2012:6 - The Morning After

The mood around the seminary is bleak this morning. Al Masry-Al Youm is reporting that Mohammed Morsy is the winner of the Egyptian Presidential election with just over 51% of the vote. I believe that this is the same outcome that has been announced on Egyptian television.

Before leaving on Saturday my students were virtually certain that Shafiq would win the election. They readily admitted that neither candidate was a good choice for Egypt, but in their minds Shafiq was less bad than Morsy. There’s also concern that none of this means anything if the military continues to exert control over the country which it appears to be doing.

My students and others I have talked to are deeply concerned by what Morsy’s election will mean for Egypt’s ability to move forward, stabilize its economy and create the kind of environment that will allow the youth of Egypt to have a future. Unemployment among youth in Egypt is extremely high which keeps them from being able to save the money necessary to marry and start a new home and family. They are also very concerned about what this will mean for Christians in Egypt. I have heard friends say, “if Morsy is elected I must find a way to leave, there is no future for me here.” How can it be that the land that welcomed the Holy Family and kept Christ safe from Herod so he could become the savior of the world would become a place where those who confess faith in Christ no longer feel safe?

Of course we don’t know how the coming days will unfold. Many say that with a divided popular vote, the parliament disbanded and the military council exerting greater power and control nothing meaningful will happen in Egypt. But Egypt must find ways to move forward economically and politically. There must be ways for all Egyptians to dream of a future with hope.

If this wasn’t enough to deal with, it’s also VERY hot. Weather reports say the high temp today (and in recent days) will be around 100, but the air is humid and thick with moisture. I was dripping wet this morning by the time I finished my 12 minute walk to Greco at 9 a.m. You know it’s hot when even Egyptians from Upper Egypt are complaining about the weather. It’s hard for anyone to think hopefully and helpfully when battling such heat.

In the midst of all of this I read Mark’s gospel for next week – Mark 4:35-41 – where Jesus stills a storm. I give thanks that in the midst of storms Christ is with us. I pray that Egypt will know Christ’s presence with them in their current storms as well.

2012:5 - The Street on Voting Day

 The streets around the seminary have been busy Saturday and Sunday as people are out, presumably to vote, but that’s not entirely certain. Last night I read in the Egyptian English press that voter turnout was low on Saturday. The French school about a block and a half from the seminary and is a polling place and both yesterday and today it was a buzz of activity. The seminary (on Road 15 pictured below) is located a half block from Road 87, a main east/west street that has been backed up with car traffic for two days. This morning as I walked passed the school soldiers and police were readily visible and people could be seen coming and going. For the last two days we frequently hear helicopters overhead. We read that they have been deployed to keep an eye on polling places. Unofficial results will begin trickling out in the early morning hours of Monday, but official results will not be announced for three or four days. It will be amazing to witness how the coming days unfold. 

Turning west on Road 87 and walking about 6 blocks brings you to Road 9 – the main commercial thoroughfare in our part of Ma’adi - we call it downtown. The street has a more international flair than it did when I first came to Egypt 6 year ago, but it remains a mix of common Egyptian businesses nestled side-by-side with high-concept restaurants, coffee shops and stores catering to foreigners and Egypt’s wealthy elite. Egypt is a country of paradox and that is visible along Road 9.

This morning, for instance, I stopped at a small tamayya (falafel) stand and got two tamayya sandwiches with salad and sauce in a pita. This stand caters to Egyptians walking from the nearby Metro stop to their various places of work. The menu is posted on the wall and is only in Arabic. Three men work in the shop. Two assemble sandwiches – tamayya and eggplant are my personal favorites – while a third works at a fry station set up on the sidewalk in front of their small store front which is about the size of a single car garage. Sometimes people purchase a sandwich and sit on a stoop outside to eat it. Others, like me, take our sandwiches to go. My two simple sandwiches set me back 2 pounds (about 34 cents). Yesterday when I took Hans to the stand to experience the goodness before he left we got charged 5 pounds for 4 sandwiches. Today I asked for and got the local rate.

