and we must stand with them in seeing this land reclaimed for Christ.