Egypt

At 4,130 miles, the Nile is the world’s longest river. It flows through eleven different countries before spreading out into a vast 10,000 square mile delta at Cairo made up of rich farmland formed from the Nile’s sediments over thousands and thousands of years. Some of that sediment is up to 70 feet deep.

The delta is home to 70 million people. About 80% of Egypt’s population lives here because Egypt is 94% desert. With only 3% arable land, the fertility and productivity of the delta is Egypt’s very life. For over 5,000 years, people have been raising crops in that rich delta farmland. Today, they raise cotton, wheat, corn, rice, sorghum, and fava beans during the summer months. In the winter, when I was there, they raise fruits and vegetables. All of that agriculture is 100% reliant on irrigation and always has been.

We saw street vendors with enormous strawberries, cauliflowers the size of basketballs, and cabbages as big as beach balls. Oranges sold on the street for about 26 cents per pound. 

The very life of Egypt is tied to the Nile and that delta. As long as Egypt has existed, it has been defined and bound to the water of the Nile. To this very day, Egyptians refer to Upper Egypt as everything south of the delta and Lower Egypt as everything north of Cairo.

For thousands and thousands of years, the Nile would flood each summer and bring with it rich, black topsoil from the Ethiopian highlands. Flooding stopped in 1970 with the completion of the Aswan High Dam over 500 miles upstream from the delta, which holds back two years worth of the Nile’s flow. 

The interesting thing is, even though the Nile is undoubtedly a mighty river, legendary in many ways and deeply ingrained in human history and culture, it ranks a surprising 105th on earth in terms of the amount of water discharged. Some of that’s because much of the mighty Nile’s flow is underground. Much of the water simply sinks into the ground as it makes its way through this dry and arid land.

Out on the edge of the delta, it is indeed desert, but the water table is only 20 feet below the surface. With modern technology, that makes it very easy to turn the desert green, both with center pivot and drip irrigation. Ancient field level irrigation is about 50% efficient, while center pivot and drip irrigation systems are about 90% efficient. As much as 11% of Egypt’s agricultural land is former desert just outside the delta that has been converted to farmland via modern methods. 

Some years ago, in one of those locations out on the edge of the delta, an Egyptian Coptic pastor began building a camp where people could go and pitch tents, pray, fast, and praise the LORD. Irrigation was installed, olive trees and other crops were planted, and the campsite grew. Buildings were put up and more people came to praise Jesus.

A group called International Messengers had been putting on camps for young people at this location for several years, and this year, they invited Freedom Quest founder Terry Baxter to come and speak on spiritual warfare. I was invited to accompany him. 

There were about one hundred youths who came to the camp. All were Egyptian Coptic Christians – and that’s important. Egypt is a Muslim majority country and it is illegal to preach the Gospel to Muslims. One’s religion is stamped on their national ID card and many Copts carry a small cross tattoo on their right wrist. Coptic Christians are somewhere between five and fifteen percent of the population, but there is some speculation they could be as much as 20%.

The fascinating thing is the Coptic Church is widely recognized as one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, having been founded by the apostle Mark somewhere between 42 - 55 AD. The word “Coptic” literally means “Egyptian.” It split from the Roman Catholic Church in 451 AD. At the time, the majority of people in Egypt were Coptic Christians and they remained so even after the Arab Muslim Conquest in 640-642 AD. It’s estimated that Egypt remained majority Christian for centuries, with the transition to a Muslim majority occurring gradually, likely not until the 12th to 14th centuries. The Coptic population is recognized as having descended directly from the ancient Egyptians. They survived Muslim invasion because there were so many of them running the country, they were needed, and many of them agreed to pay the jizya tax, which is considered a fee for protection, exemption from military service, and a sign of submission to Islamic law. Also, many Coptic Christians at the time had been persecuted by the Byzantine Empire and felt the Muslim invasion freed them from that. 

(It’s actually accurate to say that Coptic Christians are the descendants of the people who built the pyramids and ruled Egypt for 3,000 years.)

Terry’s teaching was divided up into twelve sessions, with glorious praise and worship in between and small group meetings after each session. I lead a small group of four guys between the ages of 15 and 22, with two interpreters helping me because I speak a total of about three words in Arabic. All of the small group guys spoke or understood some English. 

At the very first small group meeting, before we could get into the “meat” of what Terry had talked about, these guys wanted to address the tough questions of our faith: “If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?” And, “Why would a loving God send people to be tortured in hell for all eternity?” These were legitimate questions that needed to be answered before we could move on to the details of spiritual warfare.

When I sat down to meals with my team members, we found those questions were common in the small groups. So, Terry, having participated in our conversations over meals, addressed those questions and gave answers during the sessions. 

As the week went on and we began to open up in our small groups, we found these youth struggled with many of the same hurts and wounds we all experience in our Christian lives. We developed relationships, friendships, and came to love them. We prayed with them and tried to bless and help them as best as we knew how. Many of them suffered with father issues. 