I took my sandwiches to the Greco Coffee shop – my favorite place to buy air conditioning and coffee – where I got a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a small French press. In contrast this set me back 25 Pounds – about $2.75. The Greco has a lovely cosmopolitan atmosphere. People from all over the world gather here to meet friends, enjoy the air conditioning and relax. You regularly hear English (of varied accents) as well as French and Arabic mixing together. When I started coming to Egypt, Greco was one of the few places of this type on Road 9. Today it is one of dozens of restaurants serving coffee, frozen yogurt, desserts, Italian pizza and the like.

The contrast between Greco and the Tamayya stand illustrates what’s happening in Egypt today. Some in this country are hitching a ride on the global economy and demanding more and more of the opportunity and benefits that this can provide. Others want to live a simple life and be able to provide for their family and enjoy great, inexpensive tamayya. Most of my students would never consider spending 25 pounds on coffee, nor would they have the resources to do this if they wished.

The streets in Egypt are full of contrasts. It’s part of what makes them so fascinating to wander.

2012:4 - Weeds

Friday morning I will preach for the morning mass at the seminary. After breakfast Hans and I will take the Metro to central Cairo and I will preach at St. Andrew's Church, a congregation supported by the ELCA. What follows is the version of my homily that I intend to preach for my students tomorrow morning. I'm endebted to David Lose, Dear Working Preacher for a great image of the kingdom of God that I hope will be a word good news to my students tomorrow morning before they leave on Saturday to vote in the presidential election.

 

Mark 4:26-32

What is the kingdom of God like? Really what is the kingdom of God like? I want you to close your eyes and imagine for a moment. What do you see? What do you imagine?

 

Maybe you see a heavenly palace where all is beautiful and pure and those who are dead are at peace. Their sicknesses healed. Their earthly sins forgiven. Their life restored and whole. That is a good picture of the kingdom of God.

Maybe you see a world where peace and justice and security are normal. A world where governments are fair. Where all people no matter their religion, or the color of their skin, or whether they are men or women, have the same rights and opportunities in the world. Where people live freely without worrying about their safety. That is a good picture of the kingdom of God.

Maybe you see your own most perfect self. Your self filled with Christ-like love for others. Your self freed from temptation and sin. This is a good picture of the kingdom of God.

Maybe you see something different. And this is also good. It’s good to imagine what the kingdom of God is like.

Jesus used parables to try and teach his disciples about the kingdom of God. Today we hear two of them. I want us to focus on the second of Jesus parables.

“[The kingdom of God] is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs …” (Mark 4:31)

Think of what Jesus is saying – the kingdom of heaven is like a weed. Yes. A weed. What is a weed? It is a plant that is not welcome in a garden or a field. It is a plant that gets in the way of what we want to grow. It is plant that if it is not taken away has the power to take over and destroy the entire crop of a field. Or ruin the beauty of a garden.

What Jesus is teaching us is that the kingdom of God isn’t something we can control. It’s not completely safe. It’s especially not safe if we are satisfied with the ways things are. Rather, the kingdom of God comes to overturn systems, to take over, to forever change the kingdoms of this world.

The kingdom of God is not only up there, or out there, or in here – the kingdom of God is all of those things AND it is everywhere. At least that is the picture that Jesus wants us to have of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is a weed that is out of control, filling all the empty places of this world, taking over the neat and clean and organized systems that we create and turning them into something new. Maybe not something that is entirely beautiful. But something that is of God living and breathing in this world . . . and not of us.

Do you remember where you were on Friday 11 February 2011? I’m sure you do. It was the day that Mubarak stepped down as the president of Egypt. Every day from 25 January until 11 February I had reading everything I could see in the newspaper. I had been watching everything I could see on television. With you I had been watching and waiting to see what would come from Egypt’s peaceful revolution. And when Mubarak left, I cried with joy for you and for all of Egypt. And that night at a meeting I told the people with me – “Today the kingdom of God is closer to reality for Egyptians.” I believed that then. I still believe that today.

I know that the last 16 months have been difficult for Egypt, especially for Christians. Every day I pray that Egypt will become a place that is safe, peaceful and just for ALL Egyptians. As I listen to you speaking with me this summer I hear that you have questions about the future. Some of you say the revolution is over. Some of you say that the revolution has only begun. I try to understand, but I know that at the end of the summer course I will go home and you will continue to live here and try to make the best of the uncertainty that each new day brings.

