Passion and Pain

Two years later, Al-Kosheh was besieged yet again. At the turn of the new millennium, twenty-one Christians were massacred by Muslims, while police stood by. Many were literally hacked to death, while others were murdered execution-style after refusing to renounce their faith. Two hundred and sixty Christian homes and businesses were gutted and looted during the three-day rampage. Only after an international outcry did the Egyptian authorities arrest some of those responsible. Yet in the end, every single murderer was set free and went unpunished.

In July 2000, Muslim gunmen killed a Christian farmer and wounded five other Christians in Giza because a church was being built there. The following December, a 75-year-old priest was stabbed and seriously wounded by Muslims near Sohag. In February 2002, Muslim villagers firebombed a newly reconstructed church in Minya.

These incidents demonstrate that the Egyptian Government's justice system and security police provide little protection for its Christian citizens. Moreover, the Egyptian Government is responsible for much discrimination and persecution by promoting anti-Christian television programming, making it extremely difficult for Christians to build and repair churches, and even frequently detaining and torturing Muslim converts to Christianity. Egypt even imprisons those who speak out against its horrific human rights abuses, claiming that such revelations ―tarnish the image of Egypt.‖ Prayer Points: * Please pray for the protection and deliverance of Christians in Egypt; that they will be strengthened in their faith and comforted in their suffering; that God in His mercy will spare them from further unspeakable horror, and raise up intercessors and advocates to lighten their heavy burdens. * Please pray for an end to the attacks, murders, destruction of homes and churches by Muslims; for an end to unjust arrests and imprisonment, torture, and extortion by Egyptian police and other Government officials; for the release of Christian prisoners and those imprisoned for speaking out against the Government‘s discriminatory practices against religious and other minorities. * Please pray that the Government of Egypt will protect the lives and religious freedoms of its minority citizens and bring to justice those who unlawfully persecute them; and that Western governments no longer turn a blind eye to religious persecution of this kind.

Please pray that Christians in the West, and Western nations and governments avoid scandal and hypocrisy, and do nothing to exacerbate Muslim hatred of Christians in Egypt or elsewhere, thus putting the lives of Christians, church leaders and missionaries at risk; pray also that our churches and societies may be seen as examples of peace, justice and charity.