Megacities Comes to Cairo

Hundreds are already coming to Christ

After remarkable success in two previous urban areas, Megacities, a ministry of YWAM Perth, Australia, has now reached the midway point in its focus for 2006: Cairo, Egypt.

The work in Cairo has begun to bear fruit. Teams have been working alongside the church in evangelism and discipleship. Already, 369 people have given their lives to the Lord, nearly 3,000 have been prayed for, and over 2,300 have received mercy ministry.

The Megacities strategy is to send in multi-disciplinary teams throughout the year to serve the city in whatever areas of need the "gatekeepers," or people of influence in a city, identify and invite the teams to serve. They seek to form strong partnerships within the local body of Christ. Each Megacities project involves prayer, saturation evangelism, the training of existing churches and the establishment of new churches.

"We can take any teams," asserts Shirley Brownhill, the leader of the Megacities ministry, "as we find open doors in literally every area of society."

One of the goals for Cairo is to empower the local believers. A DTS student described a local believer they were working with who shared Christ with a fellow Egyptian: "It was the Muslim's first time hearing about Jesus and it was the Christian's first time talking about this with a Muslim." There are many open doors in health care; teams are working with families and children in the slums and they have seen miraculous healings in addition to providing simple health care and training.

YWAM President John Dawson is thrilled with the fruitfulness of the Megacities approach. "This is not business as usual," he says. "The megacities vision is the key to real transformation. These are leaders with the courage, faith and dedication to attempt to draw the whole church into united action. And it's working. I've seen the results myself."

The first places of focus for Megacities were Hyderabad, India in 2001-2002 followed by Durban, South Africa in 2004-2005. In Durban, one of the pressing needs was with the street children. After just a few months of reaching out to the kids, 50 kids were off the streets! Three organizations in the city had been working with this same group; they came to the team and asked "How did you do that? You're much more effective than we are!" They sat down and took notes as the team explained that they prayed and were following a God-given strategy to reach those kids.

One of the primary goals of Megacities is to create new networks within the city that will serve the needs long-term once the teams have left. As a result of meeting with these three organizations in Durban, they agreed to begin to meet monthly to find ways to work together to increase the effectiveness of what they were doing. Four years later, these groups, two Christian and one non-Christian, are continuing to meet on a regular basis.

Another significant area of transformation was in education. 34 high school principles got saved, and made a covenant to disciple the youth of their city through the public school system!

Megacities creates an organized, interactive framework to serve the needs of the city and the needs of the visiting teams. The city is divided into sections, and each section has a local believer identifying and interfacing with opportunities in the community. There is also a Megacities staff person for each region who interacts on a weekly basis with the team leader, checking to be sure there are no logistical or relational difficulties hindering the team's experience.

Each outreach team that joins the Megacities effort is met at the airport, transported to their housing and ministry location, and oriented to the city and culture. The team is matched with ministry opportunities which utilize their areas of expertise or passion to maximize their fruitfulness and fulfillment. Megacities will even provide additional training as needed to equip teams for particular ministry opportunities.

For updates on Cairo or to get involved, check out the Megacities web site at www.megacities.org.au.

--by Lisa Orvis

International YWAMer, June-Sept 2006. Topics: