Beeson Podcast, Episode 552 Ellen Vaughn June 8, 2021 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Kristen Padilla: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m Kristen Padilla, co-host of the Beeson Podcast. In case you missed last week’s episode, we are replaying some of our greatest hits on the podcast during the summer while our podcast team takes a break to plan for the next season. By the way, the new season will begin on August 3rd. Last week we played for you a conversation with Dr. Andrew Westmoreland from 2013. Today, we want to play for you a conversation our former host, Dr. Timothy George had with Ellen Vaughn in 2015 called, “In the Garbage Slums of Cairo.” Ellen is the author of, “Mama Maggie: The Untold Story of One Woman's Mission to Love the Forgotten Children of Egypt's Garbage Slums.” And in this episode she shares about the amazing story of Mama Maggie. Ellen Vaughn is a New York Times Best Selling Author and inspirational speaker. We hope you will enjoy listening to this episode from our archives. >>Timothy George: Welcome to today’s Beeson Podcast. I have the honor today of speaking with Ellen Vaughn. She’s been a friend of mine for a long time. We’ve worked together in the past with Chuck Colson and Prison Fellowship Ministries. And now we share an assignment together, we’re both Senior Fellows of the newly formed Wilberforce Initiative. We may say a little bit about that as we move along, but my reason for talking to Ellen today is to profile her brand new book, “Mama Maggie.” It’s a book published by Thomas Nelson, “Mama Maggie: The Untold Story of One Woman's Mission to Love the Forgotten Children of Egypt's Garbage Slums.” You’re going to want to hear the story about Mama Maggie. So, Ellen, welcome to the Beeson Podcast. >>Ellen Vaughn: Thank you so much for having me. It’s great to be with you guys. >>Timothy George: Now, let’s begin by just telling us, who is Mama Maggie? >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, it was interesting for me you sign on to write a book about this woman, that’s the first thing you need to discover: Who is Mama Maggie? And she is an Egyptian woman. She comes from an upper-class Egyptian background. Very wealthy, strong believer in Jesus, and she saw what was happening in the garbage slums of Cairo, and she could not turn away. So, she started a ministry to work with the people there. And that’s the story that we were drawn to write when we took on this book. >>Timothy George: And she’s been called the Mother Teresa of Egypt because of this ministry that she has. >>Ellen Vaughn: Mm hmm (Affirmative). She has. >>Timothy George: Tell us about her background, her faith, and so forth. >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, it’s really great that she’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize about six times. You know? So, members of Congress in Washington DC and other people who nominate for such things have seen her work that she’s done and said, “Whoa, this is great stuff.” But again, she was an upper-class Egyptian woman, had every advantage in terms of her family of origin. She was a university professor. >>Timothy George: At the American University of Cairo, right? >>Ellen Vaughn: Right, which is pretty prestigious. >>Timothy George: Yeah. >>Ellen Vaughn: She went with members of her church, maybe twice a year, Christmas and Easter, into the garbage slums like many of us might do with our own churches here in the US. Go to poor areas. But what happened with Maggie Gobran is she went into those areas and she realized, “Oh my goodness, this is a life I couldn’t even imagine. Why was I born into wealth? Why was I born into all these situations of advantage? I could have been ... That could have been my childhood, living in a big pile of garbage. That could have been me.” And so she really felt like, “I have a choice. Oh, Lord Jesus.” Her choice was, “I can either turn toward that and really try to do something and make a difference, or I can kind of turn away and keep coming twice a year.” >>Timothy George: Now, there actually is a place in Cairo called “The Garbage District,” right? >>Ellen Vaughn: Mm hmm (Affirmative). Yeah. >>Timothy George: Describe that to us and how people live ... Why do people live there? >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, (laughs), it’s not a matter of choice most probably, right? >>Timothy George: Right. >>Ellen Vaughn: So, you fly into Cairo, you come in over ... You see the Nile River and that green cataract of where things are green and beautiful, the pyramids, and you feel like, “Oh my gosh. These are ancient, ancient lands.” And then in Cairo there are about six different garbage districts. The biggest one is called Mokattam. It houses about 50,000 poor people who have no other place to live. Most of them are Coptic Christians. They have come from the rural countryside. They’ve been abused and persecuted maybe by the majority religion in those areas. They have nowhere else to go. They flee. They run. They go to this place in Cairo and there’s nothing for them to do. So, the garbage district ... It’s not like living on the edge of the garbage dump. I’ve been in poor places around the world. I’ve seen that. For these people the garbage is, it’s their livelihood. They are the garbage sorters of Cairo. So, the sorters for about 22 million people. They go out in the mornings, these people, and they have maybe an emaciated donkey pulling a wooden donkey cart, and they go into different neighborhoods and they’re calling out, “Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!” They’re the garbage people. So, they gather the garbage. They bring it back home and they sort it for maybe what we would consider some pennies a day. >>Timothy George: Kind