For Eastern Christmas this year we got permission to drive up the Nile to the homeland of many of Egypt’s Christians.  One of the cities – Asyut – is about half-or-more Christian.  We went along with friends of ours who grew up at the Lillian Trasher Orphanage.  Trasher (1887-1961) was one of those inimitable Holiness-Pentecostal missionaries from the end of the eighteenth, beginning of the twentieth century.  She came from Jacksonville Florida in 1910 at the age of 23, and she built up an orphanage on the faith principle.  This is the Franciscan-like method of trusting God for one’s daily bread, a method started by Hudson Taylor in China.  Thus Trasher and her orphans would not fundraise but rather ask God to give them what they needed for that day.  Their story has miracle after miracle of Trasher asking God for food, clothing, or health, and miraculously receiving just the thing in just the amount (or more) that she asked.  They had to survive anti-colonial violence, anti-Christian policies, and cholera.  But somehow, they have made it to this day.  Trasher ministered to thousands of kids in her time, and right now the orphanage has around two hundred kids.  It’s a real testimony to what undistracted, non-celebrity, holiness-minded leadership accomplishes.  This is why the Episcopal Church has recognized Trasher in our calendar of saints. 

Our kids made a lot of friends over those days.  I had a chance to preach an impromptu sermon for their Christmas service.  We also had a chance to accompany some of the guys to the local pilgrimage monastery of The Virgin Mary.  Christmas in Asyut is something else.  Everybody pays a ticket to get into the orphanage for a meal, and for an extremely loud morning of unsupervised fun, as the kids set off hundreds of firecrackers.  In fact, the noise agitated enough outsiders, that a brawl broke out between some guys and the older orphans (I’m told this happens every year).  Just one broken nose - it could have been worse I suppose!  That fearlessness helps out when local extremists threaten their campus ministry, I’ve been told. 

AST has a campus in Asyut, so I was also happy to meet a student of ours from the orphanage.  His father, with whom he reunited when he grew up, is a Coptic deacon.  He’s also done studies at the Orthodox seminary where he learned to chant all the services.  AST, however, has a solid reputation for theological seriousness, so he’s also come to us.  And we’re glad to have him.  The student’s I’ve met from upper Egypt are always great.    

Anyway, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that Episcopalians have recognized this Pentecostal saint.  If you want to see her collect, check out the link: https://www.lectionarypage.net/LesserFF/Dec/Trasher.html