Greetings from Cairo, Egypt! Marcie and I are here for seven weeks serving St. Andrew’s United Church of Cairo, Egypt. We returned to a church we served under the aegis of Global Missions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) from 2003-2005 and for five weeks in 2016. In that brief stint and this current one we are filling in for the current pastor on home leave, Pastor Bekah Davis.
A little bit about St. Andrew’s. The first worship services of St. Andrew’s were held on February 5, 1899 and the dedication service in the present sanctuary of St. Andrew’s Church was held on January 3, 1909. Worship at St. Andrew’s continued during both World Wars, serving the English-speaking military personnel stationed in Cairo. Aside from an English speaking congregation, St. Andrew’s has been “home” to refugee congregations. Currently, there are seven refugee led congregations whose services are led in the native language of each community.
For the past 46 years, St. Andrew’s has also been home to StARS (or also known as St. Andrew’s Refugee Services). This ministry of the church began when five women over the age of 80 saw a need, both for the congregation and the increasing numbers of refugees being forcibly displaced from countries in the Horn of Africa. At that time, many of the people arriving in Egypt were here to study in Cairo under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). However outside of school they were lacking a place to gather in community. On October 11, 1979, the Thursday evening “Refugee Center” was inaugurated in St. Andrew’s Guild Hall. In its early days, as many as 115 people came for games, conversation, and tea. In the early years there was also a rudimentary effort in English-language instruction. This ministry has grown to a staff of over 600 people, a volunteer base of over 200 people, who are now serving over 100,000 families a year; people from Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, and Syria.
It’s a marvelous ministry and effort by many, many people!
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