of re-sale at whatever they can get for it. >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah. Exactly. It is the most efficient recycling on the planet. I mean, they do a great, great job. But they live in a very poor place. They are looked down on by many, many people. They are Coptic Christians, which is sort of a cultural note on them. They may have the cross tattooed on their wrist, but they don’t know what that means. Okay? >>Timothy George: Tell us what Coptic Christianity is. Some of our listeners may not know. >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah. Right. And if I could do that I would be amazing, if I could do it in a very short period of time. But I’m an Evangelical Christian. I go into Cairo, go into Egypt, and oh my goodness, I am so taken by this ancient faith. Coptic Christianity in Egypt, it’s like Orthodox Christianity in other parts of the world. And so one of Jesus’ friends, Mark, goes into Egypt, right, and he spreads the gospel. Before he is martyred in Alexandria, Egypt sometime in the end of the first century. And so Coptic Christianity, all it meant was Egyptian Christians. And it spread, it spread, it spread and so Egypt was primarily Coptic Christians until about the 7th century. Then Islam began to spread. Eventually, over the course of the years Islam spread more and more. So, what you have today is Egypt is the biggest Christian minority in the Middle East. It’s 90% Muslim, about 10% Christian. Mostly Coptic Christians and ancient Orthodox belief, as well as some Evangelicals and Catholics and others. >>Timothy George: Mm hmm (Affirmative). So, it’s an ancient tradition within the Christian family going back to the very earliest days of the apostles in the Early Church. One of the figures I have my students read when I teach Christian history is St. Anthony. He comes out of that matrix, doesn’t he? >>Ellen Vaughn: Yes, he does. And for me to go to his ancient monastery with Mama Maggie ... You proceed out of Cairo, you go through the desert, you get to the Red Sea, you take a right turn, and then you’re at his monastery. This is from, what, the third century? >>Timothy George: Well, the fourth century, 363. They said that his monastery was built. So, very, very early in the Christian story. Soon after the conversion of Constantine. And prior to the time of Augustine. >>Ellen Vaughn: Right, and the Desert Fathers, the Desert Mothers. I never knew the Desert Mothers existed [crosstalk 00:09:07] >>Timothy George: They kind of get left out of the story, don’t they? >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah, they do. But this incredible tradition of courage and of faith. What I found, too, was such a sense of martyrdom. These people have been dying for their Christian faith for thousands of years. >>Timothy George: I want to get back to the Mama Maggie story in a minute, but just the fact that you mention that now, the martyrdom, we’ve heard recently at least in this country about the Coptic Christians who were beheaded in Libya on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. And many of those were believers, weren’t they? Coptic Christians who were believers. >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, from what I understand they weren’t just cultural [inaudible 00:09:52]. They were people who knew Jesus personally. And when I met with Mama Maggie, when the book was released, she came to Washington DC, the hub of the universe where I live, and she told us about how seven of those 21 were boys that she had ministered to when they were young. These were guys who knew the scriptures. Mama Maggie is huge on biblical teaching, on scriptural memorization, and these guys who died on that beach in Libya, they weren’t just sort of Coptic Christians by name. They were whispering the name of Jess as they died. >>Timothy George: Yeah. Wow, that was so impressive to hear that and see that in the face of this kind of almost unbelievable terrorist activity. >>Ellen Vaughn: Oh my goodness, yeah. >>Timothy George: Primarily because they were Christians. I mena, that’s why they were designated for that kind of treatment. >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah, they were sought out by ISIS. Some of their cousins and others sort of remained to tell the tale, if you will. And so what the ISIS guys did is they went into that place in Libya where these migrant workers were living. “Where are the Christians? Where are the Christians?” And they took those guys because they were Christian. >>Timothy George: Now, your book, you’ve written this book with Dr. Marty Makary, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. Tell us a little bit about how your collaboration came together and really how this story developed and your own writing of it? >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah. Well, what a gift. I feel like my calling from God is to write stories of what the Lord God is doing around the world in people’s lives. Marty Makary approached me, let’s see, in the summer of 2013. Pretty volitile time in Egypt. He knew of the story because he, as a doctor from Johns Hopkins, had taken a medical team over to the garbage slums of Cairo. And he had taken in people to work with the basic medical needs of these poor children, many of whom die before they are five years old. There are rats, there is every kind of disease, this is a bad situation. So, Marty took in a medical team to this place and he saw the story that Mama Maggie is telling with her life. And he said, “Oh my gosh, this is a book that has to be written.” And so he had a friend who knew of me and the next thing I knew we were meeting. Next thing I knew I was in Egypt. >>Timothy George: And so you actually visited Egypt, you met Mama Maggie? Tell us what