Mother to a Nation

 A few years ago we were able to visit my nephew and his family who were living in Dubai at the time. Andy was working for a construction company, in charge of the bids for things like hotels and an airport runway. 

Andy told me about a woman who had gone to the UAE and became midwife to the Royal Family. 

Dubai was poor at that time. 

Andy explained that because of her, the Royal Family designated a huge plot of land so that Christians could build their churches. We were able to visit there and see the complex, even attending services with my nephew and his family. There are many foreign guest workers in Dubai, and many of them are Christians. The Churches serve workers from every part of the world. 

The Emirati leaders explained why. It went something like this.: You Christians loved us when we were poor, expecting nothing in return. We owe you a debt of gratitude. 

I had wondered for years who this Christian midwife was. Turns out she was a graduate of the same Bible School my husband and I attended in Canada. 

I don’t know if I have all the details correct, but there are Christians from all over the world living and working in Dubai. 

The Emiratis are all Muslim. There are anti conversion laws, but at the same time freedom for those of other religions to openly worship. 

No. Gertrude I’m sure that she wasn’t the only reason that Dubai has allowed so much freedom for Christians to worship, but maybe she was an important one. Maybe she was the main reason? It looks like the story Andy told us and the little article below support the idea that she was indeed instrumental in the country’s openness to allowing non Muslims to worship freely. Trust was built from the beginning. 

Dyck is a Russian Mennonite name. I think that her life is inspiring. 

George Macdonald poem about asthma

George Macdonald was the one writer who had the greatest impact on men like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Notice how he pictures asthma as Satan himself who is out to destroy him by taking his breath and life away. Macdonald knows that asthma is a means that God is using to make him a man truly alive. He suffers, struggles for each breath, yet he knows that even God's Angel of Death can only bring him deliverance. God’s work in him will be done and he will finally be the man he was meant to be, full of life. 

Suffering and death in Christ humanize us. 

The glory of God is man fully alive. Gloria Dei est vivens homo

- St. Irenaeus 

A good theme to contemplate during Lent. 

The Asthmatic Man To The Satan That Binds Him 

By George Macdonald 

Satan, avaunt! Nay, take thine hour, 

Thou canst not daunt, 

Thou hast no power; 

Be welcome to thy nest, 

Though it be in my breast. 

Burrow amain; 

Dig like a mole; 

Fill every vein With half-burnt coal; 

Puff the keen dust about, 

And all to choke me out. 

Fill music’s ways 

With creaking cries, 

That no loud praise 

May climb the skies; 

And on my labouring chest 

Lay mountains of unrest. 

My slumber steep In dreams of haste, 

That only sleep, 

No rest, I taste- 

With stiflings, rimes of rote, 

And fingers on my throat. 

Satan, thy might I do defy; 

Live core of night I patient lie: 

A wind comes up the gray 

Will blow thee clean away. 

Christ’s angel, Death, 

All radiant white, 

With one cold breath 

Will scare thee quite, 

And give my lungs an air 

As fresh as answered prayer. 

So, Satan, do Thy worst with me 

Until the True Shall set me free, 

And end what he began, 

By making me a man.

Source: https://pickmeuppoetry.org/the-asthmatic-man-to-the-satan-that-binds-him-by-george-macdonald/