• The Retreat Centre
  After the opening of the hospital and the auditorium Father Simaan and his co-workers put up a building on the narrow plateau facing the cavern. Here he could meet regularly with his ministry team to pray and plan. Despite the growth in their work, they were also willing to hire out the new building to other ministries and churches. They called it the St Simaan the Tanner Retreat Centre. On the top floor a fourth church was consecrated, named after the Angel and St John.
  The team who met at the retreat centre included lay workers who had graduated from the discipleship groups. Despite the difficulties of regular commitment to these, by sheer persistence, prayer and practical organization, many lay-workers began to emerge from them. They were not all equally qualified, but Father Simaan could find a use for most of them.
  Those who joined discipleship groups had to be willing to attend the meetings, and be ready to serve Christ. There were three different phases. To succeed in the first level a person needed to give evidence that his spiritual life was firmly based. If he wasn't able to go on to the second level, he could still start to serve by taking a ministry appropriate to the first level. Some got to the second level, others to the third. Those lay-workers who completed the final level became mukariseen (consecrated workers).
• The Service Cycle
  A few of the 'consecrated workers' who had been In the discipleship groups from the very beginning could call on up to fifteen years of part-time training. They could join forces in their ministry With Onsi Labib, a committed layman who worked out a strategy for outreach. Their aim is nothing less than the 'revival and flourishing' of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt.
  With this aim, Onsi Labib has built up a network to reach other Coptic churches beyond the confines of the Muqattam Mountain region. The 'consecrated workers' all worship in their own local church and join in its ministry. Once is careful to build up good co-operative relations with the 'responsible authorities' in those churches. The methods the mukariseen use to expand their ministry are self-renewing. Onsi describes them in terms of a 'Service Cycle'.
  First, there is 'soul winning for Christ' (2 Corinthians 5.19, 20); this involves 'personal work for winning the souls for Christ, whether inside or outside our congregations'. Second, there is 'stead fasting in Christ' (Acts 14.20-2). This involves following up those who have put their trust in Christ and to encourage and strengthen them. The aim is that they grow in their relationship with Christ, through weekly Bible Study groups that meet m churches or homes. Third, the mukariseen share in training members of these groups to practice different kinds of service. These include personal work, home visits, preaching and guiding: Bible Study groups. This stage Onsi calls 'growth in Christ', and he models it on 2 Peter 3.18 and Colossians 1.28-9. Fourthly (and this is the key to the continuation of the cycle) they must be 'preparing' lay-workers (Matthew 9.37-8).
  The fruits of sending out these workers into the harvest field will include more soul winning, and a repetition of the cycle. Out of these lay-workers, leaders will arise - and this is the fifth and final stage, 'preparing leaders'. This follows the principle Paul gives to his 'dear son' in Christ, Timothy: 'the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others' (2 Timothy 2.2 NIV).
  A similar cycle occurs not only in discipleship groups but also in caring for Christian families. The 'consecrated workers' aim to help families to 'lead a really effective Christian life and prepare them to serve other families in turn'. By strengthening relationships both within and between families the church community is built up. The process starts by laying a secure foundation at the beginning. Only well trained members of the discipleship groups are entrusted with the delicate and sensitive task of nurturing the children in the Sunday schools. (Despite their name, these are usually held in Cairo on Fridays when the children have the day off from the government schools.)
  Conferences are held for the members of all groups and all activities in the Service Cycle. When their outreach reaches a certain critical point, evangelistic conferences are held to which all active group members (no matter what level they are at) can invite their friends. The souls won to Christ in this way can in their turn go on to be made steadfast, to grow and be trained. However many stages they complete, the seeds are sown for another harvest.
• New Halls and Churches
  With the foundations for growth laid in this way, more and more people visited Muqattam for conferences, training sessions or for service. So there was wider scope to open more centers of worship and instruction. By 1997 a fifth church was added to the retreat centre. It was named after Anba Abraam (whose original name was Ibn Zara), who was the patriarch in whose time the mountain moved.