she’s like as a person. >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, you know, sometimes it’s hard to describe people like this, because she is a really interesting conundrum. In the book we try to explain it. And I think she comes across as a very appealing character. She was a marketing professor. She was at the top of her field before she switched over to do full time ministry. She is really pragmatic. She is quite a mover and a shaker, if you will. On one hand. Okay, so you have that side of her. Then you have the other side of her who is a person who she loves Jesus. When I went with her to the desert to the desolate places, Father Anthony’s place that you just mentioned. >>Timothy George: The monastery. >>Ellen Vaughn: Yes, the monastery. She would take such delight in the wind and the rocks and the sun and would just murmur out, “Oh, Lord Jesus. Oh, Lord Jesus.” She had such a relationship with him. So, she is really a contemplative person. She is very biblically oriented. She knows the scriptures backwards and forwards. If you saw her Bible, it is all marked up like any Evangelical Bible that we would want to see. >>Timothy George: Now, that’s an interesting thing that you’re mentioning, because a lot of Western Christians, Evangelical Christians, when we think of Eastern Christianity, Orthodox Christians, we don’t think of the Bible. We don’t think of Bible study and underlining verses, we think of icons, we think of maybe some of the mystical aura of a liturgical service, but you found there a deeply rooted biblical faith. >>Ellen Vaughn: I found it all together. I’m very biblio-centric, if you will. And so when I went there and I saw the sense of the ancient history of the Church, and the icons, and things that were a little bit foreign to me, and at the same time when you go to a meeting of Mama Maggie’s staff people they stand up at the beginning of the meeting and the first thing they do is the recite from memory Matthew 5, 6, 7. Those are the marching orders for their ministry. >>Timothy George: That’s the Sermon on the Mount, right? >>Ellen Vaughn: Yes. So, the biblical memory is so central to what they do. And so central to what they teach the children in the garbage slums. I saw that and I really felt the power of the ancient history of this Church of which I knew not much. And at the same time the sense of the immediacy of the scriptures. And you know what? Also, I have to say, just thinking about the Early Church. Look at the Book of Acts. Look at the martyrdom of the people in those days. And then you look at the Egyptian Church and what they have gone through over the years for the sake of the gospel. I mean, they have been so faithful. And so I, as an Evangelical, I know nothing about Coptic Christianity, but it was like, “Whoa, I am with them. We are one.” >>Timothy George: We had a Coptic Christian woman, actually, come to Beeson Divinity School some years ago as a student. And she told these stories of deeply rooted Christian faith in that culture. And against great adversity. That seems to be reflected also in the Mama Maggie story. You said it’s an untold story. Why is it untold? >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, I think part of it is untold because she has really operated under the radar. Now, here’s a woman who has many death threats on her head. Here’s a woman whose ministry is probably the largest ministry in the Middle East. She has maybe 1200 people who work with her for very low wages, believe me. This is not ... (laughs). So, I think it’s untold just because they felt like they were not ready for the story to be told. And yet, at the same time, we wrote this book, we wrote this story that is full of the stories of people who have been rescued from the garbage slums. And young people who have come to adulthood and whose lives have been turned around and then in turn, the lives of their children. It’s a generational turn. And at the same time, oh my goodness, look at this in the world that we see right now. This persecution of Coptic Christians. >>Timothy George: Yeah. Your story has kind of a double layered meaning to it. There’s this remarkable woman, Mama Maggie, in Cairo who develops this tremendous compassion in the name of Jesus to care for these displaced people, these garbage children in the city who need love, who need care, who need a good Word, who need basic education and food. And at the same time this is a part of a culture in which Christianity is more and more oppressed. The whole reality of the Arab Spring, which promised so much hope to that world, really hasn’t turned out that way, has it? >>Ellen Vaughn: Well, I am not a political commentator, and those are complicated issues. I will tell you, when I first went to Egypt was in the summer of 2013. So, if you recall, that was right after President Mohamed Morsi had deposed by popular demand in the streets. >>Timothy George: And Mohamed Morsi, just for our listeners, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who came to power in the wake of the revolution that was the Arab Spring in Egypt. And so he was deposed to this great popular uprising, this is when you entered into the story of Mama Maggie? >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah. And so the people on the streets, if you Google that, you look at the marching in the streets. Remember, again, that one in ten of the people marching would be Christians. So, obviously, a very popular Muslim people on the streest saying, “Let’s get rid of this guy. He is not for Egypt.” Okay? And so then there was a period of some volatility. What happened in August of 2013, just before I first went to Egypt to write this book, was the churches began to burn. That was something that came through to the West. At least we