Witnessing History in Tunisia and Egypt

The Egyptian churches are gathering for prayer. That is the most important thing to do right now. But we are also getting ready. We believe that there will be more open doors for ministry. Even myself, I was praying last night, and thinking about all the people on the streets in Cairo. I felt the Lord taking away my fear. All my life I have known fear, we all do in Egypt. We all have fear of what injustice the government could do to us, but as Christians we also have fear of what fanatical Muslims might do to us. This keeps us from speaking out. But I felt that fear going away. I felt more boldness to tell others about Christ and to speak out about the situation of Christians in Egypt. 

It is a privilege to be at a conference with believers from the Middle East and North Africa at a time when stunning changes are happening in the Arab world. Everyone is amazed.

They feel that people in Tunisia were just sick and tired of being oppressed and unemployed. The revolution was sparked by one young guy who couldn’t find work. He was trying to support himself and his family by selling vegetables and fruits from an “unlicensed” cart. The police fined him and allegedly slapped him in the face, spat on him and insulted his dead father. It wasn’t the first time he was fined. Humiliated, he went in front of a government office and set himself on fire. It touched such a nerve because so many others felt the same way.  Even college grads in the tens of thousands can’t find work. And people have spent their whole lives tiptoeing around the state security system. They were afraid to even use the name of their President. They’ve never been able to speak out. They want to be free. And they had the technology to organize – connections escalated as the story spread through Twitter and Facebook. People took to the streets. I saw a photo of our Tunisian partner out there with the people, shouting through a megaphone. The regime toppled, and their President fled the country.

Soon after it happened, changes came fast. Banned books were on sale. Internet sites were unblocked, including Christian ones. Photos of the former President that had been in every store and school were torn down. TV newscasts started reporting scandalous things about his life that would have landed them in prison just days before.

Tunisia, more than other N. African countries, had large movements praying for it during the last few years. The Tunisian Christians feel that all these prayers have changed Tunisia. No one saw it coming.

Then, as you know, it spread to Egypt, where people are on the streets now. In our country, there are marches in Washington, D.C. all the time. Not here. One Middle Eastern leader said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life. We have never known freedom. History is being written right now.”

Our brothers and sisters from this region are calling themselves, and the worldwide Church, to rally to the cause, to think big. Before, we thought about small, incremental change. We knew, because the Bible says so, that the nations are but a speck of dust on the scales compared to God’s power. But now we have seen it unfold before our eyes, and so quickly. There is unprecedented opportunity. We need to pray and believe bigger than we did before, to be done with small issues. To not be timid. A new door is thrown open. Those with other answers will be rushing in, trying to fill the gap. The ground won’t be given up easily, there will be many costs to pay. But God is going before us.

We also need humility. We in the West didn’t cause this. And not knowing the language and culture well, what happens next won’t depend on us. We don’t know the language and culture well enough. We aren’t the ones in the streets. The Middle Eastern and North African Church will be the ones to carry most of the burden. But we can and should help them. If we can’t react quick enough when they need us, we won’t be much help at all.

One of our Egyptian partners said:

It's a new day. The church and mission structures we have now aren't going to be useful anymore. It was a Facebook revolution. Outreach in the future is going to be in the hands of the young people.

And another, an Egyptian women's ministry leader said:

The Egyptian churches are gathering for prayer. That is the most important thing to do right now. But we are also getting ready. We believe that there will be more open doors for ministry. Even myself, I was praying last night, and thinking about all the people on the streets in Cairo. I felt the Lord taking away my fear. All my life I have known fear, we all do in Egypt. We all have fear of what injustice the government could do to us, but as Christians we also have fear of what fanatical Muslims might do to us. This keeps us from speaking out. But I felt that fear going away. I felt more boldness to tell others about Christ and to speak out about the situation of Christians in Egypt.