A while back my SAT-7 colleagues in the UK developed a new website called Wazala.org. It features issues, news, views, developments, and challenges in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In particular, Wazala keeps an eye on Christians, Christianity, and the Church in the region. Wazala is a derivative of the Arabic word "wasala," meaning to connect, to join, to reach out.

Who can deny that MENA is a strategic region? Virtually every night, in some way, the region is featured in stories on international news channels. If you know much about biblical prophecy you know the region plays a prominent if not predominant role in the End Times. Add to this oil and other economic considerations, the volatile position of the “island” of Israel, and the fact that three wars continue to plague the region—depending upon whether you believe Afghanistan is part of the ME, depending upon how you evaluate fighting in Iraq, and depending upon whether you believe the Libyan Revolution is a “war,” at least in terms of Western involvement. In any event, MENA is strategic by about any definition of the term.

Wazala.org references things political, but it is not given to political prescription. Rather, Wazala attempts to apply a Christian perspective to developments in MENA. In this the site provides the rest of us a service. The West, and especially America, needs to learn more about MENA. We need to learn how cultures function where there is essentially no separation of Church and State. We need to understand not simply news-network-theology but the deeper, theologically complex, layered nuances of the region’s dominant religion. The more we learn the more, hopefully, we understand. The more we understand the more we will be able to give an answer of the hope that lies within our Christian faith.

I highly and without reservation recommend to you www.wazala.org. It’s good to learn the Lord is at work in MENA. Indeed, “He is there and he is not silent.”

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2011

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