New Fast-Tracked Bible Degrees

Abanoub Isaac with NBIC says the school, which follows the Anglican Diocese of Egypt, is growing. They are offering more classes and programs for Sudanese people in Egypt. One program with tremendous growth is a one-year Bible degree that offers coursework on church planting, missions, and understanding people from different backgrounds.

This streamlined Bible training is crucial for Sudanese churches which are exploding with new Christians but lack trained pastors.

(Image courtesy of Tima Miroshnichenko via Pexels)

Isaac says, “They have new believers every day. But they don’t have equipped ministries or pastors. They have to make [people] pastors in church without even reading the Bible one time. So, they don’t have any leadership skills, any biblical knowledge. So just he is good with people, knows the big message of Christ, but he can’t discipleship or make a Bible study, or anything else in the church – just worship.”

The one-year course begins with five months of studying in Egypt. This is followed by two months of practical ministry in Sudan and then a final five months back in Cairo. At the end of this intensive year, students are ready to go back to Sudan for good to lead their churches.

The program has been very successful. The first year they received 50-55 applications and the next year 90 people applied. During the first two-month practical training in Sudan, pastors were leaving their congregations in the hands of the students because they were so prepared.

However, even with the successes and growth of NBIC, they have had significant barriers to overcome.

Meeting Challenges Head-On

Isaac says one issue is that education has been poor in Sudan because of the war. Even identifying good candidates for leadership can be difficult. Many people just don’t have significant prior schooling.

Additionally, the war has continued to foster deep feelings of tribalism. The years of struggle make it difficult to get the church to come together over tribal lines.

“Actually, we faced a lot [the accusation] that we are racist against some tribes,” Isaac states. “Even we don’t know the tribes! We are not putting anything in our applications [about] which tribe you are from. But when we choose people to do something because we see that they have potential, they relate this to the tribe, not the potential of the people. So we faced a lot this accusation that we are racist [against some] tribes.”

NBIC is working to equip leaders from every tribe to combat these accusations in addition to their stated goal of training qualified leaders.

Join in Prayer

Training refugees to minister in war-torn areas is challenging work and Isaac asks for prayer. Unity among the tribes and Church at large is a major prayer request from NBIC.

“We [are] trying to give them lot of perspective. We have teachers from all over the places: Sudanese, Egyptians, some foreigners come. We give them retreats in Coptic places when they have worship nights and the Bible was read with like, six or seven different languages to make them know how important unity is.”

Please also pray for Sudanese Christians who are facing practical problems including racism, the cost of living in Egypt, and families who have been separated.

Header photo courtesy of Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.

Three-quarters of all refugees in Egypt come from Sudan, which has tripled the total refugee population in just two years. Bonita, with the Nuba Mountains Bible Institute in Cairo (NBIC), says that most of the refugees they encounter are single mothers with children.

“The husbands didn’t come with them, either to protect our land back in Sudan, or maybe they were killed in the war,” she explains.

Learn more about NBIC here.

Single moms struggle to survive

(Photo courtesy Speak Media Uganda/Pexels)

Legal barriers make it hard for refugee moms to secure gainful employment in Egypt. “[Companies] have to have 10 Egyptian employees for every foreigner that they want to hire, so it’s hard to keep that ratio,” Bonita says.

With hungry mouths to feed, many refugee moms find work wherever they can. “Most of them work under the table and just get cash in hand,” Bonita says.

“They’ll work cleaning somebody’s house or they’ll work cleaning somebody’s business, or making tea for them, or running errands.”

This kind of work often reinforces harmful stereotypes. “There’s a lot of racism in Egypt,” Bonita says.

“In all the old movies, all of the servants in the homes were dark skinned, so anybody dark skinned is looked at as ‘less than’ and lower. Every day, they’re traumatized by racism in the streets.”

To meet these needs, NBIC and its partners offer purpose and the hope of Christ through an intensive, year-long women’s program that meets weekly.

“It focuses on psychological awareness, spiritual and theological training, and leadership training, so it’s quite a broad program and covers different aspects of their lives,” Bonita says.

The women’s program also “equips them to train others and to serve their community,” she adds.

In addition to the women’s program, NBIC offers a three-year refugee assistance program that meets twice a week, as well as an intensive annual program that meets four days a week.

Restoring dignity

NBIC also meets the unique needs of Sudanese women. In 2024, “a lady came from the [U.S.] and did a series of workshops on women’s health [and] that really empowered women to have a little bit more control over their bodies and their health,” Bonita says.

(Photo courtesy nomso obiano/Pexels)

Rape and sexual assault are frequently used weapons of war in Sudan. Last year’s workshops “encouraged the community to support and embrace women, even if they’ve conceived because of rape… instead of the community rejecting them,” Bonita says.

