Dear Friends in Christ,

Greetings from Cairo. It has been months since we last wrote and we apologize for the delay. Life here has changed dramatically since our last e-mail, and we will try to catch you up on some of the highlights here. Please know that our lack of correspondence rests in the abundance of wonderful opportunities we are privileged to experience here and not a lack of desire to share them with you. We need your prayers and feel deeply strengthened by your love and care.

The biggest events of this past year happened in the same week. On May 20, our first child was born here in Cairo. Calvin Emil Kennedy is now double his birth weight and has skyrocketed into the 99th percentile in height. More importantly, he has been a tremendous gift to us from the loving hands of our Father, the Giver of all good things. (See our July newsletter for more details of the first days of Calvin’s life.)

The second major event was the seminary graduation just six days later. Nearly 20 students graduated in a large ceremony at Kasr il-Dubara Church in downtown Cairo. The time was bittersweet for us, as many of the graduates were not only our students but also dear friends whom we hate to part with. We have real confidence in their abilities and in the preparation they received here at Evangelical Theological Seminary, but the challenges facing them are formidable and they will have to lean hard on the power of the Spirit in the work that lies ahead of them.

I (Darren) just visited several third-year students at their field education training sites in southern Egypt. The time overwhelmed me with the realization of just how much the churches here need pastors. One of the students I visited splits his time between two different congregations for the four months of his summer vacation. Imagine trying to single-handedly pastor two churches in rural villages in the heat of an Egyptian summer. The student, Ekram, leads nightly meetings at one church that average 100 in attendance, and must arrange for the meetings in his other vibrant church as well. The church building we visited is built of bricks made of mud and straw; little to no concrete is available for construction in the villages. Having met with some of the members and seen the vibrancy of their faith, I was overcome with the what God was doing in such a place. Thinking of the people in the pews singing hymns to God within the mud-brick church reminded me of Paul’s words in II Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."

One of the other students, Mahrous, is serving in a similar church and is finding himself blessed by the ministry, but wrestling with some unexpected circumstances. Some of his meetings have been cut short—not by Sunday NFL games—but by the annual cucumber harvest that calls his parishioners to long hours of work. This young pastor is also struggling with how to best address the social needs of his community, knowing that he will only be there for four months before returning to his classes at the seminary. He learned a hard lesson about the need for a foundational relationship between pastor and parish when he started off the summer women’s meetings with a talk on female circumcision. U.N. statistics on this practice reflect a rate of 93 percent for Egyptian women. Certainly this difficult topic needs to be addressed by the church, but a young pastor must establish relationships of love and trust before being able to touch topics so close to ones’ identity and culture.

During my visit I also had the opportunity of meeting Rev. Munir in his small village pastorate. Rev. Munir has served in the same small church now for 32 years. His only ordained elder, Sheik Boutros (Sheik is the Arabic word used for "elder" in the Presbyterian Church here), was ordained the same year he was. Sheik Boutros wears the traditional Egyptian robe, or "gallabiyyah," with a turban-like cloth wrapped around his head. His traditional dress, persistent hospitality, and vibrant smile are typical of the people we met in the villages. Rev. Munir and Sheik Boutros reflected a remarkable commitment to the people that they had been called to serve. It was an honor just to sit with them and to hear about the faithfulness of God through good times and bad. We hope that we too will be able to look back on years of steady service to our Lord some day in the same way. A number of different individuals recounted memories of former missionary Rev. Jack Lorrimer and urged with me to be a missionary like him. I mention Dr. Lorrimer along with Rev. Munir and Sheik Boutros because of the long years they have each spent in service, which allowed them to lay a foundation of loving relationships to build their ministry on. There are many other Egyptians and former missionaries who should be named along with them—too many to tell of in this small space. Please pray that God would give to us and to our students the faith, hope, and love that will gradually open the way to deeper service in the name of our Lord.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

In the grace and peace of Christ Jesus,

Darren, Elisabeth and Calvin Kennedy

The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 135