Mokattam Mountain

Matthew 17:20

He replied, "Because you have so little faith.

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed,

you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you."

Today was a wonderful day. We saw the the Mokattam Mountain, which is on the southeastern part of Cairo. On the Mokattam Mountain, we explored Garbage City, the Recycling Center, and the Cave Churches.

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Tradition says that a Coptic Priest was given a challenge to move a moutain. He prayed and fasted, and he was led to Simon the Tanner who showed the priest how to miraculously move the mountain. With faith like a mustard seed, the priest moved the mountain to the new location...Mokattam Mountain.

Garbage City

Garbage City is a Christian neighborhood at the base and up the side of Mokattam Mountain. The people who live in Garbage City are Cairo's street sweepers. The street sweepers are considered the lowest of the low in Cairo, as they sweep the trash from the streets of Cairo. All of the garbage in Cairo ends up in Garbage City. This means that Garbage City is the city's dump, where the Christian street sweepers live and make their livelihoods. Garbage City's heavy odor permeates the neighborhood, and intense smells of garbage, dead animals, manure, and burning trash mix together in the thick air.

The street sweepers are Christians, and they find great pride in their work because Jesus was considered the lowest of the low. I was humbled by the workers and inhabitants of Garbage City. The children had the best smiles, and the men and women in the streets smiled and spoke with us as the taxi driver slowly drove us through their homes.

Recycling Center

This was amazing! Within Garbage City, there is a small shop that is run by a woman. The shop is a recycling center that takes paper and other recyclable pieces of trash and turns them into wonderful handcrafted items. The center sells rugs, purses, notebooks, stationary, bookmarks, aprons, artwork, and many other wonderful things! The center gives jobs to women in Garbage City who wouldn't normally have a job. It also helps control some of the overwhelming piles of garbage in Garbage City.

Cave Churches

In Mokattam Mountain, three churches have been carved out of the caves. The church in the picture above holds 5,000 people! One of the churches is very intimate, and feels like a small chapel with only rugs and rock.

The Egyptian Government would not let the Christians build churches up in the caves. So, the Christians got around this in a very crafty way! During Ramadan, Muslims use a loud cannon to signal the beginning of the season. The Christian church builders scheduled their dynomite explotions during the cannon explosion of Ramadan. That means that the church builders could do one dynomite blast per year. It took them 7 explosions to completely cave out the church; that is 7 years!
This man is the caretaker of St. Paul's cave church. He was so kind and welcomed us into the church.

God is incredibly present here in Cairo.
I see Him in the faces of women on the metro.
I see Him in the carvings in the mountains.
I see Him in the beautiful view of the city.
With a little bit of faith and a little bit of belief, God can be found.

Lyrics I'm Humming:
"I Want To Ride My Bicycle" by Queen