had those images of the churches burning. Egyptians Bible Society, Catholic Churches, Catholic convents, Evangelical Churches, Coptic Churches, all over Cairo, upper and lower Egypt, burning, burning, burning. And what happened in the wake of that, we write about it in the book, incredible ... Because what happened was on the ruined walls of the burned churches, messages began to go up. Scrawled on the walls and maybe a banner went up, what did they say? They said, “We forgive you. We love you.” And it wasn’t like some email went out to all the Christian entities in Egypt saying, “This is how we’re going to respond.” No, it was a movement of the Holy Spirit. “We forgive.” >>Timothy George: And this is exactly what Jesus did on the cross. He didn’t just say it once the way we sometimes read it in the gospels, but over and over again, repeatedly, “Father, forgive them ...” forgive, forgive, forgive. And this is part of who Christians are called to be and to follow, is Christ and his forgiveness that comes from the cross. What a great example of light in the midst of a lot of darkness. >>Ellen Vaughn: We have so much to learn from them. Our brothers and sisters there. I am humbled by their courage and every person I interviewed. I interviewed teenagers in Egypt who said, “You know? We are willing to die for our faith.” What teenagers say that in the US? (laughs) And I don’t want to be mean. I have teenage kids. But it’s just there is such a mindset there for the cause of the cross, we will prevail in Jesus’ name. >>Timothy George: Ellen, tell us the story of the cave church. I know you’ve seen that in Cairo. What is it? What’s it significance? >>Ellen Vaughn: Yeah, I wish I could explain it better, but okay, you go into the garbage slum of Makattam. It is teaming. It is full of activity and need and all kinds of dark pain. And you climb up the hill into the limestone cliffs that are above the garbage village there. And you’re in an area where actually stones were cut from these cliffs for the pyramids about a gazillion years ago. Maybe six thousand years ago. Right? And there is a natural formation there. The first Christians in the garbage village began to dig in the 1970s and they dug out what looked like a natural sort of place. And they found this huge natural cave that is lit from above. It can seat about 20,000 people. And so when you go into the cave church it is an enormous facility of thanks and grace to God. It’s a tourist stop in Cairo. So, you’ll have people coming on buses through the garbage village, not so lovely, to see the cave church. In 2011, just before the Arab Spring, it was a place where Egyptians on November 11th, 2011, they gathered to pray for their nation. They prayed first for personal repentance, then corporate repentance, then, “Oh, Lord, have mercy on our nation.” I think we should do the same. So, to hear them tell it, God really visited them in that. They felt like the things that happened after that, they called it “the birth pangs” of their nation. Right now is a great time of opportunity in Egypt. >>Timothy George: This is still an unfolding story, isn’t it? As Christians continue to face new challenges and find in the reservoir of the Christian story, hope and compassion to live out the gospel. Oz Guinness said about Mama Maggie that, “She is the white angel of Cairo’s garbage city. Without her love, shining radiance, and tireless practical help, thousands of lives would be hell on earth.” You’ve brought a kind of living saint into our awareness by writing this book with Dr. Martin Makary. And thank you for doing that. Before we have to close this podcast, Ellen, maybe you could say just a word about the Wilberforce Initiative, because it’s related in a significant way to what you’ve done in this book, I think. >>Ellen Vaughn: Very much so. I would say two things. I would say, one, Mama Maggie is the most humble person you would ever want to see. She just feels like she’s doing what Jesus has called her to do. Second, Wilberforce, 21st century, Wilberforce Initiative, I feel and maybe you feel the same way, or maybe you’ve been on this track for a while, Timothy, but I feel like in the time I have left in this life I really feel like the focus on our brothers and sisters who are persecuted for their faith around the world, what better could I invest in? And so I am a storyteller. So, it’s my job to tell these stories of people who are in places that are probably pretty far and to the rest of us who just go to Starbucks and have comfortable lives, but oh my goodness, we are part of one Church, and we in the West have a big job to do, to pray, to give, to do all kinds of things. Go to the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative website. See what you can do. Because if we ignore this, it will be to our detriment. >>Timothy George: You and I first met through our friendship with the late Chuck Colson. And you actually collaborated with Church on a number of his books, including what I think is his best book, “Being the Body.” Which is really about the Church. It’s about Christian unity. And in some ways I think you’re telling the story Mama Maggie very much fits into that pattern of what God is doing across the world, in different traditions and confessions that own Jesus, that honor the scriptures, and that want to follow the will of God in this troubled time in which we live. So, thank you so much for telling this story. And making us aware of it. Thank you for your good work. I look forward to seeing you again in our next meeting, and hope to talk to you again soon. Thank you so much, Ellen. >>Ellen Vaughn: Thanks so much, Timothy. Appreciate it. >>Timothy George: God bless you. >>Ellen Vaughn: And you as well. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.