February 11, 2003

From the Far Side

Dear Friends,

I was walking down the street in a poorer section of Cairo, and passed by a young boy dressed in clothes blackened from a lack of being washed, going to a small hole-in-the-wall store to buy sugar. The little boy was about two years old. The man at the store took his money and the note from his mother, hit him to make him cry, and then yelled at him to be a man. He ran back to his mother hysterical, she was sitting on the street, also dressed in rags, about thirty feet away. She gave him a small hug, then turned him around and sent him back with the instructions to be a man. What would Jesus do?

Back here in Amman, Nadiim and Adeeb see the Bedouin children diving into the dumpster across the street and wonder what they're doing. I tell them that they are looking for anything that they may be able to use. Nadiim's reply is to ask why they don't go to the supermarket like we do. Little does he know that these kids would not be allowed into the doors of the supermarket. What would Jesus do?

These are just a couple of glimpses at what we see everyday in the Middle East. If we consider the children of Palestine fearful to sleep at night, the starving children of Iraq, the boys and girls in the slums of Cairo, or the Bedouin children in Jordan picking through garbage, we are faced with more questions than answers. While the West is spending billions to send its armies to the Middle East, shouldn't we consider how this all affects these innocent children? What would Jesus think?

We Westerners, if we are lucky, have the opportunity to see these scenes of life outside of our sterilized worlds. True, if we look around us we will see quite often people who are less fortunate than we. Within the borders of the United States, there are more social problems than we would like to admit: unofficial calculations have the homeless population between eleven and twelve million. But shouldn't what we do about it all be the concept that we should tackle?

As PC(USA) missionaries, these types of scenes or questions are not strange or rare. We as Christians are supposed to view all of those less fortunate than ourselves as our brothers and sisters. How is it than that we can effect change of those we are working with in a positive way?

In Egypt, I am very happy to report that the Joining Hands Against Hunger program is taking off with gusto. Plans are being put into place that will be able to benefit the poorest of the poor, in the cities and in the rural villages. Please pray that the program will continue to prosper and grow.

Here in Amman, we continue to be thankful for all that we are doing. I, coupled with my responsibilities for the Joining Hands Program, am working with the Orthodox Educational Society trying to bring in funds for the Christian education programs they run. Hala is working busily on the tedious job of translating lots of documents for me from Arabic to English and vice versa. We are also thankful that Adeeb, who contracted hepatitis A, has made a full recovery. Thank you to all who had known and offered prayers for his recovery. Nadiim is doing quite well and has pushed us into letting him take basketball lessons at the local Orthodox Christian community center.

We appreciate all of the prayers that are coming our way from friends old and new. Please continue to pray for us in this time of uncertainty, and know that those prayers are being returned by us.

Blessings,

Chris, Hala, Nadiim & Adeeb

The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 156