Once You Drink From the Nile…

In one of our meetings this week, one of our Egyptian hosts said that they have “a saying here in Cairo.” Ready? Here it is: “Once you drink from the Nile you will always come back again.” This does not make sense unless you realize that the Nile River is the water supply for the entire region. So if you drink water in Cairo, you are drinking from the Nile. My hunch is that we will be back.

Once again I sat by in a restaurant this evening to share dinner with our travel group and was reminded about a key phrase that was mentioned in our meeting with a group of Evangelical businessmen and women: “We can talk about God’s love in this context.” The word “God” is the name for the redemptive Lord of history. This is a multi-religious faith context where Christians (Evangelicals, Coptics, and Catholics) as well as Muslims and Jews have freedom to worship. Work here in Egypt will require specific efforts at contextualizing our approach to augment the magnificent work that is already being done by Egyptian Christians. We are being invited to supplement the work here and fill gaps that exist. We are in the preliminary stages of working through the process for beginning work here in Cairo. We have already passed the Ideation stage and are almost at the end of the exploratory visit to this region. Next, we are moving through stage of proposal and commitment phase followed by structure, and eventually launch. We are on our way.

The Lord has been preparing a network of churches that span Nevada, Atlanta, and Dallas. These churches have come to the conclusion that they are being called by God to invest heavily in Egypt over the next few years. They have been waiting patiently for two years to find a partner who they can connect with for Egypt. Enter…Buckner International. The network’s hub is housed out of Hope Baptist Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. Chip Riggs is the lead pastor in this project. He and two other friends, Mike and Kim Stickler from Nevada and Ric Drudy from Florida traveled with us.

One of our strategies when considering work in a new country is to line up resources before we begin. When the Lord puts resources in front of you it is hard to not see that as a sign that the Lord is leading us.

I will wake up one more time with a view of the Nile and then fly to Israel. This is an amazing sequence of events. I am reminded that Moses was placed in this very river and then was adopted into the house of Pharaoh. The Lord would raise him up some day to become a leader for the nation of Egypt and the nation of Israel. My vision for this region is to serve the children who will become leaders that will serve God’s purposes in this generation years from now. Developing Kingdom leaders from my circle of influence to the ends of the earth is my life mission. That is what I am doing here. Pray that the Lord will guide and protect all of our new relationships for the future of our work here.