Father Simaan is now the grey-bearded, plain-spoken leader of a powerful team ministry of preaching, healing and exorcism. It is hard to get an interview with him (and even to get material for a book such as this), not because he is standoffish - far from it - but because, as he puts it, 'God is doing so much'. There is hardly time for him to finish describing something God has already done before we are interrupted by a fresh need about which God wants to do something.
A mobile phone rings as I am asking about Sara (the woman described in the previous chapter) who came from London with heart disease. Father Simaan disappears into his outer office, where there is a non-Christian in need of exorcism. She has an evil spirit which has cut her off from relations with her husband and periodically throws her to the ground in a dead faint, which can last for several hours. She is standing with one leg sticking out in an involuntary pose.
Father Simaan rebukes the spirit in a loud voice, stamps his feet, strikes her with two fingers of his hand and calls for water. This he flicks sharply into her face and prays for her in the name of Christ and in the name of the cross. She is immediately released from the evil spirit in front of her friends. She asks how she can stop the spirit coming back, and Father Simaan tells her to pray always in the name of Christ and in the name of the cross. Within a few minutes, the encounter is over and the lady leaves.
All this is done in the most natural, matter-of-fact way as if it were an everyday occurrence. Father Simaan returns to his desk and we go back to the question about Sara's healing.
Father Simaan refers me to Dr Samweel, who tells me that Sara's condition was 'familial' - just like her brother, she had inherited it. Since she chose not to have a transplant, the disease would probably have been terminal. Yet her heart was changed (in more ways than one) following Father Simaan's prayer.

• Continuity and Change
  There is nothing contrived about the contemporary Father Simaan, any more than there was when he was simply known as Brother Farahat. He still has the same 'silent' prayer-partner who supported him in his work at the very beginning of his ministry. He still goes to the patriarchate to print Al-Kiraza magazine, just as he did as a young man. But there have also been many changes since that time. He can contact his prayer-partner at any moment by mobile phone. When he enters the patriarchate he must now put on the black bulbous hat befitting his rank as Qamos in the Coptic Church. But to Father Simaan, these changes matter not a jot. He is still essentially a priest in his parish.
  It is not as if God were demanding more from him than from others. Perhaps, he reasons, his call is fulfilled and God is preparing those who will carry on. In the old days, particularly in Egypt, the vision was that the work was all down to one person. When that individual's contribution came to an end, so did the entire ministry. This, Father Simaan feels strongly, is no way to work. If a. key person - such as his spiritual guide, Father Zakariya Burros - were to leave or die, then that is not the end.
  Father Simaan is only too well aware that he could very well pass away at any time, should this be God's will. To remind himself of this he keeps an empty coffin propped up against the wall by his desk! There is a coffin in his office at the church below the mountain and one at the retreat centre. They act as a stark reminder to the visitor that now is the time to reckon with God. The sight reminds those who rely on Father Simaan to keep the ministry going, that they have to depend on Jesus. If Father Simaan dies, will the work stop? 'Of course not!' is his devout hope.
  The church is doing everything it can to ensure that there will be many generations that follow on. Young people educated at the church school have been trained to be leaders in the church and are now the main deacons, Sunday school teachers and youth leaders. This is truly an indigenous church.
  Father Simaan recalls that the omni competent priests of old used to wander all over Egypt, but God said to Father Simaan, 'Don't move away from this place. This is your calling and your ministry. Here.' So Father Simaan doesn't go anywhere else in Egypt at all, because he knows that God wants him in Manshiyat Nasir.
  Yet he has no problem at all with people coming to him.
  And that is what is happening - thousands of people come - but Father Simaan is still a local priest. He takes the view that if the Holy Spirit wants someone to come, he will bring them. All those God wants to come will come. There is no need for Father Simaan to go out and pull them in - this is not his work.
  Nevertheless, if people are committed to coming regularly, then the church helps to organize transport for them. Many groups come by bus to the Thursday meetings. They are willing to come into the rubbish tips and the bad smells because God is leading them. For a long time, one zeballeen group outside Manshiyat Nasir asked Father Simaan to come to them. He didn't go at first, then finally he agreed to lead a service for them once a month. 'They want it twice a month, but that is impossible,' he says.