“Women are coming that are pregnant, but not because they want to get pregnant at all.”

The workshops helped Sudanese women realize their unique value in God’s eyes.

“She (the presenter) really integrated the Gospel into that, and how Jesus gave us life through His water and His blood, and women have an opportunity to be like God in also giving life through water and blood,” Bonita says.

“That really gave dignity to the women and helped them to see that, ‘I am made in the image of God, and I get to be like God in a way that men don’t.’”

How to help

Ask the Lord to surround refugee moms with His comfort and peace. “A lot of them have families still in Sudan that are suffering, and they get news of relatives that have been killed and things, so it’s really challenging,” Bonita says.

“Pray for all the (refugee) women who are single moms in Cairo. They have three, four, or five kids, and they’re trying to make a go of it on their own.”

Pray that Sudanese refugee moms can find strength in the Lord. Bonita says, “All of our students have a real heart to serve their community, and yet they have to work really hard just to provide for their family and for their kids.”

Header image is a representative photo depicting Sudanese refugee women and children. (Wikimedia Commons)

Benita with the Nuba Mountains Bible Institute in Cairo (NBIC) says, “Now with the war, there’s huge increase in refugees, 900% in Cairo, and a lot of them are single moms with kids.”

Many husbands stayed behind to defend their land, were killed, or couldn’t escape. These women now face overwhelming needs — especially in education.

Cairo, Egypt (Photo courtesy of Ahmed Ezzat via Unsplash)

“They haven’t had almost any opportunities for education in Sudan beyond maybe basic elementary,” Benita explains.

To help, the ministry offers a one-year program for women, meeting one night a week. It focuses on psychological awareness, spiritual growth, theological training, and leadership development.

The goal, says Benita, is simple: “It equips Sudanese women to train others and to serve their community.”

However, many challenges stem from family struggles. “In Sudan,” explains Benita, “maybe only the man worked and the woman was able to stay home and focus on kids and household responsibilities.”

In Egypt, the situation is reversed. Refugees cannot legally work, so many take informal jobs. Women often find cleaning work more easily — and sometimes earn more than men. This shift disrupts traditional family roles. “That creates tension oftentimes in the marriage,” says Benita.

When husbands eventually reunite with their families after months or years apart, new strains appear. “Then if the husband can come to Egypt eventually, then he’s been estranged for a long time, and that takes a while to sort that out, and he hasn’t been involved really in raising the children.”

Moreover, amid war trauma, family conflict, and uncertainty, children often drift toward gangs or other dangerous lifestyles.

South Sudanese woman (Photo courtesy of Speak Media Uganda via Pexels)

That’s where the ministry steps in again, offering teaching and guidance to families and community leaders.

“We also have one of our staff teach about what’s the difference between what is our tribal practices around marriage and what’s actually the Bible, and help them to pick those apart,” Benita shares.

The ministry also educates women about their health and supports survivors of wartime rape — restoring dignity through God’s truth.

Pray for Sudanese people displaced from their homeland — that they find healing and hope in Christ’s love. Pray for the women to experience dignity, peace, and wisdom in the embrace of their Creator.

Header representative photo of two women (courtesy of Ab Pixels via Pexels).

“Many generations of his family have cast spells and done black magic. He was living in a way in which his entire life was consumed with the pursuit of magic, satanic spells,” says Erik Ouimette with Uncharted Ministries.

An Uncharted team member met Ramon one day and asked him to share a meal. The Christian man could sense “a real darkness, a real hardness” about Ramon, says Ouimette. Their conversation proved it.

(Photo courtesy of Amir Arabshahi/Unsplash)

“Ramon talked voluminously about his spells and his books of dark magic and how that gave him power, how that gave him a sense of meaning and of not being useless in this world — despite the fact he had no relationships with anybody, no job, nothing in his life was going well,” says Ouimette.

“Ramon, it sounds like you’re someone who wants significance and meaning in your life,” the Christian finally replied. “It sounds like you want great purpose, and you know that with great purpose comes power to do things.” 

“Yes, yes I do,” Ramon said. 

The Christian asked if he could tell Ramon about a real person who had been in Egypt before, who had an entire book filled with stories about the miracles He did — stories not of black magic but of light, truth, and beauty.

Ramon listened quietly to the Christian retell the gospel, going all the way through Jesus’s birth — including His time in Egypt as a child — His life, His miracles, and then about His death. He could see that Ramon had not heard about the cross before.

At the end, the Christian asked Ramon if he was drawn to what he had just heard about Jesus. 

