Egyptian Christians face many difficulties
Christians in Egypt celebrate the birth of Christ by giving toys, clothing, and a special meal with meat -- a rare treat for poor Christian families. However, for years, the situation facing Egyptian Christians has been grim, and Christians are increasingly unable to celebrate these simple Christmas customs.
Like the fictional character Bob Cratchit -- the lowly clerk held in distain by the Christmas-scoffing Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens -- these believers face hardship every day. Due to long-standing discrimination, and overt persecution of believers in a country that is 90 percent Islamic, Egyptian Christians live within an environment of persecution where they cannot get fair access to jobs.
As a result, they struggle with crippling poverty.
If the situation facing Egyptian Christians is grim, the difficulties facing displaced Sudanese, who have fled the violence in Sudan and now live in the slums of Cairo, borders on despair. The Egyptian government refuses to classify them as refugees, and they have no aid, no work, no medical care, and no access to education. In many ways, they are in even more dire straits than when they lived in Sudan.
Hundreds of Christians have been massacred in Islamic-inspired rioting in different Egyptian cities in the past six years. Many others have seen their businesses destroyed, their daughters kidnapped, and their husbands and sons killed or maimed. Recently an Egyptian soldier, Hani Sarofim Nasrala Issak, was tortured and killed in early August after refusing to convert to Islam.
The Last Harvest, Inc., in El Cajon, Calif., is a Christian nonprofit organization that equips indigenous churches, and supports church planting efforts in the Middle East. The Last Harvest invites North American Christians to bring a little Christmas encouragement to Christian families in Egypt this Christmas season.
By working with churches within Egypt, for a cost of just $25, The Last Harvest provides a package containing a T-shirt, toothbrush and paste, a pencil, pens, and crayons, a notebook, a hairbrush, a toy, candy, a picture Bible, a chicken for the family Christmas meal, or a tin of butter providing needed calories, and a teaching audiotape.
Christmas packages will be given to Christian Sudanese refugees in Cairo, poverty-stricken Christians living south of Cairo, and families of victims of violence in El-Kosheh, Alexandria, and Girza.
Using a network of indigenous churches to distribute the funds, The Last Harvest has extensive experience in seeing that donations received for Christians in the Middle East reach the hands of those who are designated to receive them.
Native-born Egyptian David Joseph is founder of The Last Harvest, Inc., which also ministers biblical truth to Arabs and Muslims worldwide through a radio and television ministry.
The Egyptian Christians, called Copts, come from a people who were among the very first to accept the message of the gospel.
Egyptian tradition claims the gospel writer Mark as the founder of the Egyptian Church.
For more information about The Last Harvest, Inc., visit our main website. |
Egyptian children receive packages in January 2006. |