  If Father Simaan does travel outside Manshiyat Nasir - or outside the zeballeen areas - he does not do any preaching, because that is not his calling. Yet he would be willing to give a testimony at a conference outside Egypt, because overseas he would not be competing with anyone else's ministry. To take the opportunity to share what is happening at the mountain he sees simply as witnessing to the work of God.
  Father Simaan's vision is that those who come in to the ministry on the mountain will then go out into the world. As the zeballeen turn to Christ they will be a cause of blessing to all Egypt. They can go down into the heart of Egypt to places he cannot go - or to places no one else can visit. They go into every house, flat and street. So people get to meet the zeballeen away from their usual surroundings. They don't just see in them their background and all the associations that has. What they see in them is Christ.
• The Gold Watch
  One American came to Father Simaan and told him that he turned to Christ because of an Egyptian rubbish collector in Garden City in Cairo. He'd lost a really expensive gold watch and one day found someone knocking on his door and saying to him,
  'Haven't you lost something?'
  He thought, 'It's someone wearing a galibeyya - why is he coming to me?'
  'Yes - and I've asked everyone in every flat in the block', the American said aloud.
  'But is this what you've lost?' persisted the stranger. 'It looks like gold.' And he got it out of his pocket.
  When he saw the watch the American invited his visitor into the flat. When they were sitting down he asked, 'Tell me, why didn't you keep it yourself?'
  He replied, 'Christ taught me, give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's' (Matthew 22.21).
  'But why didn't you take it and wear it?' the American persisted.
  'It's not mine - it's not my right. I must be honest - it's
  Not my watch - Christ gave me life.'
  The American said to him, 'Are you a Christian?' 'Yes,' the man replied.
  The American then continued, 'I am an atheist, and I hated Christ. But because of you I will live for the Christ you live for.'
  And, miraculously, this atheist was transformed into a Christian who is now a khaadim (church worker). He wrote in his diary, 'I came back to Christ from atheism because of an Egyptian Christian garbage collector in Garden City, Cairo.' This rubbish collector was called Yusuf.
  These are the living signs of the practical Christian life, as Father Simaan sees them: not words but deeds. 'Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven' (Matthew 5.16). Everyone should be light from Christ and salt for the earth. Many people hear the hymns the zeballeen sing when they come in the morning to collect the rubbish. Because of the zebaal, many come to the mountain, hear the voice of God, and come back to Christ.
  Twenty-five years of ministry among the zeballeen has not changed Father Simaan's firm conviction that evangelism is not just a matter of proclaiming the word, but also of practical living. This principle applies to discipleship. He says, 'How can these believers live a life of ministry, of true discipleship to Christ in the church?' He answers his own question: 'As servants really living Christ.'
  Some say that God's work is simply kiraza (witness with proclamation). Others do development projects. But Father Simaan certainly doesn't see his ministry as simply 'humanitarian'. All the work belongs to God and its goal is God's glory. The kiraza goes on through the gifts and experience of the lay-workers. In vacation periods, great numbers of them are committed to the work of evangelism.
  The church takes in those who have made a beginning with God and lays on a meeting to build them up. They allow into that meeting, say, one hundred people. Then they make sure that each one of those one hundred has a priest to go to. This priest must give independent confirmation that his charge has really begun a spiritual life with God.
  The church then divides the new believers into groups so that ministers who are already trained take ten of the new trainees. They lead meetings on topics like 'How to begin'; 'How to abide'; 'How to be built up'. After that they move on to 'Maturity'. Several stages go to make up each level, so that in every level no one gets less than three years' training. Father Simaan feels a lay-worker needs at least that length of time to be equipped to minister to others.
  A group that starts with ten trainees can be cut down if someone does not complete one stage of the course. The church is grateful to have hundreds of young women who are serving, including some married women. The same applies to young men - so they now have around 700 or 800 people who can serve, some of whom have had fifteen years' training.
  This is first of all a call, a responsibility, and a trust.
  Father Sjmaan doesn't feel he has anything unusual to offer. The call he has is for evangelism and teaching, with the aim of saving the soul and building it up. If you asked him to change his method he couldn't, because this is the way the Lord has put his task into his hands. There are many churches that share the bread and wine at communion; they offer public prayers and sing psalms. In fact, they go through all the motions, but they don't do them expecting God to work through them.
