MuskNews: Please pray for us! June 2011 1 Recent lowlights/highlights in our region : tourism in Tunisia has not really picked up and is unlikely to until the end of this year at the earliest. We have recently had ten more days of night-time curfew in the capital after demonstrations, riots and many arrests. Armed Tunisian Islamists have been discovered and killed as they sought to travel to Tunis from a regional town with bombs and weapons. Transition from dictatorship to democracy is proving a long and difficult journey. : a serious clampdown on the freedom of Kabyle (especially) believers to meet and worship appears to have been instigated by the Algerian government in recent days. : the situation in Libya has decelerated into a warfare scenario in which many parties are involved or have a vested interest. : Hilary managed to get home to see our family (apart from Nicola and Simon who were Antipodean at that point) whilst I attended Diocesan Synod in Cairo. : the latter was very stimulating, but quite exhausting. We said farewell to Bishop Andrew former Area Bishop for the Horn of Africa and now Bishop of Reading and his wife Janice. We heard lots of reports from churches and institutions, especially in Egypt, plus we worshipped and prayed together. Bishop Mouneer has asked me to make one visit to Ethiopia before the end of this year in order to help him give some oversight to that area of the diocese in the absence of an Area Bishop there. Please pray for the right person to succeed Bishop Andrew. It was lovely to meet various representatives of the many churches in the Gambela region of Ethiopia who managed to get to Diocesan Synod. 2 St George s, Tunis : the Lord gave us a brilliantly sunny but cool (and windy!) Easter Day as we celebrated with all three congregations meeting outside in the church grounds for a service, followed by a potluck lunch. It was a wonderful time with songs and readings and liturgy in English and Arabic, plus French and some African languages. Over two hundred of us shared holy communion together as we rejoiced in the risen Christ! : since the troubles in North Africa at the beginning of the year, and their impact on both Tunisia and Egypt, I have been praying about how we at St George s are supposed to be responding. I shared a vision paper with our new Church Council and then with the church as a whole in a Vision Day at the end of May. We need to know how we are supposed to be strategising in these months/years of transition 1
here in Tunis. Our membership and finances are less robust than when Hilary and I first arrived, with people leaving Tunis and not so many (perhaps) replacing them. : there are many encouragements, however. If necessary, Rev Ayo (deaconed in February) can return here to work under me for the rest of his diaconal period, prior to his being ordained priest. I had been hoping to send him to work as part of the ordained ministry team in Tripoli, under the leadership of Rev Vasihar. At the end of June I will ordain, on Bishop Mouneer s behalf, Justin, a mature North American brother who has been churchwarden for several years and an intern here. (He is the brother who suffered the sudden stroke at the end of 2010). A young Egyptian couple are due to visit us for a month from mid-june to see whether the Lord is calling them to come and work in support of Rev Emil from the summer of 2012. There are potential priests in the pipeline for Algiers, even, though that pipeline is at the moment at least a year long! : Hilary and I are due to visit UK briefly at the beginning of June in order for me to speak at the AGM of the Egypt Diocesan Association. If anyone reading this is in Blackfriars on Wednesday 8 th June (Christchurch, Blackfriars Road, SE1 8NY) between 11.00am and 4.00pm, you are very welcome to attend. We then go on to take part in the annual I.C.S. chaplains conference in Switzerland! I have a paper to deliver and a seminar to steer, plus a communion service to preside at, but we look forward to some days of refreshment up in the mountains. 3 North Africa Episcopal Area : did Bishop Mouneer know something when he appointed me Area Bishop for North Africa?! Since the beginning of 2011, it has felt as if I have been presiding over an area that has become increasingly destabilised and delicate. One of our priests (and his wife) from Tripoli, Libya is remaining in India to wait things out; another has returned to Canada probably permanently as he was about to retire this summer. We are having a difficult time trying to obtain visas for Algeria so that I can visit and so that a locum priest can stay there for a while. Even Tunisia lurches a bit from conspiracy theory to rumour to uncomfortable reality on a daily basis. Recently, the smell and taste of tear gas, carried to our garden on the wind from the main boulevard in Tunis, contrasted strongly with the beautiful scent and colour greeting us in our converted patio space just outside our ground-floor flat. Young Ayo, the Nigerian intern whom I ordained on Bishop Mouneer s behalf in February, has left to travel to Italy where he is marrying Rosemary and then waiting (again!) as he is due to move to Tripoli, Libya to serve there under Rev Vasihar. Perhaps he will need to come back here? Perhaps Rev Vasihar and his wife will need to go to Egypt 2