Stephen Zupke, our group leader, noted he had observed that people tend to treat other people in the same way they believe they are treated by our heavenly Father, and we saw that to be true again and again.

As we approached the end of the week, and Terry’s teaching drew deeper into spiritual warfare, my small group discussions grew more real and applicable to our walks as Christians. We talked about pornography (a truly real issue in Egypt), about our hurts and pains, and finally our purpose and mission in this world to love God with all that we are and to love others. I asked my guys if they thought a 15% Christian population in Egypt was enough to change the county for Jesus. Without hesitation, they said they absolutely could not do so as they would be thrown in prison, beat up, and possibly even be killed for doing so.

Then I told them that there are more Muslims coming to Christ right now than at any other time in the history of Islam – and it’s because those Muslims are having dreams and visions of Jesus that they cannot forget or ignore. Reports from all over the world are saying that somewhere around 60% of Muslims are having these dreams. I reminded them that Terry had said that prayer is our long distance ICBM that changes the world and we can pray for Muslims from our homes with no danger of being thrown in jail. Prayer works.

God is not limited by the laws of man. The evil in this world is the work of man and of Satan, not God. And, it is not God who throws people into hell, but people who choose to reject God and go into eternity without the glorious, wonderful, never-ending love of God. 

As the camp was drawing to a close, I met some people who had a social media platform where Muslims who had experienced those dreams could come and ask the question, ‘Who is Jesus?”  

After the camp ended, we did the “tourist” thing and saw the pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum. We also spent time with Egyptian natives. 

As for the mystery of how an ancient people transported millions of massive stone blocks and assembled them into incredibly precise and durable monuments, I learned that there was probably a tributary of the Nile that has since dried up and disappeared that allowed transport of the stones to the site. While it is true that the pyramids and other structures at Giza were built over a period of one thousand years, individual pyramids were built very quickly. It’s estimated that the Great Pyramid was completed in 20 - 27 years. In order to assemble the 2.3 million stone blocks averaging over 5,000 pounds each into the finished pyramid in 20 years, it’s estimated the Egyptians would have had to set a block in place every three minutes. Recent evidence suggests that the workforce building the pyramids was probably about 100,000 people strong and they were also probably paid workers, not slaves. Equally astounding is that a nation and a government could stay stable enough for the thousands of years that make up Egyptian history. 

In the Grand Egyptian Museum, what caught my attention were the faces painted and carved on the statues, sarcophaguses, and architecture of ancient Egypt. More than one of the faces looked like people I knew. These were real people, with real lives. They caught fish and grew crops, baked bread, and lived their lives.

Yes, ancient Egyptian pharaohs thought they were gods, (and they sure milked that for all it was worth) but I couldn’t help but think their worship of the sun was so close, but so far from worshipping the Son of God. 

And then one day, we visited the Cave Church of St. Simon the Tanner, also known as “The Church of the Rock in the Garbage City.” 

This is an unusual site, to say the least. It is the largest church in the Middle East, with a capacity of 20,000 worshippers. It is surrounded by the Zabbaleen, a city of Coptic Christians on the edge of Cairo known for managing one of the world's most efficient recycling systems. We were told that Uber drivers refuse to take clients here because of the congestion, smell, and traffic difficulty associated with the Zabbaleen. We had the advantage of a wonderful Egyptian friend of the ministry who drove us with great joy and a total lack of fear. The bottom of his vehicle did get a little shinier on some of the numerous speed bumps, but he took it all with a “no worries” attitude. 

The church was carved directly into the rock of Mokattam Mountain in the 1970’s on the site where it is said God literally moved the mountain three times in response to the prayers and fasting of Pope Abraham (62nd Coptic Patriarch) and Saint Simon the Tanner in the tenth century. The church had been challenged and its people threatened with death by Caliph al-Mu'izz if they failed to move the mountain as Jesus said His people could in Matthew 17:20 and Mark 11:23.

And that site made me think of the underground Nile. 

The power of the Nile flowing unseen beneath the surface had carved out those caves, around which the Coptic Christians had carved this massive church dedicated to God moving mountains.

Yes, Muslim law in Egypt prevents Copts from preaching on street corners, and all of the Christians I met in Egypt comply with that law. Some have gone to other countries to preach Jesus on the streets, but they do not flaunt the laws of Egypt. They are law-abiding, respectful, loving, dedicated people. They respect the laws, but they are not afraid to love their neighbors.

Some of them are helping Sudanese refugees (of whom there are between 1.5 and 4 million living in Egypt) learn to become productive members of Egyptian society. 

They live ordinary lives, like you and I, raising children, working at their jobs, and preaching Jesus by the love they have for God, for one another, and for all people. 

The Church in Egypt, like the Nile, may flow underground – but the water of this river brings eternal life, welling up out of the hearts of those who believe. (John 7:37-38.) That living water produces an abundance of the glorious and wonderful fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As I have said many times before, no one has changed the world more than Jesus Christ.

And He is not done yet. 

Acts 7:34

“I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groans and have come down to rescue them. Now go, for I am sending you back to Egypt." (NLT)