It’s because you live with all of this uncertainty, with so many questions about what tomorrow will bring – that I think Jesus’ words today are good news for us, especially I hope for you. The kingdom of God is not neat and orderly. The kingdom of God is like a weed, taking over governments that are corrupt, destroying systems that are unjust, defeating rulers that only care about power. To say that the kingdom of God is like a weed – is to say that hope is alive for us! To say that the kingdom of God is like a weed – is to say that as disciples of God’s kingdom every vote we cast, every word we speak, every opinion we express, every powerful person or powerful system that we challenge, every injustice we stand against – is an act of helping the weeds of God’s kingdom to spread and change the world.

May it be so!

2012:3 - Desperation

My friend Michael who I usually teach with each summer is not here this year. When he read my last blog, he commented, “Desperation is a terrible thing.”

Indeed it is. It can make people do things that are entirely outside the norm. Such is the case at the seminary this year.

My friend Michael is a Franciscan friar and priest and so he normally takes leadership of pastoral responsibilities in the summer course, preaching and presiding at our daily mass. (Michael is a wonderful preacher and I am missing the opportunity to soak up his prophetic and challenging words this summer.) Because Michael is not here the priests who live and teach at the seminary are sharing the presiding duties. But preaching in a foreign language is a daunting task – especially when you’re proficiency in the language is not great.

Out of desperation, Abuna Bishoi, our lead priest for the summer course announced on Tuesday morning that I will be preaching the homilies every day until the students are prepared to deliver theirs.

I’ve preached before in the summer course – one or two times each year -- but the challenge of daily preaching is a new one for me. Day 2 was easier than Day 1. Hopefully Day 3 will be easier still.

There’s a lot of things I could say about this opportunity that are probably better left unsaid. What I will say is that I second Michael’s observation “desperation is a terrible thing.” I’ll also say the Holy Spirit works sometimes in the strangest ways!

2012:2 - Repeat Business

Hans and I have been enjoying several days of rest and relaxation in Luxor, ancient Thebes to students of Egyptian history. This is my third visit here, Hans’ second. We’ve returned because Luxor is beautiful – home to the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut’s Temple as well as the Karnak and Luxor Temples to name some of the best-known places. We’ve also returned because this city knows how to cater to tourists. The summer daytime temperatures are hot – routinely 105 or above – so the normal pattern is to wake early in the morning and hit the outdoor monuments and then return to your hotel by noon for an afternoon of relaxation by the pool. (Yes, everyday we’ve been singing, “It’s a hard knock life for us . . .”!) Tourist hotels take great care of their guests and we have been spoiled since Friday.

Here’s what we’ve noticed though these last few days. Tourists are hard to find in Luxor this year. The sites are not teeming with them. The poolsides have lots of empty deck chairs. The restaurants have few diners. Sure it’s low season, but there seems to be noticably fewer people hanging around. Those we have seen are predominately from England, Germany and Russia. Brief conversations with local drivers, shop keepers and the like have confirmed our observations. Tourism has taken a hard hit since the 25 January revolution. Those who are here are often repeat visitors, like us, not new comers. And those who come on tours are more reluctant to go solo on individual excursions.  

This makes life hard for local businessmen (they are mostly men) who try to make a living from driving taxis, piloting faluccas, guiding private tours and keeping shops and restaurants. In the midst of these lean times, everyone wants repeat business. We’ve received business cards from nearly early cabdriver we’ve hired.  One restaurant owner even scrawled out his contact information on a piece of paper so we’d have a way to contact him again. Everyone wants to  offer us something extra – a discount on dinner, additional day tours, anything we need to make our stay happy. Today as we returned from the Luxor Museum and made a brief stop at a Fair Trade store, our driver offered to take us anywhere in Luxor for better prices, nicer goods, ANYTHING we wanted.

To be fair, this is what you do when you’re trying to make customers happy and maybe it’s not so different from other times we’ve been here.

