Beautiful

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”

MELODY BEATTIE

KasrEl-Doubara is the largest Evangelical Church in The Middle East and is located in Tahair Square where in 2011 and 2013 revolution broke out. How ironic that Tahair means “Liberation” in Arabic. The land that KasrEl-Doubara is built on was won in a gambling game with The King in the 1930’s. Local pastors got him drunk. The church was built in 1944. The King would later build a massive building in front of the church to hide his shame. That building now houses government services: Passports, Visa’s, etc.

We walked past soldiers who were stationed there to protect the congregation, but they were also there to identify MBB’s (Muslim Background Believers). It is a crime to convert from Islam to Christianity. As we walked to the church there are “minders” meandering through the cars dressed in suits talking on their mobiles. They are to blend in but they are also looking for bombs and activities that seem unusual.

We walked into a cathedral of prayer and praise with the name for Jesus in Arabic beautifully displayed above the Alter. Their Egyptian flag is front and center. Why? The people gather every week to pray for their nation. We walked into this magnificent, beautiful place seeing people standing with hands raised singing “What a Beautiful Name It Is (the name of Jesus).” Standing next to me was an Asian woman singing as if she were a Broadway Star.

She was so passionate and so beautiful, reminding me, again, that God’s family never looks quite like we expect, but it’s so much bigger and beautiful. As the night wore on the people continued to sing and to pray and many paired off into smaller groups to beg, to petition and to cry out to God for their nation. They were courageously proclaiming the name of Jesus, courageously singing from the top of their lungs, and courageously meeting together in the Beautiful Name of Jesus. Somehow in that moment and in that time His named seemed more beautiful than I can recall. Just feet away were their tormentors, but they were unaffected.