  The five churches on the retreat site now include three halls. The retreat house can take about two hundred people and there is a special centre for the lay-workers there. There are also all the ingredients of a children's zoo or pets corner, with monkeys and doves and peacocks and parrots! A garden of remembrance was laid out~ in memory of Christ's passion at Gethsemane. A pony-tailed Polish sculptor called Mario goes all over the Site using power tools to carve reliefs out of the rock. These help people to meditate on different scenes of Christ's life.
  With the spiritual uplift that the retreat centre inspires there are also vocational training units for young people: offering carpentry, Ironmongery, wall or floor tiling and courses for budding electricians. For Father Simaan the basis of the work - whether 'spiritual' or 'vocational' - is the Holy Spirit. In his view it is ~he Holy Spirit who brings into being the very prayer meetings that uphold the work in all its forms. Of these there are at least four in a week on Mondays and Wednesdays, on Thursdays after the open- meeting, and on Fridays. This is where souls are prayed into the Kingdom. Without prayer none of them would come in.
  The numbers attending today bear no comparison to what they were at the beginning. In the beginning, not One-quarter or one-fifth of these numbers came. Every month every week, there is growth, because the Lord is working. This retreat centre is now visited by not less than 10-12,000 people every week. A very great number attend the meeting every Thursday, in the open-air amphitheatre Cut out of the rock.
  The Thursday meeting began originally in the church below the mountain, and then, when the church filled up, in the courtyard. After the courtyard they used the halls in the church. After the church halls filled up, they moved into) the first conference hall, 2,000 meters square. After two or three weeks, even that began to fill up! After two or three months they needed a larger place, until they got the large auditorium (10,000 square meters) that by 1997 was three-quarters full That will fill up too.
  The retreat centre is itself seen as a miracle. As one Christian journalist commented in the magazine Places in Egypt, 'If you wanted to see the miracle of moving the mountain, come and see this miracle going on here and now.'
  Father Simaan's vision for the future is that many souls will come back to Christ - since the Lord said 'I have many people in this city' (Acts 18.10). There are three or four communion services every week. Copts are given circular loaves for communion; these are broken up - hence they can't avoid leaving crumbs. When Father Simaan saw just how many crumbs the worshippers were leaving behind them, he confessed that God was fulfilling his promises to the letter in terms of the numbers attending.
  He predicts that the day will come when every hall and church will have a video or a big screen working. Then the number of people who can benefit will multiply ten times over. God has provided a place that is unique not only in Egypt, but in any part of the world. In it are halls and churches, and with a television network they could reach everyone and everyone will hear - and God will work.
• High Days and Holidays
  People come to use the churches on site during? Fast days especially, and the big auditorium they worship in every Sunday. Many congregations from outside the area arrange outings and come and use the retreat centre churches for holding meetings and Holy Communion. In a typical holiday period there are four conferences every day with communion services in the churches. So the people take the opportunity of a retreat to sit with Christ on the mountain: 'I look to the hills! Where will I find help? It will come from the LORD who created the heavens and the earth' (Psalms 121.1-2). The Lord Jesus himself used to take his disciples up a mountain and people follow this example by taking time apart on the Muqattam Mountain for a spiritually refreshing retreat.
  In the last two weeks of the half-term holidays in 1997 and the festival that rounds off the Muslim month of fasting' Ramadan, almost 120,000 people visited the retreat centre. There were many signs of God's Spirit at work - some people were moved to tears. What they sensed most strongly when they came to the mountain was that the Spirit of God was present, and working in them. People frequently came up to Father Simaan and asked, 'How can we make a start with Jesus?' or 'How can we know Christ?'
• Nurture and Outreach
  Although larger numbers come at holiday-time, people are always turning up even on working days. During the week they can attend meetings, conferences and services. On Sundays there is a morning communion service attended by 1,000 people - sometimes many more. Some 4,000 come on Wednesdays to see a spiritual film. On Thursdays a special communion service is held with prayers for the open meeting in the evening. An average of around 7,000 people attended the open meeting in 1997.
