Anafora - December 30

I learned my first Coptic words: nani gurhh ("good night") from Sister Martha. She is the one who paints all of the Iota crosses. She is 27 but looks about 12. We spend a lot of time communicating in sign language and in my hopeless Arabic. I spoke Chadian Arabic (a dialect about as understandable to other Arabic-speakers as pidgin English is to English speakers) when I lived in Chad from 1988-1990, and later studied Modern Standard Arabic (spoken on news programs like Al Jazeera) at the Univ of Michigan in the early 1990's but I have sadly forgotten almost everything. Anyway, I can pretend that my lack of understanding is due to the dialect spoken here at Anafora which is Upper Egyptian, and different from that spoken in Cairo.

There is a half-hour service at 8 every evening, which the bishop tries to make more accessible by giving some instructions in English, allowing the epistle reading to be given in whatever language is represented by the congregants that evening, and making time for some hymns to be sung in English. I have been doing the readings in English (others did them in Swedish, Norwegian, French and Arabic) and also leading some songs in English. Tonight I was surprised to hear a strong male voice in the back of the church joining in on Amazing Grace. It was Bishop Thomas, who had learned the song in his many travels!

I have learned from a visiting Copt that Anafora is not appreciated by all Copts because it breaks from tradition on several counts: the church is not traditionally built, women participate in the liturgy, and there is an attempt at ecumenism. I think that Bishop Thomas is a visionary who really cares about peace, in the same spirit as Brother Roger of Taizé.