Ramez Atallah, General Secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, has sent an email to supporters asking for your prayers as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are expected to protest President Morsi’s powers he has taken upon himself and the “unrepresentative constitution he wants to impose on Egyptians,” as Attallah writes.

The Bible Society is asking that Christians please pray:

  1. that there will be no violence as people demonstrate in front of the presidential palace and in Tahrir Square;
  2. that the president and his advisors would listen to the demands of the opposition.

Read the complete communication here.

Presbyterian missionaries founded the Bible Society of Egypt and supported the translation of the Bible into the Arabic language. The resulting VanDyck translation is still the most popular translation, funded by the Syrian Mission and the society. The Presbyterian Church also planted and grew the Synod of the Nile into the largest Protestant church in the Middle East today. About 10 million copies of the VanDyck translation have been distributed since 1865. It has been accepted by the Coptic Church and the Protestant churches. 

Learn more about PC(USA) mission in Egypt here. 

The Bible Society of Egypt exists to make the Scriptures available and accessible to all, at an affordable price, in a language people can understand, and in a way that can help each one comprehend the message and effectively apply it. The society is the largest Arabic Bible publishing operation in the world. Publishing the Scripture in a variety of formats and media (print, audio, visual), each product is designed for a particular social, economic, age, and cultural interest group. The operation is trans-denominational and the society is considered the Bible publisher for all the churches of Egypt.

Born and raised in Egypt, Ramez Attallah moved to Canada with his family as a teenager. He came to know Christ through a local church in Canada, and grew in his faith as a student at McGill University where he was involved with Inter-Varsity.  In 1980, Attalah and his wife, Rebecca, left Canada and moved back to his home country of Egypt to minister in the garbage village outside Cairo.  

Learn more about the Bible Society of Egypt here.

There is an update to this story. Read it here.