2013:9 - Tension

The first year I was in Cairo I was overwhelmed by the noise. Every time I walked down the street taxis would honk to see if I wanted a ride. Drivers in general use their horns to communicate their plans like Americans use their signals and so there is a constant din of sound – horns, sirens, train whistles, the call to prayer, vendors driving down the streets calling out the wares that they’re buying or selling, planes and helicopters.

We know that Cairo is tense today because as I sat with my teaching colleagues discussing our options for the coming days everything outside was silent. SILENT.

There were enormous protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and in other cities across Egypt yesterday that lead to 3 deaths and many injuries. The protests tomorrow will be even larger and everyone is anxiously waiting to see what will happen. We continue to get alerts from the State Department and are monitoring the situation very carefully. If we need to we will leave. In the meantime we will stay put and feel very safe and secure.

On the one hand it feels like a lazy, quiet, summer day in Egypt. On the other hand, the tension in the atmosphere is palpable. We feel it, the students feel it, the priests feel it.

I have found myself drawn this week to the words of Philippians 2:5-8 "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross." I take great comfort in the notion that God made flesh in Christ joins us in our human experiences and walks with us in the tension, in the uncertainty, in the waiting. 

I invite your prayers for Egypt and her people and also prayers that all of us would be filled with the peace of Christ in the midst of such uncertainty.