“Oh yes, I’m very attracted. This sounds very great,” Ramon said. “This man sounds powerful, but he also sounds kind. This man sounds like he has great purpose for those who follow him, but it seems different than [what] I’m aware of.”

They talked further about what it means to follow Jesus. And just like that, over one simple meal and conversation, Ramon turned from chasing satanic power to accepting the all-powerful God.

“After he accepted Christ, he returned to his home,” says Ouimette. “He brought his big, generations-old books of spells and magic. He brought them out, and he burned them. It was a literal understanding that the figurative past needs to be put to death.”

Living in the light

Ramon is now connected with a small group of believers that Uncharted is working with in his city. There, he will be discipled in his new faith. Praise God, and pray for others in Egypt like Ramon to find Jesus. Pray that Ramon would not be tempted by any renewed desires for personal power.

(Photo by Jonas Ferlin from Pexels)

“The reality of evil means that we need a Savior who is more powerful than the evil one. We find that in Jesus Christ,” says Ouimette. “That will be Ramon’s story, and the story of what we pray will be a generational turn for people in his family.”

In light of this story, Ouimette encourages all Christians to take spiritual realities seriously. However hidden or obvious the evil around us is, don’t excuse it (Ephesians 5:7-16).

“I think we don’t do ourselves any favors when we sanitize the true power of evil. We have to truly call it out for what it is. It is the opposite of the holiness and brightness of light, which means that it’s evil. It’s dark. It’s really bad for us,” says Ouimette. “When we pass it over, we tend to not realize that the power is very real over people who are worshiping the realm of darkness.”

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy of Ahmed Badawy via Unsplash.

It is a long-awaited step toward a broader peace deal to the two-year war. But Nuna with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon says candidly, “This peace treaty that is in the Middle East, I’m not so sure it’s going to stand. I think it’s a false peace, but at least it will give us a bit of a relief for a time.”

Significant questions remain about Gaza’s government, Hamas’s disarmament, and Israel’s military presence in Gaza.

In a beautiful “coincidence” only God could have arranged, believers from Lebanon and around the world have gathered today to pray for the Middle East. Months ago, the Beirut House of Prayer planned a 50-hour international assembly for October 9-11.

“We will be praying day and night, with people rotating and praying and worshiping and just asking the will of God for not only this nation, but also the whole Middle East,” says Nuna.

“It’s [a] strategic time for Syria, for Turkey, for Jordan, for Lebanon, for the Palestinians, for Egypt, for all these areas here. We’re coming and pouring our hearts before God, asking for His will and for the knowledge of His glory to be released in these nations.”

Nuna says these Muslim, Jewish, and nominal Christian countries are not seeing the glory of God. Instead, they are seeing “religious politics,” factions, closed borders, people separated, and changes in power such as the fall of the Assad regime in Syria or the decrease of Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon.

(Image courtesy of Triumphant Mercy Lebanon)

“We’re asking God to [open] people’s eyes to see His glory, because it’s a really difficult time,” says Nuna. “So many people are depressed, skeptical, in disbelief, and in hopelessness. So many people are feeling like ‘[It is] better for us to leave.’ So it is strategic to pray at this time.”

Join in praying for eternal things. Learn more about prayer movements in the Middle East and how you can be part of gatherings like the Beirut House of Prayer. Connect with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon, or visit the Beirut House of Prayer on Instagram or YouTube.

“Jesus is coming back, and He’s coming back here. This region is so dear to His heart —whether it is Israel or Lebanon or the whole area, it is dear to His heart,” says Nuna. “If you want to be part of this, and you want to have more news about the Middle East and more direct contact with houses of prayer, contact us.” 

Header photo of Beirut House of Prayer gathering October 9-11, 2025 courtesy of Triumphant Mercy Lebanon.

Kasr El-Dobara Evangelical Church (KDEC), located in Egypt, was founded by Dr. Ibrahim Said in 1949 with a “missions DNA.” Since then, the church has grown into the largest Arab Evangelical congregation, with 12,000 members.

(Photo courtesy of KDEC)

KDEC’s Pastor Sam emphasizes, “It’s not about the number, actually. It’s about the Kingdom. We are Kingdom-minded, not church-minded.

“We believe that the Church exists for the Great Commission, to continue the message that Jesus Christ started, and help people to get to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We pass the message of hope for people.”

Out of Egypt’s 118 million people, Pastor Sam says, “At least 20 million are Christians. The majority are Coptic Orthodox — 93%. Five percent are Evangelicals, and the rest are Catholic. So we are a minority among minorities — but thank God that we can reach the multitude!”

