Mokattam Miracle

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Jun 27

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“Truly I tell you, 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.” Matthew 17:20

God chose the young and unexpected one while in a faraway land to teach us that He still moves mountains.

With the Becoming materials now in Arabic, my 11-year-old daughter, Annika, and I set off for Egypt with our DC-based team. On the first day in Cairo, we met with Egyptian ministry leaders, where we engaged in the faith practices of Becoming, focusing on how to stop "spirals of fear" and start "cycling in grace." It was a blessing to see how these concepts resonated cross-culturally.

My role on the trip was to encourage and support Egyptian Christian leaders from The World Needs a Father, which is a parenting and orphan care ministry, and Stephen's Children's, Mama Maggie's ministry in the slums of Cairo, which feeds, educates, disciples, and provides medical care for the poorest of the poor. I was pleased to teach several soul-care workshops for these on-ground leaders and also facilitate daily devotions for the traveling team members. Every day, each team member was given a unique scripture verse to contemplate and also to consider how it might be applied to their life presently. God’s Word would prove itself alive again and again through these verses. In our gatherings we focused on fixing our minds and hearts on God and receiving His wisdom and grace so that His love would flow through us freely as we moved about in this land.

Even though all the adults had a sense of purpose in coming on the trip, Annika was more of an add-on, coming as a friend of our coordinator's daughter. I mention this because God would reveal in time that her participation was purposeful and intentional according to His Divine Plan—to show His glory in and through her young life.

On our trip, we had many unique cultural experiences. We saw the Sphinx, climbed the pyramids, rode camels, ate Egyptian food, learned to make papyrus, swam in the Red Sea, viewed mummies, and read hieroglyphs.

But it was an unexpected miracle that seemed to parallel one of the grandest miracles in Egyptian church history that inspired us to awe and wonder, made our trip extremely faith-building, and transformed Annika's understanding of God. To understand Annika's miracle, we must first address the miracle of Mokattam Mountain, which dates back to 975 A.D.

Mokattam is an Arabic word that means cut off, broken off, or fragmented, and it refers to the range of hills in the Southern area of Cairo. Mokattam is where many poor Christians live and work in the "garbage slums." It is also here in the Mokattam region that Becoming Foundation's ministry partners work. The mountain's name, FRAGMENT MOUNTAIN, immediately caught my attention as "fragments" is a word we often use in the Becoming curriculum, specifically in our work of "entrusting our fragments" to God for His healing, completion, and reconciliation. I also shared this teaching on fragments during my sessions in Cairo to address our souls’ brokenness and the societal fragmentation experienced by the poor.

As I look deeper into the historical and miraculous story of Mokattam Mountain, God revealed deeper connections that would affirm this was not just coincidence but rather providence at work. I encourage you to bear with me as we pull out some important pieces of this history. In the tenth century, a discussion between the Caliph of Egypt (Al Mu’iz), two Jewish leaders (Ibn Killis and Moses), and the Patriarch of the Coptic Church (Anba Abram, the Syrian of Alexandria) decompensated into a sharp debate that threatened the very existence of the Christian Church in Egypt and the lives of all its believers, where the only way out was a miracle.

As the story of the Mokattam Mountain Miracle goes:

"Moses the Jew and the minister Ibn Killis hastened to the caliph Al-Mu'iz and said to him, “We have found it written in the book of the Christians that whosoever has faith as small as a mustard seed can move a mountain. So, it is our right to demand that they prove that their religion is right by means of this. If they cannot, they should be punished for the invalidity of their religion." The caliph kept silent and was mulling over this verse, thinking to himself that if the words of the New Testament were true, then this would be a golden opportunity to remove the mountain that was perched to the east of the new city (Cairo) so that it could stretch further east and would enjoy a terrific site since the mountain was bordering Birket Elphil before it got removed. But if they proved unable to carry this out, this would be cogent proof that the religion of the Christians was wrong, so it should be done away with completely."

The caliph sent for Anba Abram, the pope of the Coptic Church, to discuss the verse and the church’s options. He told him that he had to choose between these four alternatives:

To fulfill this commandment and move the eastern part of Mokattam.
To espouse Islam and abandon Christianity on the account that it is invalid.
To leave Egypt and immigrate to another country.
To be smitten by the sword altogether.

Patriarch Abram asked the caliph to give him a three-day respite, after which he would give him an answer. Abram then issued a statement ordering all Christians in Egypt to fast and pray from sunup to sundown for three days and for all the church leaders to meet at the "Hanging Church," where they would fast and pray. During prayer, they received a heavenly message instructing them to find Simeon the Tanner, who would know what God wanted them to do to save them from impending doom. Simeon (Samaan) instructed them, saying,

"Go up the mountain and take along with you the religious leaders…make them carry on high the Bibles, the crosses, the long candles lit, and the censers full of incense. And ask the king and his [entourage] to go up with you. Stand on one side of the mountain while they stand on the side opposite you…After administering the holy sacraments, raise your voice with all the people, repeating, "Kyrie Eleison" (have mercy, Lord) four hundred times. Then, keep silent for some moments…. and worship… Repeat this three times, and every time you stand up after worshipping, draw the sign of the cross over the mountain, and you shall see the glory of God."

After doing all that Samaan had said to do, "a great earthquake swept over the mountain, and at each [act of] worship the mountain was thrust down, and every time they stood up the mountain would rise up and the sun would be seen from under it. And every time it would go back to its place."

