Living in Cairo, we become so used to the fast-pace of life and tall buildings blocking the sun, that we forget there is another world outside our door. Global Health Facts says that 57% of Egypt’s population lives outside urban areas. Much of Egypt is a great and sprawling desert punctuated with tiny islands of humanity living in villages. I recently visited some of these villages with Healing Grace Ministries and I will never be the same. Life in the village has a decidedly different pace and flavor governed more by the calendar than the clock.
These
villages are like villages in other parts of the world: narrow dirt streets
shared with goats, cows, donkeys, and chickens. Not a tree or blade of
grass such as grace the garden suburbs in Maadi are to be found in these
villages. The buildings are two-story plain block of the same gray-brown
color. Multiple generations live in one and two room flats with cement
floors and open windows that do little to keep out the cold or heat or the
constant flies. Occupants sleep on the floor or on wooden benches covered
with a thin cushion, if they are fortunate. One two-year old naps during
our visit while flies crawl on his head, yet he doesn’t stir. (I wonder
how does your body learn to do that? If a mosquito even so much as
buzzes my ear in the middle of the night, I bolt up and turn on the light to
begin a battle for survival!) For those raised in a higher standard of
living, the sights, sounds, and smells are startling. But if you were to
only look on the surface, you would miss the true heart of these villages.
We
sit and talk with these families about their lives. Some are seasonal
farm laborers, others work in quarries, and still others have no job.
Many of them have little education because they had to go to work to help the
family survive. We meet teenagers who are only now going back to school
to pick up where they left off years ago. An older widow tells of begging
for food after the family stopped providing for her. She is slowly going
blind, as she has been told it is too late to remove the cataracts robbing her
sight. One man tells the tragic story of his life of many years
ago. He was a highly-skilled tailor until the day a group of men
assaulted him and broke his hands and beat his head. He could no longer
work and had to beg, but his now disfigured appearance frightened people
away. His head trauma altered his behavior and he began beating his wife
who then began beating the children. The word desperation doesn’t even
begin to describe their situation. How does a family even begin to
recover from such misfortune??
Yet
the mother telling this story smiled and talked with remarkable hope and joy,
while her husband worked at the sewing machine making a galabeya, running the
machine with a chain between two toes. The difference was that a pastor in
the village cared enough to reach out to her traumatized husband and take him
to a doctor to receive treatment. Healing Grace (a local Egyptian
ministry that works with and through local Egyptian village churches) came to
the village and began to help, giving food so some would not have to beg.
The older widow danced with giddy joy when she received her food bag. (I
recalled with shame my irritation last summer when my new laptop did not arrive
on time before I was to return to Egypt. My attitude had an adjustment
after witnessing this scene!) The local village church and Healing Grace
also offered classes on mothering so she could learn how to balance love and
discipline instead of beating her children. Her husband was taught how to
be a good husband and father. He received a loan to purchase a sewing
machine so he could begin making a living again with his partially functioning
hands. The village churches and Healing Grace also work to encourage
families to keep their children in school. In some villages they have
even provided water filtration systems so the whole village can have clean
water and not fall victim to the constant diseases from contaminated water.
When
I live in isolated affluence, I need my eyes opened to the rest of the world.
I can share my physical resources, but I also need to share my heart. I
need to see others with less material goods as valuable human beings who have
something to offer me. If I only come to share my resources
as a “benevolent” gesture to “those people” so I can feel good about myself,
then I miss a greater blessing. I need to come with humility and see how
needy my own heart is. These people encouraged me and made me feel
valued. They reminded me that an abundance of material goods does not bring
happiness. There is an inexpressible joy and warmth when a little girl
sings a song to you that she learned in school. It puts a new perspective
on love—something my hurried world needs much more of!