But if I’m not mistaken there is desperation in the voices that I’ve not heard before. The fun-loving, jovial nature that I’m used to is not quite so readily apparent. This desperation is likely born of uncertainty of all kinds – who will be elected president next weekend? When will some semblance of normalcy return to their beloved homeland? When will the tourists come back? In the midst of such uncertainty hustling for repeat business might be the surest bet there is.

2012:1 - Preparations

For over a week I've been working off four lists of tasks that I'm trying to complete before getting on a plane on Wednesday afternoon. I've gotten a lot checked off my lists. I WILL get more done tomorrow. My lists help me prepare to be gone for a month.

This year especially there is much I can not prepare for. I don't know how we'll find the situation in Ma'adi (our neighborhood) or in Cairo when we arrive. I suspect that we will find things more changed than we ever have before. I suspect that tensions will be running high in the streets and among my students at seminary. No doubt you've seen the news of the protests that have erupted since Saturday's sentencing of Hosni Mubarak and the acquittal of his sons and other former government officials. In addition, June 16 and 17 are the scheduled dates of the runoff presidential election. The two candidates are as polarizing as can be. While I'm eager to experience the election and the announcing of results first-hand, I know the results of the presidential election will likely lead to more violence.

Because of all the uncertainty of what's happening in the streets, sight seeing will probably be kept to a minimum this year. I hope to use that opportunity to spend more of my time and energy engaging with the people in our neighborhood and finding opportunities to listen to their stories - even when I can't always understand them because of my poor Arabic.

These are some of my preparations this year.  As always, I'm grateful for the prayers that you have and will continue to offer.

Thanks for following along and taking an interest in my journeys.

Amy(almost)-in-Egypt

In Memory

John Kroschel (in yellow) laughing as a we played a game with the seminarians one evening.

A few, unique people touch our lives in ways that forever change us. Those of you who have followed my journeys either from the beginning or more recently know that my friends in Egypt are people who have changed how I look at the world. But before I could know them, I had to travel to Egypt, and the Rev. John Kroschel was the person responsible for my first journey in 2007.

John, his wife, Chris, their children, Nathan and Sari, first traveled to Egypt in 2005 at the invitation of Fr. Doug May. When John came home from that first trip he eagerly shared stories with Hans and I about all they had seen, experienced and learned. Almost immediately after his return he said to me, “you have to do this.” It has never occurred to me that perhaps John said those words to everyone he told about Egypt. But for me, those words resonated in a special way. Egypt was the first country I ever dreamed of visiting as a child, and John’s words invited me to this opportunity and I readily accepted.

When John and his family scheduled a return trip in 2007, Hans and I made plans to accompany them. The morning after our arrival, John began acquainting me with our neighborhood in Ma’adi, introducing me to this land, and through John’s eyes I began to know the Egypt that he had already come to love. Through John’s quiet but studied observance, I learned to notice every woman selling tissues (in lieu of begging) on street corners and Metro exits. I began to take in the devotion of those around us – Christians and Muslims. I learned to observe the lives of ordinary Egyptians as they struggled with the challenges of daily life – like walking down overcrowded, uneven and treacherous streets to simply get to work. By his example I began to ask questions of my students, listen to their stories and try to understand their journeys. I took in the ancient history that emerged out of the desert and beloved Egypt began to take hold of me.

Even in a foreign culture, John gently but firmly pushed at societal norms and fought for a more just world. He encouraged me to practice my pastoral leadership as a woman within the walls of this Coptic Catholic Seminary and invited me to pray publicly and to preach in the daily mass. When I nervously preached for the first time, “Fazher John”, as our students called him, ever the pastor, sat with his students that morning after Mass and helped them process what they had just seen and heard. Later he told me his opening question had been, “well, do we need to go check the foundations of the building and make sure there aren’t any cracks?”

I don’t know why John came home from Egypt that first time and said, “you have to do this.” What I do know is that by saying those words and extending an invitation, John changed my life.

Thanks be to God for the life of John Kroschel, my mentor and friend. I will continue to carry his presence with me in my life and ministry . . . most especially in Egypt. 

In Praise to God and in Memory of

Pastor John Kroschel

December 10, 1963 – May 17, 2012