"When the miracle occurred, the caliph panicked and feared, together with all the multitudes that gathered with him. He cried out at the top of his voice, "God is great; may His name be blessed." He entreated the Pope to stop what he was doing; otherwise, the city would be overthrown. The miracle of moving Mokattam Mountain had a profound effect on all people, and the fear of the Lord fell upon all the people in the country, big and small. History records this saying: Peace replaced upheaval and war. And Anba Abram's heart was full of assurance toward his faithful people."

The caliph said to the Pope Abram, "You have proven that your faith is a true one." Then, invited him to ask for anything he wished, and it would be granted to him. The Patriarch asked for support to rebuild the Church of Markorios Abu Sifein and the "Hanging Church,” which had been damaged by harmful men. The caliph not only honored this request but supported the restoration of a great number of churches, especially in Alexandria.

Now, regarding the relevance of Mokattam to our present-day trip to Egypt: While traveling, little Annika came down with a virus that attacked her leg muscles to the point of losing her ability to walk. It was terrifying! I was told it would likely be five days before she'd be back on her feet, assuming it wasn't something worse.

After finding a wheelchair for Annika's use, our group set out for Coptic Cairo. Though we had already heard the story of the Mokattam Miracle and spent time in the garbage slums of the Mokattam region, it wasn't until we arrived at the "Hanging Church" in Old Cairo that we came to see how central this event was to the Christian identity in Egypt.

Annika and I had gotten ahead of the group at one point, so we stopped to wait in the garden walkway. As I looked over at my young daughter, sitting in her wheelchair, I could see on her face her wonder as to why her legs would no longer hold her and her struggle to keep on going with this trip. Just then, I noticed behind Annika a large mosaic depicting the miracle of the Mokattam Mountain.

"Oh, Lord, be the God of miracles again for my little girl!" I hoped and prayed. The men in our group carried Annika and her wheelchair up the steps so she could see inside the church.

There, our group took time to pray for Annika's healing.

At the end of the day, I had become weary of fighting my worry. What's more, I couldn't figure out how Annika and I could make the trek the next day across the Sinai Desert, considering we would need to fly by airplane and travel in multiple buses and taxis while also having to leave the wheelchair behind at the hotel. How would we manage? I wondered.

Before bed, we anointed Annika's legs with oil and prayed again for her healing. That night, unbeknownst to us, Annika had a conversation with the Lord as she slept and dreamt. When she woke, I asked her how her legs felt and if she could put weight on them. She answered, "I don't know yet, but in my dream, I asked Jesus many times to heal me, and I saw Him come and touch my legs and heal me." She shimmied to the end of the bed, put her legs on the floor, and stood without pain or weakness. She knew it was a miracle that Jesus had answered her prayer, touched her legs, and healed her in the night.

Despite being convinced of this miracle and marveling that morning, she began to question if dreams could even be true as the days went on, and if she would have gotten better without prayer. But God would be gracious to show her again that his grace by prayers of faith had done this. Annika, who had not paid much attention to the story of Mokattam because she had been so sick during our first days in the country, asked us to retell the story of the mountain. Hearing the retelling of the story, I saw her eyes light up and her face become covered in surprise.

"This happened to me!" Annika declared, "God did a miracle for me! AND that was MY Bible verse! That's the verse I got on the little white paper I picked from the pile. Some letters are worn off and the paper's ripped because I held it in my hand and rubbed it a lot because I was nervous. Look, Mom! Isn't that the same verse?"

Indeed, it was! Her little worn-out paper read, "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."

She couldn't wait to share with her older siblings at home how God was now as real to her as He was to them. Annika went to church youth group the first evening home, and the leader showed a video of a lame man being healed by Jesus, and then she followed up the video with a short teaching on how faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Annika got up from her seat, walked over to her older sister, Maya, put her head in her chest, and wept for joy because she finally knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was real and active in her young story! We joke that this experience for Annika is far more than a stone of remembrance; it is more like a boulder or even a stone mountain of remembrance, ever declaring God's faithfulness.

"Samuel put a stone between 'Shin' (the place of breaking) and 'Mizpah' (the high place where we see God's coming) and called it 'Eben Ezer' (stone of help) and said, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.'"

As I reflected on all these details of Annika's story and the grand story of the Coptic church, I came to realize that the church where we had prayed for Annika's healing was the very same church where the Egyptian leaders had gone to fast and pray, and the one Abram asked to be fully restored. It was both humbling and exciting to realize how our unique stories connect to the grander stories of God. In need and fragmentation, we, like little Annika and our ancestors of the faith, are each responsible for receiving the seed of faith we have been given, allowing it to be planted deep within us, and to water it with payer and truth and light so that the kingdom of heaven can grow up in us and bear fruit to share with others. In doing so, we shall see God.

Our team has been invited to return to Egypt and teach a full Becoming Retreat for leaders on the ground. My prayer is that Annika's experience is a foreshadowing of the glory to come for many more. May Mokattam Mountain become like Mount Zion, the illuminated Kingdom of God displaying the wholeness of His people through the love and power of His Son, Jesus.

(Our DC-based Team: Chris Klaich, Kerry Hasenbalg, Annika Hasenbalg, [back row: Maria Jacoby, Lydia Vogt, Matt Jacoby, Sherry Gobran, [front middle] Nora Jacoby, Jackie Willert, Sarah Sentell Klaich, and Jess Makary)