By Maha Boulos, CBF field personnel

During our time in Egypt, we were able to visit six villages in the suburbs of Assyout. This is my second visit to the area and I’m always impressed by the response of people and their reactions to the message of the Lord. 

We started this trip on Monday and visited the first village. We would usually leave at 2 or 3 p.m. and drive about 40 minutes to one of the villages. Once in the village, we shared a message from the Bible and prayed for people. The response from people has always been great while the need was even greater.  

 The first day saw the biggest crowd. We brought 60 food packages to distribute to the women who were attending. When we arrived, we were met by a huge number of women and children. The children gathered in one room and sang the Sunday School songs. The pastor shared a story from the Bible with them and we gave them lollipops as they were leaving.  

 The women had already sat in three different rooms because the meeting room wasn’t big enough. We sang some and I spoke to the women in one room in the hopes that my voice would reach the other rooms. That worked for half the sermon and then I had to ask them to listen. It was a chaotic ending to a great time. 

 While the women were singing, I snuck out to the front room to check on the food packages to make sure that we had enough for all the women. We counted the crowd and there was around 110 women, so we decided to cut the food packages in half to give a little gift to women, especially with Mother’s Day close. 

Joseph, the son of the man who opened his home to us along with his aunt, took the responsibility to divide the packages to make 120 instead of 60. As the meeting ended, I gave a food package to each of the women.  

 After the meeting, we sat down to drink some tea. Now it was time for widows.  
Our ministry helps what I thought was 11 widows, but I discovered that the need was great and we were dividing the money on more than 11. What one widow was supposed to get for two  months, got also divided by two or three to accommodate more widows. We also assisted other people who had medical problems. 

We left the area feeling blessed by the love of people and praying for those who are suffering from so many issues. Their perseverance and attachment to the Lord is amazing.