KDEC meets people where they are through creative outreach. Pastor Sam says, for example, “We have the largest sports ministry program in the Middle East. We serve around 750,000 per year across Egypt and also in the Middle East. We are using sports to reach people [with] the knowledge of Christ.”

(Photo courtesy of KDEC)

Another outreach draws thousands to music festivals. “We developed a program called Count It Right in partnership with Palau’s organization. We have a festival, and people come from different backgrounds to watch the shows. In each station, we share…the Gospel.”

Whatever the method, Pastor Sam says it all comes down to one goal — telling as many people as possible about Jesus.

“We are using different ‘languages.’ I don’t mean like Arabic and English. I mean languages like sports, music, apologetics, media, [and] social media to grab people’s attention to the message of Christ.”

When asked how Christians can pray, Pastor Sam responds with sincere reverence: “Pray for grace and wisdom as we’re serving the Lord. [Pray] for the Church in Egypt to be in the center of God’s will, and to be brave, and to continue sharing the Good News without fear.”

Learn more about KDEC at their website.

Header photo courtesy of KDEC.

The satellite television ministry to the Middle East and North Africa produces programs and movies in Arabic, Farsi, and Turkish.

Continuously creating content, they aimed to demonstrate that displaced people also have a voice in this matter. They aimed to reach out to refugees so that they could share their stories honestly and give a voice to the voiceless.

“As Christians, we also want to be passionate and have a heart, a soft heart, for those whom God has a soft heart for too, and cares for those who are traveling, who are aliens, who are displaced,” says Joe Willey with SAT-7.

In the footprint of the SAT-7 satellite broadcast, Sudan has had a major humanitarian crisis since 2023.

“We have stories of people who have fled,” says Joe Willey. “They fled on foot, they fled without anything, and tried to get to Egypt in this particular case. And so we are highlighting those stories with compassion and care to show people that the refugees, whether they’re from Sudan or somewhere else, are made in the image of God and should be cared for with the same compassion that we do our friends and our family who are also made in the image of God.”

One of the videos asked Sudanese displaced people how they felt about being called a refugee.

One woman said, Refugee means being alone. One man said, the word refugee makes a man feel humiliated. You feel a sense of loss. Something inside you is missing.

Joe Willey urges people to think about how they would feel with a label like this.

“Living through everything that perhaps you owned, perhaps you hoped for, perhaps you worked for, is gone because you have to leave, and you have to leave on foot. So it reframed the way I speak about it or consider people.

Sat-7 works to raise awareness. It is the voice for people who have no other options, and it is a Christian voice.

In the region where SAT-7 is working, only four percent are Christian, and they are doing the work of bringing light to the stories of suffering in that area.

Please pray for those in the world who are suffering. Consider how you may respond or react in a similar event, and what your needs would be in that circumstance? 

Most importantly, pray that the people who see the programs will believe in Jesus Christ and that their lives will be transformed. Pray that God will use SAT-7 to soften hearts and bring people to Himself.

Header photo courtesy of SAT-7 on Facebook.

Uncharted Ministries sought to encourage these believers by equipping them with a new skill and reminding them they have a purpose. 

The ministry purchased several sewing machines and hired a local Christian seamstress to offer a six-day-long sewing class as encouragement and practical help to twelve women.

Erik Ouimette with Uncharted says the ministry hopes to honor the women, giving them a new skill and a reason to be in the public square again, engaging with civic life. The ministry wants the widows to know that they are worthy of investment and valuable. 

They originally intended the event to be a ministry for Christian women. However, the on-the-ground team in Egypt turned it into an opportunity for evangelism. 

They wondered, “We’ve got enough sewing machines here, and the room is large enough. What if we bring in six Christian widows and six Muslim widows? What would happen?”

Muslims and Christians in the country are not supposed to gather for events like this, so the biggest concern going into class was that security might shut it down.

The event was successful, however, and the favor with security that was prayed for was granted. The class was a rare example of how Christians and Muslims could interact.

Ouimette says, “I’ve never seen more women, more integrated, sitting side by side at a sewing machine. One of them was running the elastic on a band of a pair of pants, and the other one was sitting there running the machine through. You would never know that one was a Christian and one was a Muslim. You would never know as the children in the room were playing, which kids were of which religion.”

Going forward, this ministry hopes to do more classes.

“No one held up women in a culture that did not more than Jesus did. That was the heart of our Lord and Savior, and that continues to be one of the big differentiating pieces between how Christians interact with women in Egypt and how the Muslim culture does.”

Please pray for the ministry that it will continue to find favor with security.

Pray for the widows in Egypt that they will be blessed by the ministry, encouraging believers and reaching unbelievers with the love of Jesus. Pray for the resources to do this good work. 