for a while instead of returning to Tripoli after the summer? As you can see, many questions and not a lot of clarity. 4 Personal touch! : Dear friends and family. Again, many thanks for your prayers and good wishes! : Tunisia: mostly life is calm and peaceful, but there are little blips here and there. Just recently a government minister was sacked and told some disturbing facts about clandestine plans of the interim government. This caused unrest and demands for more transparency, integrity and resignations. A close Tunisian Christian friend said she feels that the people are walking around feeling very despondent and disillusioned, heavy of heart. They are looking for freedom but don t realize that true freedom is only found in Jesus. Let s pray that God makes His presence and true freedom of spirit known in these lands at this vulnerable time. Please pray for the Tunisian church to be seen to be truly Tunisian and not a copy of something from the West, which is what other Tunisians automatically imagine it to be. This same friend said she would have given up in her faith if there had not been some older (!) more mature Christians here to be gracious and loving as she made her mistakes! Maybe this is our ministry, as it has been in the past, picking up the pieces! : The border: the situation at the Tunisian/Libyan border is tricky, with refugees including many British Libyans fleeing daily. We are praying for the police and army to have wisdom and eyes to see those who are seeking to enter the country with evil motives. Some Somali families and others are stuck down there for the foreseeable future as their own country is just as dangerous. Please pray for those who seek to work amongst them, blessing these needy people. Church members have donated books and we are helping to facilitate the sending of Bibles to the Christians in the various camps. Apparently the heat and the boredom are the worst problems. : The young teen group, Voices in the Desert, helped run the service on May 15th with a look at the parable of the sheep and the goats and the question, How can I be sure I am a sheep? For once we cut down on the humour as the subject was so serious! In our drama of the parable, Jesus was dressed in white and the needy in black, so that at the end when He said, When you did it to one of these the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me He took off his white robe and was dressed in black just like the needy people; it was a visual reminder of the power of the parable. We have had positive feedback from church members and from parents who said how much it had meant to their children to take part. One young teenager had written a very moving appeal to people to choose to be sheep rather than goats. The Lord is putting together a good team to work with these young people. Martin, one of the leaders, prepared some brilliant powerpoint images to go with songs and the conversation the teens read about Jesus frustration with the religious leaders who were all foliage and no 3
: fruit. We pray that they, and we, will be sheep who are doing what Jesus would do and who are following Him closely, or to use the other analogy, stuck to the vine, bearing fruit! During the preparations for the service my computer completely broke down and then after Martin had fixed it for me, his crashed even more dramatically! It was a miracle that there was anything in writing or any images at all! After the service we all took off to a huge local park on a big hill and had a picnic and a wide game! A brilliant way to run off our beans! (my job was to sit and sign pieces of paper, but that was fine! Vicarious running off of beans!) 5 Prayers please for : folk in Tunis on staff at St George s Bill, Kwame, Emil, Khaled, Souad and Mohsen. Ayo and Rosemary, as they get married in Italy in June. : Rev Hamdy (in Tripoli), Rev Gus and his wife Marliese (in Canada), Rev Vasihar and his wife Malini (in India), plus various scattered lay leaders and former members of the congregation at Christ the King, Tripoli. : the various African students making up the Church Council in Algiers. Visas for those needing to visit and help minister there. : the ordination and licensing, in June, of Justin, here in Tunis. : pastoral ministry amongst different groups of people at St George s. : protection and growth of national believers in North Africa; especially the congregation led at St George s by Rev Emil. The visit by Ehab and Nevien to see whether the Lord is calling them to join us to work alongside Rev Emil in the coming years. : the impact of the work of members of the Africa Development Bank throughout the continent of Africa; pastoral care of such folk. : pastoral care of the many folk who are here with companies and who attend St George s. : the general situation in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, the Arab Gulf, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan where not?!? and in the current shaking of several of those nations, for God s Spirit to be unleashed in a wonderful way. A few pictures follow. Many blessings to you all and lots of love. Bill & Hilary Bill & Hilary Musk are mission partners with I.C.S. (Intercontinental Church Society: registered charity no. 1072584). If you would like to contribute financially to their support, please go to www.ics-uk.org and follow the link to Make a donation, then select Tunis St George s Musk from the drop-down list. Thank you. 6 Contact details 4
Bill & Hilary Musk St George s Church 5 rue Ahmed Beyrem 1006 Bab Souika Tunis, Tunisia Phone in our flat: +216 71 335493 Mobile (Bill): +216 23447439 Mobile (Hilary) +216 23446739 Email: billamusk@gmail.com hilaryamusk@gmail.com Please be circumspect in what you write or speak to us. Thank you! Easter Day service, St George s, Tunis Easter Day: sound crew Easter Day: youth band + oldies! 5
Diocesan Synod: committing Bishop Andrew to the Lord for his role as Bishop of Reading Chatting with Rev Farag, Priest in charge of the Deaf Church, Old Cairo There was a lot of praying at Diocesan Synod this year! 6