Intolerance continues in the land of the Nile-
An off-duty policeman boarded a train and opened fire on Tuesday, killing a 71-year-old Christian man and wounding his wife and four others, the Interior Ministry said. The attack, less than two weeks after a suicide bombing of a church that killed 21, sparked new demonstrations by enraged Christians who pelted police with stones in southern Egypt. The church attack on worshippers leaving a New Year’s Mass in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria touched off three days of riots and demonstrations by furious Christians who criticized the government for failing to protect them and vented over what they see as persistent discrimination.
And yes, it was a crime aimed at Christians-
All of the casualties in the latest attack were Christians — four of them women — raising concerns it will ignite a new wave of protests by a community still traumatized by the suicide bombing. Soon after the attack, hundreds of angry Copts gathered outside the hospital where the wounded were being treated in the central Egyptian province of Minya and stoned police. It was not immediately clear whether the gunman knew his targets were Christians. But four of the five wounded were Christian women who stand out in the conservative south as they would probably not have been wearing headscarves as most Muslim women do. The ministry statement identified the policeman as Amer Ashour Abdel-Zaher, a 23-year-old Muslim, and said he boarded the Cairo-bound train at the town of Samalout in Minya province and opened fire on the passengers with a handgun.
Egyptians can spot Christians the way Catholics can spot Priests. The hatred and violence against Christians by Muslims in Egypt is a growing problem. Suffer no illusions about the matter.
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- Deadly gun attack on Egypt train (bbc.co.uk)
Zwinglius Redivivus 
I work with a Coptic organization that operates throughout Egypt, primarily through church-based volunteers who visit the homes of the fatherless and widow in their areas, and connect them to various resources to break the cycle of poverty.
I do so as a non-Egyptian because I want to strengthen the Body of Christ in Egypt, and I think that the best way to do that is at the most grassroots level. That’s the level where political cultures of acceptable intolerance make the most difference, as we see in this story, and as many Copts see in their daily lives; but it’s also the level where we will see the greatest acts of witness to the gospel when the local church is supported in being itself – salt and light in Egyptian society.
Coptic Orphans is available to speak in churches about the situation in Egypt. I personally have chosen to sponsor a child in Egypt as a way to encourage and support the Egyptian Body of Christ through an individual family.
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