  Each week there are also group training sessions for lay workers. All the groups link up with a priest. Father Abraam, for example, has five or six groups. Fathers Boula and Butros follow the same system, each having groups specially assigned to them for ministry training. This, at any rate, is the theory: in practice there are many demands on the priests' time, with many visitors coming to their offices to ask for their services. So they have to struggle to keep enough time for training.
  There is also plenty of opportunity for outreach to the poor in the districts around Muqattam. In 1992 people all over Cairo had lost their homes in an earthquake that many dilapidated buildings in the poorer districts could not withstand. Some buildings that seemed to survive the first shock later fell down in after-tremors that went on for days afterwards. International aid came into Egypt to help the destitute, and the government chose Muqattam as an area for resettlement. As their housing went up and the newcomers moved in, teams from the retreat centre visited them. They helped meet both material and spiritual needs. Man y of the new arrivals, who had no personal commitment to Christ of any kind, began to come to the open meeting on Thursday evenings. Then they also went to the communion service on Sunday. People who had previously lost touch with God now became committed Christians. Some went deep in their study of the Bible and built up their own effective ministries.
• Health and Refreshment
  The distinctive needs of the district began to shape the approach of the Patmos Hospital ministry. Taking the Good Samaritan as a role model, Dr Samweel's team sought to meet the needs of the zeballeen as they found them. They soon discovered that there were distinctive needs that needed special attention. The first was traumatology: people transporting rubbish are often involved in accidents and collisions. The second group of problems could be called summer diseases, which cause diarrhea and dangerous levels of dehydration in children.
  A third problem that proved to be typical of the area was tuberculosis. This disease spread all over the district between 1994 and 1997 it was known. They have spread worldwide, but in Muqattam the pre-conditions for it Were not only rife, but also exacerbated by air pollution.
  This problem stems from what Dr Samweel calls 'the real rubbish'. After you have taken out the plastic, the cardboard and the food, and everything else that is useful, the final, irreducible rubbish that cannot be recycled is still there. The zeballeen used to burn it and that caused the air pollution. If they don't burn it, there are huge quantities of 'real rubbish' lying around. If you put it in a big hole in the desert, for example, natural gas would come out of it causing spontaneous explosions. The zeballeen try as much as possible to remove what they cannot recycle. This is often industrial waste. There are vehicles that takes it away, but a small minority still prefers to burn it and this is very detrimental to the people.
  Not only is the air pollution very bad, but also the living standard of the people is dropping again. Even if there were no air pollution, poverty and malnourishment would still create the pre-conditions for tuberculosis. Even people living in good accommodation grow weak if they can't afford to feed themselves properly.
  Currently the living standard of the people is dropping because all their money is going on vehicles. Back in 1990 the Cairo governorate proposed a programme to mechanize the collection and transport of household waste. Lorries and pick-up trucks began to replace carts pulled by animals. For poorer people just making ends meet, this extra expense can tip the balance. They become significantly more susceptible to the illnesses which Dr Samweel finds in the area. This is not universal, but it is a recurring pattern.
  For the first few years of its work the Patmos Hospital was just providing treatment, but from about 1996 they have been giving food as well. Day after day malnourished people are given milk, eggs, chicken and other meat. This has brought much better results, since usually it's not just the patient who needs treatment but the whole family. They all suffer from malnourishment and illnesses linked to it.
  The hospital's change of emphasis towards dealing with chronic and long-term conditions has also involved it in work with the handicapped and with old people. The opening of an old people's centre in turn led to the inauguration of a programme of summer camps. This was widened to include all age groups. Every fortnight over a period of four months at least 500 campers go on summer conferences - a total of 8,000 people per year.
  At first they used a place belonging to the Coptic Daughters of Mary, which is at Abu Sultan, near Fayid. This is in the Bitter Lakes region in the southern sector of the Suez Canal. But with increasing numbers coming on summer camps the church began to pray and plan for its own plot of land, near the Mediterranean coast west of Alexandria.
