Source: Open Doors, January 21, 2018<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you Christian?\u201d<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old husband and father of five Bassem Herz Attalhah didn\u2019t hesitate to answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I am Christian,\u201d he told his attackers and then immediately proclaimed his faith a second time in a loud voice:\u00a0\u201cYes, I am Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bassem was on his way home from work in El-Arish, where he and his brother, Osama, had opened a mobile phone shop. He was with Osama and their neighbor and friend Mohamed when three men stopped them and asked Bassem to show them the wrist of his right hand (Coptic Christians wear a small black tattoo of a cross on their right wrist\u2014a visible reminder and sign of their faith and also a form of identification since many churches station security at their doors to check that those entering are Christians).<\/p>\n
When the men saw the tattoo of the cross, they asked Bassem the fatal question. The men then asked Mohamed his name and made him show his wrist. When they saw he had no tattoo, he was allowed to leave. Then they turned to Osama.<\/p>\n
\u201cBassem told them that I had children,\u201d Osama recalls. \u201cThey asked me to show them the wrist of my right hand and, when they didn\u2019t see any cross, they thought that I was Muslim.\u201d (The men didn\u2019t see the cross that Osama has tattooed on the top of his hand, hidden by his sleeve.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lost a person dear to our hearts,\u201d Osama said. \u201cMy brother Bassem was a very good and kind man. He had a strong relationship with God. He was always reading in the Bible, praying, and going to the church. He was loved by all people.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Bassem\u2019s close friend Milad Wasfi heard he had been killed, he couldn\u2019t believe it and called his friend\u2019s phone. His call was answered, but not by his friend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe terrorists answered me and said they belong to State of Sinai and promised to kill more Copts before they put down the phone,\u201d he told World Watch Monitor.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Full story<\/a> includes a prayer for the Christians of Egypt and says the war on Christianity in Egypt is intensifying. In 2017, 130 Christians were reportedly killed for their faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Open Doors, January 21, 2018 \u201cAre you Christian?\u201d The 27-year-old husband and father of five Bassem Herz Attalhah didn\u2019t hesitate to answer. \u201cYes, I am Christian,\u201d he told his attackers and then immediately proclaimed his faith a second time in a loud voice:\u00a0\u201cYes, I am Christian.\u201d Bassem was on his way home from work … Continue reading EGYPT: \u201cYes, I Am a Christian\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7651,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions\/7651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}