A few days ago here in Wisconsin, it was in the 60s. The air was warm. Children laughed and played. Adults laughed and played. The grip of winter lay broken under the weight of sunshine and joy and …

Spring 2014, central Wisconsin – photo by LB

“What’s that you said, Mr. Weatherman? Winter storm warning? Liar! March just crawled away like a whimpering lamb …”

Poor, deluded soul. Spring is the ficklest season, tempting you with charms only a fool would embrace. She dances with many partners — winter, summer, tornado. She loves you, drenches you, then freezes you — giggling all the while at your torment.

But we don’t lose hope. There are a lot of things in this world to lose hope over this spring (for me, it’s my always-awful Chicago Cubs). But the weather sure isn’t one of them, no matter how hard the wind blows.

During what came to be known as the Arab Spring three years ago, new winds of hope blew through Egypt like a sandstorm. Everyday people with almost nothing in their pockets and little hope of change finally got so sick of living in constant fear and stuck-ness that they gathered by the hundreds of thousands in Tahrir (Liberty) Square, in central Cairo, to force the authorities to change or be changed.

Spring 2011, Cairo – photo by Jonathan Rashad

They got changed. First Hosni Mubarak. Then the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother of all terrorist organizations, which the people and the army ousted after the Brotherhood spent its year in control terrorizing its own people with violence and the arrogance of power. If the demonstrations illustrated just one thing, it was the eagerness of people who wanted change, who needed change, to band together despite what appeared to be deep religious and social differences.

This was particularly on display with Muslim and Christian protesters, who protected each other from gangs of thugs and stood side by side to pray and even worship in Tahrir Square during some tough days, when demonstrating could get you beaten, jailed or even killed. And when the largest evangelical church in the Middle East, Kasr el-Dobara, opened up its building near Tahrir Square as a field hospital to treat the people who were injured in the demonstrations, it gave Christians a brand-new profile in the country. It moved the church from “outsider” status to “fellow Egyptian” status.

With that new profile, Christians in Egypt have fresh reason for hope. But they also need our prayers. As we tell their stories on Crossfield News, please pray for them as they pursue God’s call to spread the hope of Jesus Christ to everyone, everywhere across their nation.