![\"Children](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Mission-Trip-040.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Egypt. The iconic land of pharaohs, pyramids, the Nile – and more recently, violence.<\/p>\n
During my two years living in Cairo (2010-2012), chaos ruled. People were shot, run over, and beaten in Tahrir Square and nearby Maspero; tanks blocked the streets; and 50 cal. machine-gun tracer rounds and bonfires lit up the night.<\/p>\n
It all started six months after our arrival.<\/p>\n
With the heady days of the “Arab Spring\u201d spreading from Tunisia to Egypt, by January 25, 2011 – the first day of Egypt’s revolution – Tahrir Square was packed with protesters. Seventeen days and hundreds of civilian deaths later, Hosni\u00a0Mubarak, the man who had ruled his country with an iron fist, was deposed.\u00a0The country celebrated. I celebrated.<\/p>\n
But sadly, the\u00a0revolution didn\u2019t bring about the changes we had all hoped for. In recent years things have only gotten worse. Poverty and political oppression have increased, and tourism and hope have declined.<\/p>\n
Yesterday I received the following message\u00a0from the US embassy in Cairo\u00a0(I\u2019m\u00a0still on the email list for US citizens living in Egypt):<\/p>\n
Terrorists have attacked targets associated with the Christian community in Egypt.\u00a0Incidents have occurred in both urban and isolated settings. Additional attacks may be possible. The Egyptian Government has deployed police and military forces to protect Egyptian citizens and foreign visitors.<\/em><\/p>\n More than ever, the religious persecution of Egypt\u2019s Coptic Christians continues.<\/p>\n As I read the US State Department warning, I was immediately reminded of New Year\u2019s Day 2011. I had awoken that\u00a0morning\u00a0to reports of a midnight bombing at a Coptic church in Alexandria.\u00a0I was shocked. Twenty-one\u00a0people had been killed by a car bomb as they left church after a New Year\u2019s Eve service.<\/p>\n Just a few months earlier, I had been invited by a group of friends from a Coptic congregation to participate in a mission trip and had spent three days in the remote town of Sohag, a day\u2019s train ride up the Nile, distributing food, clothes, and money to men, women, and children I\u2019ll never forget. Now, people just like them were dying.<\/p>\n The 2011 church bombing was just the beginning.\u00a0After Mubarak\u2019s overthrow, sectarian violence erupted throughout the country with church burnings, random killings, and military attacks against Christians\u00a0occurring in Cairo, Alexandria, the Sinai, and small towns up and down the Nile.<\/p>\n Five years later, with ISIS in the picture, the killings\u00a0have become more systematic and frequent. In\u00a0December 2016, a church was bombed,\u00a0killing 29. This past Palm Sunday, two more churches were hit, killing 45.\u00a0And in the latest\u00a0atrocity, on May 26, Copts traveling to a desert monastery were ambushed by\u00a0masked gunmen. Twenty-eight passengers in the three-vehicle convoy were killed, including six children.\u00a0ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack – and the three previous church bombings.<\/p>\n As I think back on my days in Egypt, I remember my friends there – both Christian and Muslim – and I am heartbroken. They\u00a0have suffered too long.<\/p>\n But as the State Department warns, and reality tells us, there\u2019s probably more to come.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Egypt. The iconic land of pharaohs, pyramids, the Nile – and more recently, violence. During my two years living in Cairo (2010-2012), chaos ruled. People were shot, run over, and beaten in Tahrir Square and nearby Maspero; tanks blocked the streets; and 50 cal. machine-gun tracer rounds and bonfires lit up the night. It all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[50,49,51],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-events","tag-copts","tag-egypt","tag-tahrir"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"From](\"http:\/\/nedforney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Mission-Trip-056.jpeg\")
\n\t\tFrom left: Our friend Sam, a volunteer, a Coptic priest, and Ned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"