EGYPT – Missing girl found in Muslim home
Read the following. What would you do in this position? How would you feel?
Following a three-month search, an Egyptian Christian has discovered his missing sister living with a Muslim family near her hometown and professing faith in Islam.
Spurred by a brief telephone message from Theresa Ghattass Kamal that she was being held against her will and forced to convert to Islam, Sa'eed Ghattass Kamal last week tracked his sister's suspected captors to the Bedouin desert area of El-Ga'ar, near his home in Wadi El-Natroun, 50 miles north-west of Cairo.
Mo'atazz Mohammad Sa'eed at first refused to let Sa'eed see his sister when the Christian arrived at his home on 23 March. He later relented after Sa'eed insisted he just wanted to make sure his sister was safe.
With only her eyes showing through her veil and flanked by Sa'eed, his two brothers and his father, Theresa Kamal sat with her brother for 90 minutes but spoke only once, Sa'eed said.
"I have converted to Islam. I have found the right path," she reportedly told her brother in a trembling voice.
But according to Sa'eed and his lawyer, Athanasius William, the Christian woman's conversion still has not been registered at Cairo's Al-Azhar Islamic Centre.
Egyptian law requires that all conversions be registered at Al-Azhar and then validated with the security police, the State Security Investigation (SSI).
Mr William said Theresa, aged 19 years, had not fulfilled the legal prerequisite of meeting with a Coptic priest at least once before converting to Islam:
"If she really chose to convert to Islam, why did she not participate in the required counselling session?" the lawyer asked.
The attorney said that if Theresa's kidnappers attempted to register her conversion, he would contest the move on legal grounds. But in the meantime he said the 'collusion of the security authorities' was making it impossible to even verify whether the Christian woman dropped out of school at Cairo's Secretarial Academy of her own free will in order to live with the Sa'eed family.
Things like this really shock me; I know that there is persecution in the world but it still hits me hard when I read such a personal account.
“What must they have done to her?”
“What would I do; would I have cracked?”
“How are the family coping?”
These thoughts constantly parade themselves through the forefront of my mind. This only makes me feel worse about myself. We have all this freedom, all this influence in society; but what do we do with it? Do we proclaim Christ from the rafters or cower behind the nearest shelter? What must we do?
Please pray for Theresa Ghattass Kamal. Pray that the Lord would uplift her.
Yours in Christ
Daniel
Following a three-month search, an Egyptian Christian has discovered his missing sister living with a Muslim family near her hometown and professing faith in Islam.
Spurred by a brief telephone message from Theresa Ghattass Kamal that she was being held against her will and forced to convert to Islam, Sa'eed Ghattass Kamal last week tracked his sister's suspected captors to the Bedouin desert area of El-Ga'ar, near his home in Wadi El-Natroun, 50 miles north-west of Cairo.
Mo'atazz Mohammad Sa'eed at first refused to let Sa'eed see his sister when the Christian arrived at his home on 23 March. He later relented after Sa'eed insisted he just wanted to make sure his sister was safe.
With only her eyes showing through her veil and flanked by Sa'eed, his two brothers and his father, Theresa Kamal sat with her brother for 90 minutes but spoke only once, Sa'eed said.
"I have converted to Islam. I have found the right path," she reportedly told her brother in a trembling voice.
But according to Sa'eed and his lawyer, Athanasius William, the Christian woman's conversion still has not been registered at Cairo's Al-Azhar Islamic Centre.
Egyptian law requires that all conversions be registered at Al-Azhar and then validated with the security police, the State Security Investigation (SSI).
Mr William said Theresa, aged 19 years, had not fulfilled the legal prerequisite of meeting with a Coptic priest at least once before converting to Islam:
"If she really chose to convert to Islam, why did she not participate in the required counselling session?" the lawyer asked.
The attorney said that if Theresa's kidnappers attempted to register her conversion, he would contest the move on legal grounds. But in the meantime he said the 'collusion of the security authorities' was making it impossible to even verify whether the Christian woman dropped out of school at Cairo's Secretarial Academy of her own free will in order to live with the Sa'eed family.
Things like this really shock me; I know that there is persecution in the world but it still hits me hard when I read such a personal account.
“What must they have done to her?”
“What would I do; would I have cracked?”
“How are the family coping?”
These thoughts constantly parade themselves through the forefront of my mind. This only makes me feel worse about myself. We have all this freedom, all this influence in society; but what do we do with it? Do we proclaim Christ from the rafters or cower behind the nearest shelter? What must we do?
Please pray for Theresa Ghattass Kamal. Pray that the Lord would uplift her.
Yours in Christ
Daniel
posted by Daniel at 9:40 PM
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