Out of Egypt!
Posted by tdtwonations on December 2, 2008
We just returned from Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq. It was an amazing time.
JoAnn and the Selah Women’s Team of Kathleen Flynn, Cheri Fitzsimmons, Julia Schatz, Diane Jones, Connie Prince, and Angel Davis ministered to 4 different women’s groups in Egypt and in Jordan. God opened up the women’s hearts in each place. Our national leaders from these countries said they had never seen anything so powerful like this. The Selah team goes to minister and not lecture teach. They are led by God to build up the oppressed women of the Middle East. They worship, share their testimonies that are tied to Women from the Bible and then they wash the feet of every woman there.
All the walls of shame and hurt crumble after this and the women freely begin to share the hurts and pain of their past. Women in the Muslim countries are considered second class and are treated that way. In Cairo for instance, 85% of the women surveyed by the Cairo Times said that they had been molested on city buses! You can imagine what happens in private. I am so proud of the Selah Team and their wonderful servant hearts. God is blessing this ministry. The team ministered to over 200 women and 20-30 of them committed their lives to Jesus in Egypt and Jordan too. Praise the Lord. pain of their past. Women in the Muslim countries are considered second class and are treated that way. In Cairo for instance, 85% of the women surveyed by the Cairo Times said that they had been molested on city buses! You can imagine what happens in private. I am so proud of the Selah Team and their wonderful servant hearts. God is blessing this ministry. The team ministered to over 200 women and 20-30 of them committed their lives to Jesus in Egypt and Jordan too. Praise the Lord.
The men’s team trained national workers in Egypt in our Church Planting course First Steps. The conference is 3 days and at the conclusion of it we sent three teams out to share the Gospel in villages in Egypt. The results were again amazing. About 250 people accepted Jesus as savior and we have now launched 10 new churches in these villages where there was no Christian work going on whatsoever. Praise the Lord. We also were blessed to train 4 congregations with the EvangeCube throughout Egypt. Curtis Hail the President of e3 Partners and Steve Cretin did the training along with our national workers. We were just blown away to see our national workers in action. I can remember having a few workers in the Middle East when we started the work in 2001. Now our Middle East national team is over 100. They carry the work on of sharing the gospel, discipling new believers, and starting new churches 52 weeks out of the year. God has built a great team in the Middle East. We are honored to work with them. It was great for me to travel into Iraq. The situation is better in Iraq since the last time I visited but there are at least 10 major terrorist groups currently operating in the area. Recently, believers have been targeted.
In fact, we have a big prayer request. The believers in the Middle East are experiencing a new wave of persecution. It is intense and inspired by satan himself. These saints of God need our prayers. Here are a few of the recent events that our e3 leaders told me personally about.
In Egypt- Christian homes were blown up in El Minya by Muslim terrorists and the local police did not respond until the hard line Islamic group was finished. They kept saying “we are coming.” It was easy to see that the persecution was approved of by the police. One believer was killed and 19 were burned and injured severely.
In Jordan- A young Muslim woman just became a believer and when her father found out he killed her. He stabbed her repeatedly and then smashed her head with a heavy boulder. The father believed that he was killing his daughter to please Allah. This is a well known story in Jordan but authorities have done nothing.
In Iraq- A pastor that is a friend of mine was kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken out of Baghdad where his Islamic abductors made him watch as they executed several Christians. They were going to kill him too but a gun fight ensued as American troops arrived and miraculously he escaped.
One pastor that I met in Iraq told me that his brother was killed recently. He was translating for an American businessman and traveling in a car in Southern Iraq. Islamic terrorists killed his brother brutally and then sold the American businessman to Iranians militants. The American is still in Iran as a hostage.
In Syria- The Druze are considered an unreached people group and perhaps the most difficult to reach in the region. Recently we have seen Druze become followers of Christ and because of this these new believers have been killed. No one is safe as even teenagers have been murdered because of their new faith in Christ.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that the church in the Middle East is growing faster than ever before. More Muslims have come to Christ in the last 10 years than in the last 15 centuries of Islam.
The believers in the Middle East send you their love and told us to tell you that they pray for you in America everyday! Believe me, you and I are privileged to have these saints of God pray for us. They are passionate prayer warriors.
