September 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

Network members participate in an activity to facilitate their decision-making process. In this June training workshop for the network, members decided to advocate for inclusion of disabled children in public schools.

“I am stunned to realize how far we have come and how much we have done!” It was an “aha” moment for Soad, from Kolali Church, a member organization of Together for Family Development Network. We were all together at a training workshop. Bassem, from New Vision Association, another network member organization, had just completed giving us an overview of the steps of advocacy as presented in a certificate program which he had attended at Coady International Institute in Nova Scotia. It was the moment according to God’s wisdom when the light bulb clicked on and Soad understood the significance of what we had been doing for the past year!

With the help of our training consultant, Dr. Alaa Sebeh, an expert in disability and in advocacy, we had been learning about disability and about advocacy in a hands-on process that involved gathering information about the desperate situation of disabled Egyptian children and about relevant Egyptian laws so we could pinpoint an advocacy change objective. Later in that workshop, we decided our advocacy target would be amending articles in existing law to mainstream disabled children in public primary schools.

Our intention to develop a carefully planned advocacy campaign fell by the wayside when we learned from Dr. Alaa that the existing law we want to amend is under review by the Egyptian policy body and, between September and November, the policy body is soliciting input from concerned NGOs. A short but crucial window of opportunity opened before us.

Thanks to God’s graciousness, this window opened just after we formed our Board of Directors and hired a truly exceptional network coordinator. As a result, the network is staffed and organized to move forward more effectively. We are now in the process of identifying a high level lawyer who can help us recommend language for an amendment. Simultaneously we are building a database of potential coalition members, establishing an Arabic-language website to distribute informational studies the network has completed, developing media campaigns in local communities, and planning a national NGO workshop. Definitely an overflowing plate of activities!

For me, facilitating the network over the past two years has been an act of faith and a living out of “when I am weak, He is strong.” I have felt God’s hand on this network since I began working with it. The obstacles and challenges confronting the network have been significant, yet we are still going forward. Please keep us in your prayers during the coming months. We need God’s guidance and strength for this work.

From March through July 2006, Charles and I had a houseguest. Lachlyn, one of the young adult volunteers from 2004-05, returned to Cairo for more language learning and work experience. Through her work at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), both of us became more consciously aware of political aspects of life in Egypt.

Since 2000, the judiciary has had oversight of Egyptian parliamentary elections. The judges have long been considered the most respected and politically neutral authority in Egypt. Egyptian parliamentary elections held in November and December 2005 were deeply flawed by voter intimidation, vote buying, lack of voting secrecy, and incorrect and missing names on voter registry.

Two senior Egyptian judges called for investigation into allegations of electoral fraud and cases of assaults on judges supervising the polling stations. In February 2006, the Supreme Judicial Council, a government body, stripped the two of the judicial immunity to allow State Security prosecutors to question them. The government subsequently charged them with “defaming the state.” During the weeks prior to their trials, security forces beat, kicked, clubbed and arrested peaceful demonstrators that turned out in support of the judges. Finally, on 18 May, the Supreme Judicial Council disciplinary tribunal exonerated one judge, and it issued a rebuke and denied a promotion to the second.

Lachlyn’s organization was actively involved in following all the developments, so I received ongoing “up close and personal” accounts of each development. It was much different from reading about the events in the media some time after they took place. It impressed on my mind reasons some of the representatives of network organizations might hesitate about becoming involved in advocacy.

Charles returned from the United States on 19 August and began school on 3 September. The highlight of his summer—spent mostly with my brother and his family in Oklahoma—was a week at Mo Ranch in Texas with junior high students from my brother’s church in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. Charles’ fears about rejection were completely overcome on the road trip to Texas when his new-found friends nicknamed him “Hubcap,” thanks to his admiration for the impressive rims he saw on some of the cars along the way! According to Charles, his time at Mo Ranch was unequivocally “awesome.”

This year Charles is in 8th grade. At 13 he is 5’10”. He still enjoys sports, but now, thanks to all the testosterone flooding his system, he is also working out to develop upper body muscles. Hopefully the physical activity will help, not hinder, his academic studies. Another prayer concern! 

And so life continues for us in Cairo—fast and furious, but ultimately rewarding.

May God’s grace and peace surround you and keep you.

Nancy and Charles

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 165