The frantic last preparations had concluded the night before with a mad dash around a local supermarket buying food drink (including various blends of tea) and the largest amount of paper cups and plates you have ever seen in one shopping trolley. After a good nights rest.... something very strange happened.... it was actually a calm and relaxing taxi ride to the centre of Cairo. No traffic, no stress, no problems. Travel to a conference for 9am on a Friday morning is made relatively easy as most people do not work on a Friday...or at least not until after noon prayers. But nonetheless the taxi drive was particularly smooth. The taxi driver knew where he was going, did not spend the whole time smoking in our faces and had a good sense of humor and an infectious laughter, and he gave us a good price....a calm and pleasant morning indeed.

However, one thing you can be assured of in Cairo is if things seem calm and serene for two long then there must be some kind of problem. So when the conference was due to start at 10 and by 10.30 there were only 4 people with close to 100 expected then the sweet serenity of silence actually became quite unwelcome (I never thought I would say that in Cairo). Thankfully more and more people arrived as we got going and by Lunchtime we had over 70 people from different churches, denominations and locations. We had pastors, church members, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers and children. This might not sound like your average day conference and it wasn’t. Running such an event in Egypt does have it’s unique challenges but that’s okay. How awesome it is to have so many people gathered together for the glory of God. When people receive guidance and encouragement through good teaching and useful materials which can help to further develop their ministry and can bless those in their community through this, we have to praise God.

Please Pray:

Praise God for such a wonderful day

Pray that those that attended will be able to use the material they learnt about to have a positive effect on their ministries

Pray for such further conferences, planning, organizing, communicating etc

Ask God for   renewed guidance and strength  for his workers in this country

Thank you