  The site is 150 meters from the sea, at a place called Abu Talaat (near Al-Agamy).
  The planned site can take about three hundred people.
  To give some idea of the scale of the need, we need only to take one example. A team of volunteers from more salubrious suburbs of Cairo organizes an annual school camp that runs for about twelve days. About four hundred children aged between four and fourteen take part. This is on top of their monthly outing, which might be to the pyramids or the zoo. It is a spiritual ministry, not just a trip. The volunteer team teaches the children songs and stories about Jesus and show Christian films.
  To understand the effect of this work we have only to think of Azaz, the twelve-year-old who lost his family in the landslide. He is growing up fairly normally, but there are times when very deep sadness within comes out in various forms of anti-social behavior. When this happens, one of his uncles or the leader of his youth group takes him under his wing. He gets extra attention and, when necessary, discipline. In this way, the close-knit zeballeen community acts as a wider family for him. But sometimes he just needs to get away. For three summers in a row, from 1994 to 1996, he has gone with the school children on the summer camp. Each year, his friends on the team have found him more at peace with himself. They are praying that he will soon know Jesus, who can heal his inner wounds 'in a way that the world's greatest psychologist could never do'.1
• Stewardship and Service
  It's hard to imagine what it means to people who put up with the appalling stench of rubbish day in and day out, to be able to go to the sea. In fact, the church members felt strongly about it that they committed themselves to buying the land, although they had to give sacrificially to do so. By the end of 1997 they had built about forty-two units on it, each taking four to seven people. This work costs around 300,000 Egyptian pounds, or £54,500 sterling. It is known as the Abu Sultan project. The church pays the money off in installments and trusts the Lord to provide.
  In general in its stewardship the church has had to learn how to handle large amounts of money in a responsible way. At one point an attempt was made by a relative of a member of the ministry team to siphon off money given to the church into his own private business. To learn to deal with this kind of problem is a painful but necessary part of the process of growing as a church - especially in an environment where so many people are very needy.
  The Abu Sultan project is a good example of the benefits that a sacrificial investment can bring. The complete change of environment that the seaside centre offers helps the zeballeen and their families to become open to a programme with a spiritual aim. Many people who are far from God and don't know him, change when they go to the sea for four days. They leave behind the things that they resort to for consolation at the rubbish tip - such as beer and spirits - and start a relationship with the Lord.
  What then? If someone comes to Father Simaan and asks to serve the Lord, he first checks to see if they have really made a beginning in the Christian life. He comes across many people who want to serve, without first beginning with Christ. Father Simaan feels that if they are missing this then they cannot give of themselves. Without Christ, they can't speak about Christ. They must begin with him and live with him.
  Those who want to serve others and are sure of belonging to Christ need to soak themselves in the Scriptures. After starting to put their teaching into practice the new believer can pray through the issues that come up, with a spiritual counselor. In this way, Father Simaan and his team seek to guide the believer into the kind of service that is right for him or her.
  He sees a great variety of opportunities for service. Intercessory prayer, personal work, preaching or evangelism - any of these can open up when the Holy Spirit is in control. Each type of service needs a certain gift. Some kinds of service require higher gifts - the Holy Spirit reveals what these are in response to the servant's commitment. Jesus promises that 'the Holy Spirit… will teach you everything and will remind you of what I said while I was with you' (John 14.26; cf. Luke 12.12).
  The crucial thing for Father Simaan is that, as you read the Word of the Lord and pray, the Holy Spirit comes and fills you. After that, the Holy Spirit will use you greatly. 'Don't depend on your own power or strength, but on my Spirit' (Zechariah 4.6). 'Ministry in the flesh is of no benefit,' avers Father Simaan, 'but the most important element in ministry which makes it succeed, is the Holy Spirit which is in you and me.'
• NOTES:
1. Comment made by team member.

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