September 16, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

Some of you have already heard that Charles and I are spending this year in Oklahoma living with my brother David and sister-in-law Jeanie. It is a totally unplanned "visit" but we are looking forward to reconnecting with family, church, and American culture. We are experiencing God's pruning and learning what new experiences God has in store for us!

Charles and I flew to Chicago on 2 July. Charles flew on to Oklahoma to spend a month with my brother and his family, and I traveled to Ames, Iowa, for a visit with my sister and brother-in-law before flying to Orange, California, to participate in PC(USA)’s Joining Hands and Peacemaking Conferences held at Chapman University.

On 4 July, Egyptian opposition newspapers began carrying a story about an American female Presbyterian missionary (me) who was directly involved in formulating changes to Egyptian law, proselytizing Muslims, and assisting the Egyptian Presbyterian Church in building new evangelistic centers in upper Egypt. From an American perspective these are not bad things, but they are untrue. In addition, for Egyptians, 90% of whom are Muslim, Christian and American involvement in internal Egyptian affairs is very sensitive and provocative. My name and address were mentioned as well as Charles and his school. For a week, the very inaccurate and distorted story spread like wildfire in Middle Eastern news services.

If you read my previous letters, you will recall that in June there was some very heated debate in the Egyptian Parliament about some of the amendments proposed to Child Law 12 of 1996. Fundamentalist members of parliament did their best to block a vote on the law's most sensitive articles by repeatedly claiming they contravene Islamic Sharia and serve a Western agenda. Their efforts were unsuccessful, and the amendments passed. So it seems when unknown persons discovered on the PC(USA) Web site my letters about the campaign, they saw it as an opportunity to discredit the Mubarak government and Egyptians who worked so hard to strengthen Egyptian child rights.

Though the story fizzled out, the repercussions have not. In an email of 27 July, CEOSS General Director Nabil Abadir recommended that I stay in the United States for a year. My Egyptian colleagues in TFD Network have the difficult task of continuing to work despite the damage that has occurred to relationships TFD worked very hard to build within the Egyptian NGO and governmental communities. People in the broader coalition working to pass and implement the Child Law have also been negatively impacted.

I had a week to decide what would work best for Charles and me for the unexpected year in the United States. David and Jeanie invited us to stay with them; Charles already has friends in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, because of the summers he has spent here. So on 5 August, instead of flying back to Cairo, I flew to Sand Springs to rejoin Charles and to enroll him in the local Sand Springs, Oklahoma, high school. Charles was midway through the two-year British GCSE program, which he put tremendous effort into last year. It was wrenching to me to see his hard work “go down the drain” because it doesn’t match at all with the American system. Charles, however, is pleased because he was fearful about returning to Egypt, curious about attending the local high school, and enthusiastic about not wearing a uniform! The football coach has recruited him for the JV football team so his schedule is very full. He is currently annoyed by all the crazy questions his fellow students ask him about life in Egypt. He is taking his studies seriously and doing well.

Thanks to the help of friends in Cairo I've taken care of many of the issues confronting us due to our abrupt change of plans—our two cats, my car, Charles’ immunization records and other materials needed to register in American high school, notification to NCBIS that Charles would not be returning, and so on.

I continue as a mission co-worker with the PC(USA) assigned to CEOSS and TFD Network; PC(USA) has asked that I use the year to conduct fundraising for the overseas Joining Hands networks, which the Presbyterian Hunger Program is unable to completely fund. PC(USA) has agreed to provide me with a new laptop—the one I left in Egypt is really slow and out of date.

I will have the chance to become reacquainted with numerous members of my extended family living in Oklahoma, I hope to make new friends through church and volunteer activities, and I should be able to participate in some art classes and physical activities that will contribute to better physical and emotional health. I am in the process of letting the Presbytery of Eastern Oklahoma know I am here and available to do speaking.

Please keep all of us in your prayers as we trust that indeed “all things work together for good for those who love God.” Pray especially for Charles as he continues in the American school system, in a much larger school than he has previously attended, and confronts issues that were minimal in the Egyptian context.

May God’s peace and joy surround us all.

Sincerely,

Nancy

PS: As a security precaution, the PC(USA) has removed information about all PC(USA) mission personnel in Egypt from its Web site.

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 324