Header Photo is a representative stock image by J Williams on Unsplash

But today, bureaucratic restrictions and delays challenge Christians hoping to build new churches. It’s just one of many ways they are treated as second-class citizens. 

“The Egyptian government for a long time had no place for [new churches],” says Erik Ouimette with Uncharted Ministries. “Then a number of years ago, they changed [their] way in response to some heavy persecution from the Muslim Brotherhood and the presidential administration at the time.”

In 2016, Egypt’s parliament passed the Church Construction Law, which ostensibly created a legal path for church licensing. Critics said it still discriminated against Christians. Even so, thousands of churches have been licensed in the nine years since.

“It’s a big deal to license a church,” Ouimette explains. “That means you can call a pastor, pay a pastor; you can be officially recognized and officially protected by the government. In most churches in Egypt, there are police outside if not 24 hours a day, [then] definitely any time that there are people in the building. There’s government-sponsored security in front of the church to protect them. The government is not wanting there to be Muslim and Christian fighting.”

Getting a church in the first place, however, is still far from simple. Corruption and bribery are common obstacles in the process. One church building project Uncharted Ministries is involved with in central Upper Egypt has come to a standstill.

“This church might be many years away from being a church in licensed legality. Or it’s possible the Lord could show up in a beautiful way and get the glory for doing something that right now looks impossible,” Ouimette says. “I would love that to be the story of this church.”

Ancient Egyptian Christian Bible (Photo courtesy of Ben White via Unsplash)

But one thing is certain: if a church is built, a mosque will soon follow. 

“It’s amazing how quickly mosques are not only licensed and approved, but built. They are built like crazy because the money comes in in floods,” Ouimette says. Muslims around the world often sponsor a new mosque construction. “They are leaning into part of the Islamic beliefs, both in the Quran and the Hadiths, that to build a mosque is of highest order.”

He adds, “The very land [in Egypt] where churches are being built, the Muslims in the community view as Islamic land.” 

If you live in the West, chances are your church building is spacious and safe. Ouimette reminds us that such freedom is a recent anomaly, virtually unheard of for Christians in many parts of the world today, and across history. 

“All throughout the 2,000 years of our faith, the label of being a Christian has been an affront to authoritarian government, an affront to other beliefs that say, ‘No, there’s a multitude of gods.’ Or, ‘Oh no, you’ve missed it. Jesus is not who you believe Him to be.’ Thus, from the very beginning, Christians have humbly met in homes, small groups, home churches,” Ouimette says.

“I think our hearts then go out to those who are trying to build a humble church for thirty, forty, fifty people. I think we need to pray into that more maybe than we do.”

Header photo of Kairo Wan, Ash Shamashargi, Egypt is a representative stock photo courtesy of Sophia Valkova via Unsplash.

“I’m from Morocco, and I’m 19 years old. Though many people surround me, I have no one to talk to. I am so grateful to the Lord for your help and advice.”

(Photo courtesy of Vitaly Gariev via Pexels)

This heartfelt message came from a listener of “What’s Up”, a SAT-7 program designed to connect with young people across the Middle East and North Africa. Formerly known as “Catalyst”, the updated show targets viewers aged 18 to 24, encouraging honest conversations, emotional depth, and mutual support — especially for those often misunderstood by their families or communities.

Through episodes that explore fear, pain, regret, and confusion, “What’s Up” program creates a safe space where youth can reflect and grow. Joe Willey of SAT-7 explains: “Scripture is not just for a particular day or for a particular time period. Scripture encompasses our entire experience, and we can go to God with pain, with suffering. We see this in the imprecatory Psalms. We see this throughout Scripture.”

Many teens in the region are surrounded by conflict, crisis, and loss. “What’s Up” gives them a platform to be heard — and to hear the hope of Christ.

“SAT-7 is saying, ‘No, you do matter. You are made in the image of God, and we want to give you an opportunity to voice your concerns, and also then be able to share from a biblical perspective God’s view on difficulty, God’s view on suffering,’” says Willey.

One powerful episode, “Is God present in the midst of painful trials?”, looks directly at grief and hardship, helping young viewers process suffering in light of Scripture.

“I pray that God would change the hearts of teens, because it really would change the culture of the Middle East and North Africa to have young people who said, ‘I’ve heard about Christ and I’ve heard about Him as the Son of God, not just as a prophet and I believe what He says is true,’” adds Willey.

Pray that more young people across the Middle East and North Africa will discover this SAT-7 program and be empowered by it to speak out. For the One who gifted us with the power to speak is the very One who longs to hear our voices.

Header photo courtesy of Ashkan Sadeghi via Unsplash.