We were ELCA missionaries serving in Egypt in 2011 when the Egyptian revolution erupted. Our apartment was situated along Ramsis Street leading directly to Tahrir Square. We watched, fascinated, as thousands of Egyptians marched by, singing and chanting, towards the square. And we listened, just as fascinated, a few days later as tanks and armored vehicles thrupppped up the same street. For North Dakotans, rather more used to tractors and combines than tanks, this was high drama.
It was not long before word came from our church back home: You’re going to be evacuated. More easily said than done! For us it meant sleeping on airport floors, driving dark streets under armed curfew, negotiating dozens of roadblocks, and finally boarding an airplane for an unknown destination. We landed in Istanbul at sundown with no Turkish money, no visa, and no lodging.
Before morning we were rousted out of hard-won beds for a red-eye to Amsterdam, and then on to Minneapolis and safety and rest.
What bothered me were the folks we left behind. We were safe, but what about our Egyptian colleagues and friends at the seminary? Those committed, capable, Egyptian professors and students had to face the fire on the ground. I later learned that even Dr. Atef, our distinguished seminary president, took his turn manning the roadblock at the seminary gate.
When I was a child, I remember feeling in danger. I heard my heart beating and wondered what it would be like if suddenly it didn’t. I remember hearing about heaven and hell and wondering how one could be sure that one would go to heaven. Maybe that’s what made the Gospel such good news to me: the prospect of eternal loss making precious the news of Jesus’ death on a cross to save me (Mk 10:45); the thought of eternal death overcome by the fact of new life through the water and the promises of baptism (John 3:5-8, Titus 3:5, etc.); the aching sense of distance from God blotted out by the taste of the Lord’s Supper in my own mouth (Mt 26:26-29). Many of you have experienced this same goodness and rescue through the Gospel.
Those of you who have will ask the same question I asked in Minneapolis: What about those left behind? What about those who haven’t experienced God’s love, yet? What about those who haven’t heard? What about those who think this is all there is? What about those wounded by emotional bruises? What about those who feel isolated and alone? What about those who are hungry or homeless, abused or afraid? Can we arrange our lives to offer some time to them? Can we organize our finances so that we may share some relief with them? Can we position our friendships to share some Good News with them? Secure in Christ, I say, we find we must think about our neighbor.
Mark Nygard serves as pastor at the Dakota Prairie Luthern Parish in southwest North Dakota.
