The live broadcast from Egypt of a 12-hour evening of prayer and devotion has helped bring millions of Christians from the Middle East and North Africa together to pray for their countries during this important time of transition for the Arab world.
The event took place on 11/11/11 at the Cave Church in Cairo, under the title "A night to repent and return to God". Up to 70,000 Egyptian Christians from Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches participated in the devotions and prayers. The Christian TV channel SAT-7 covered the event, allowing participants to watch on big screens, while millions of Christians in the region watched on TV. This is by far the largest and longest live broadcast SAT-7 has ever produced.
Additional media coverage was provided by several other TV channels, who contacted SAT-7 at the last minute to share their footage for use on their own channels. "The event has made a great impression on both Christian and secular media," said Farid Samir, Director of SAT-7's activities in Egypt. "Six other Christian TV channels have received the footage so they can rebroadcast it on their own channels. Several of them have already shown the whole event again. Al Jazeera and Dream (a popular Egyptian secular channel) have both been given access to the live signal and ON-TV, a channel that played an important role in the Egyptian revolution, also covered the evening," Samir added.
The Egyptian press also provided positive coverage of the evening and the event's Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/pray1111 ) received more than 800,000 comments.
Many of the encouraging text messages and Facebook comments that came in from viewers throughout the evening were shown on the big screens. You could also watch clips from the evening on Youtube
There were so many viewers outside the satellite coverage trying to watch the live stream on the SAT-7 website that it eventually overloaded and went down!
The 12 hours of worship, which began at 6pm on November 1, included contemporary worship in the form of music from a number of Christian bands from different churches, which together formed a beautiful picture of unity and fellowship. Among the topics that the various pastors spoke about and led prayer for were personal repentance and the needs of the church and country. The night's prayers also covered topics such as peace for society and the individual and prayers for the blessing of all Egyptians: Muslims and Christians, the authorities and the important parliamentary elections that will begin on November 28.
Among the many church leaders in attendance were pastors from churches in Los Angeles and Syria. They all came with a humble desire to seek God. Samir remarked, "The interdenominational nature of the event and the unity shown by the many church leaders made a great impression on the audience and inspired them to also join hands and seek God together. Even the SAT-7 TV crew was influenced to not only do their job of presenting the event in the best possible way, but also to get caught up in the spirit of the place. This is also evident in the program: there were lots of tears, smiles, cheers and joy!"
Eva Botros, who was in charge of leading the 250 volunteers, had seen SAT-7's people getting ready to cover the event: "I was amazed to see the spirit and helpfulness that the team showed towards the others involved in the event. Even when there were difficult last-minute changes, they displayed a professional and Christian humility."
The enthusiasm of the participants lasted throughout the evening: they sent loving greetings to the Muslims via SAT-7's broadcast, at one point shouting "Jesus" over and over again for an entire 15 minutes. Through SAT-7's coverage, viewers across the region were also able to join in the prayers for their respective countries and prayer in general.
In the days following the event, Samir said that several TV stations have approached him for permission to air the footage on their channels.
"We pray and believe that God is able to perform miracles in the Middle East and North Africa through His church," Samir concluded. "We are so happy for the way God has blessed us by allowing us to be part of His great plan."