  Just to speak words knowing that the Holy Spirit can work through them, can be a great thing, says Father Simaan. The people who wrote those words down were saints. The saints did great deeds - and they were controlled by the Holy Spirit. But we can say or pray their words out loud without expecting the Holy Spirit to be in them, so they lose their force and effect, and it just ends up as a matter of ordinary routine. Getting involved in church life is all well and good, but we need to breathe the oxygen the Church lives by - we need to breathe the Spirit.
  Father Simaan insists that the secret of his ministry is the Holy Spirit - not him. H he approaches ministry in an 'I' -centered way, and asks himself 'What shall I say to the people, and how should I speak?' then everything goes in one ear of the people and out the other! But when the Holy Spirit speaks, his words go to the heart.
  Yet Father Simaan still sees himself as an ignoramus when it comes to teaching. I asked him, 'How has your ministry among the zeballeen influenced your theology?' 'Theology?' he echoed, incredulous. 'I don't know any-thing about theology. I'm just a rubbish collector!’ He also readily admits that he makes a lot of mistakes. Sometimes he gets Bible verses wrong. But he trusts the Holy Spirit to put things right, because he is the one who is at work.
  The Holy Spirit fills the one who submits completely and uses the person who has the vision to see that it is the Holy Spirit who does the work. Father Simaan prays, 'Lord, empty me, take the blockages out of me, wash me and purify me. Give me, 0 Lord, the filling for the work of the Holy Spirit, from the Holy Spirit.' He testifies that when he places himself in God's hands and understands the goal that is set before him, then the Lord lifts him up. God frees him from obstructive thoughts and emotional barriers.
  When all the 'baggage' has been dealt with, he can make a fresh start before the Holy Spirit - set apart, emptied and ready. 'God begins to fill me. He gives me this fullness. And this fullness begins every day to be renewed and to increase.' The Holy Spirit, he points out, is present within us, not outside us. The important thing is that the Holy Spirit has his way within us.
  If the Holy Spirit is within us yet we don't see him, then we have lost sight of the goal. But 'you yourselves are God's temple and ... God's Spirit lives in you' (1 Corinthians 3.16). 'Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body' (1 Corinthians 6.19-20). If we know that the Holy Spirit is in us, but don't give him the jurisdiction to work in us, he won't work. But if we have understood that the Holy Spirit wants to work within us and we give him his freedom and power and authority, he will work. Sometimes someone turns to Christ, plunges into activity and forgets to talk with Christ and enjoy him... The Spirit is then not free to work and this person's ministry will be ordinary, like any other ministry. But those who set their hearts on being renewed by the Holy Spirit within them must take time out with the Lord. From time to time they need to go on a retreat, to be with Jesus. Then the Holy Spirit can renew them and have more of them.
  Having done this himself and experienced it, Father Simaan has a word of warning against complacency. If we imagine the day will come when we can say 'I am filled with the Holy Spirit' and that's the end of the story, that won't do. It's an ongoing thing. It's not a matter of Kul Sena wa Enta Tayyib (a greeting meaning 'every year you'll be fine'). In spiritual terms this is like saying, 'I'm all right, Jack.' Every day we must take new power, new fullness, and ask the Lord to make us overflow with the Holy Spirit. This is something that must continue throughout life.
  The fact that outstanding spiritual experiences are not an end in themselves is amply borne out by the history of ministry on the mountain. Not everyone who experiences miracles turns to Christ. There are those who repent and those who don't, just as when Christ healed the ten lepers and only one came back to him (Luke 17.12-19).
  Among the examples Father Simaan cites 'is one whom the Lord raised from the dead [see Chapter 6]. He had fallen from the mountain and his whole body was broken in pieces with a sound that was loud and clear. A doctor was there - we got him up from below - so when our Lord raised him the doctor was standing there to verify it.'
  For five and a half years the ministry team tried to help this man to follow Christ, but he never committed himself and never came to a personal knowledge of God. 'He never knew our Lord. More important than being raised from the dead is that the person repents of his sin. He can be living, but still dead.'
  What then was God doing through that miracle?
  'The Lord ... confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it' (Mark 16.20 NIV). When between fifty and seventy believers see a man plunge to his death and pray for his healing, then witness God raising him to life, that builds up their faith. For they have prayed, and after they have prayed God raises him up. 'It's not we who raise up, it is Christ who raises up' avers Father Simaan. 'Those who turn to Christ find that he is the one who works.'
  It would be hard to find a less man-centered vision of ministry. For Father Simaan, God is the God who acts.

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