Joy in Cairo (MENA GR Conference 2025 Report)
May 2025
Friendship, encouragement, vision, equipping, collaboration, dining, worship, and prayer are the best words to summarize the recent Simply Mobilizing conference for the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region. Being held from 3rd to 6th February in wonderful conference facilities near Cairo, provided a warm place for building relationships and digesting the material presented by Geof Gunton (SMI Associate Director), Damaris Flores (MENA Youth Coordinator), and others.
SM leaders from the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Iraq, Lebanon, and Mauritania provided good but limited representation from MENA countries. Complementing a special update on SMI (which Geof presented) and a great update on the East Asia region (presented by Jay Ryu), representatives from each MENA country shared of both victories and progress in the mobilization. God is doing an amazing job in mobilizing Christians in this challenging part of the world.
The conference theme “Building a Mobilization Movement” was very obvious during our first day which was focused on building and sustaining a movement. All conference participants were presented with a big challenge, especially considering the difficulties and complexities of our region.
One of our complexities of the MENA region is our very young population. It is estimated that 50% of the current population are less than 25 years of age. The focus of our second day was on youth and intergenerational mobilization. This special conference day was enriched by a group of Egyptian university students who had taken TUSfY.
Our last day gave our diverse groups the opportunity to think through, pray, and respond to the challenge of building a mobilization movement in MENA and formulating some action steps for 2025-2026.
Each element of the program worked to equip and prepare us to, by faith, take hold of this exciting future for God’s people in all of MENA, including the many who will become part of God’s family in the process.
For some the conference continued an extra day with an excursion to see some pyramids and museums, giving valuable time to build relationships and encourage each other to love and do good deeds.
We especially thank Daniel and Magdy who did the lion’s share of the administration and preparation for this great conference.
After years of great leadership, our conference marked the occasion for Joel Kim to officially step down as MENA’s GRC (Global Region Coordinator) and this role was passed onto me. For me, personally, this conference emphasized is the importance of fulling embracing Level 1 mobilization. Throughout our region a growing number of churches, denominations and mission agencies have incorporated SM products into their toolboxes. Facilitated by the Interface Workshops (soon to be trialled) and School of Mobilizers (coming in 2027), the next step is to help them fully embrace all tools in the SM toolbox and be equipped to use them all.