Egypt update

Posted by Ali

**Newest updates**
12:52 p.m. (TZ time): Bryn is on her way to the airport in a taxi with the missionary couple who are leaving early and also the secretary of the Egypt Field Office. The secretary might not be able to go into the airport with them all since she is not a traveler and we've heard that only travelers can go inside. The American couple are going to try to find a way to get Bryn onto their flight. That's all I know for now. Even if she gets a ticket out we don't know where she will be flying to or where she will go from there. Check back here for more updates throughout the day.

3:19 p.m. (TZ time): Bryn got to the airport safely and tried to buy a ticket out of Egypt, but found that there were no more tickets left to buy. She thought she would have to return to the field office compound with the secretary because it of the early curfew (it was at 4 p.m. on Saturday but moved up to 3 p.m. yesterday and today starts at 1 p.m.), but just as they were leaving she spotted a Canadian flag. The lady holding the flag was from the Canadian evacuation team and got Bryn registered to be on the evacuation list. So right now she is with the team and other Canadians trying to get a flight out of Egypt. I think she will be heading to Frankfurt, Germany and, from there, most likely back home for now.  My parents are going to be calling her every half an hour or so to make sure things are going OK. I'll update when she's confirmed to be on a plane and heading out of Cairo.

9:17 p.m. (TZ time): She's on the plane! After hours of waiting in the airport with the Canadian group leaving on the first Canadian chartered flight out of Egypt, she's finally finished all the paperwork, gone through passport control, found her gate and boarded the Air Canada 777-300 plane. The bad news is she's still waiting on the ground to be able to leave. The craziest thing we've heard from her so far is that the Egyptian officials at the airport said they couldn't leave the airport until the group paid $2,000. They paid it and then the officials still didn't want to let them leave! Bryn said that there was a news crew filming the plane and she thinks it might be CBC news soon. Right now we're all just hoping and praying that the airport officials will let the plane take off. When she arrives on German soil we will just all be soooo relieved!! Thank you ALL for your thoughts and especially your prayers for Bryn.

10:14 p.m. (TZ time): They're in the air! Praise God. Next update, when she arrives in Frankfurt :)

___________________

So since Friday the news from Egypt is drastically different. Before the weekend Bryn was relatively safe in Heliopolis, an area of Cairo, and was staying in her apartment like the e-mails she received from the Canadian embassy cautioned.

Saturday:

Our family got word from Bryn's boyfriend, Josh, that he had been able to call her on an international calling site, Rebtel. He gave us the website so we could try talking to her ourselves. My parents used it and were able to talk to her, too, finding out that she had been staying in her apartment with her two Egyptian roommates. Later in the day the three girls went over to the Egypt Field office president's apartment to talk to him and his wife about the best actions for them to take. At that time they still felt quite safe in their neighbourhood, safer than they felt about trying to travel to the airport in all the chaos in other parts of the city.

Bryn said she was OK with leaving if she came to stay with me in Tanzania until things settle down, but she didn't want to come home. She is hoping the situation will improve in time and she can go back and finish her work with the preschool kids until the end of her scheduled work term.

Some other volunteers and I Skyped with Shae on Saturday afternoon and the first thing she wanted to talk about was Bryn and how she was doing (they all met Bryn when she came to Tanzania for a visit in November). She told me that she was, right at that moment, writing an e-mail to the leader of her church's praise team to ask for prayer for Bryn and other SMs and missionaries in Egypt. I was so thankful for her care and concern about the situation and it was a huge relief to know that the whole Florida Hospital Church, as well as countless friends and relatives all over the globe, were praying for Bryn's safety.

Sunday:

My parents talked to Bryn again. She said she was still feeling safest in her room but would definitely leave if people in charge decided that was best. A lady who knew Bryn and who I met at Christmas flew out on Sunday with the help of her company and said the airport was terrifying. She was in contact with my parents once she landed and said to get Bryn out as soon as possible.

Monday:

Bryn's definitely leaving. She's packing up her things, trying to figure out which items to take with her in her one allotted suitcase and which things to leave. The things she leaves will either have to be sent to her later when more plans are made and she knows more about what she'll be doing for the rest of this year or else, if she is able to go back to Egypt at a later time, she'll get them herself.

I'm getting absolutely no work done today. I'm checking the news sites, typing with my mum and trying to help in any way I possibly can (which is hardly at all).

Bryn is scared to travel alone. There is a missionary couple who would have been done their mission term in February but are leaving now since it's so close to their scheduled leaving time anyway. They said they'd be willing to take Bryn to the airport with them, but they would have to just leave her once they got to the airport and they said they would NOT leave her alone there. There are other SMs needing to leave, too. They worked at Nile Union Academy, about an hour from where Bryn lived. NUA closed late last week and sent all their students home if they could get there. Not sure where the SMs are staying while all these decisions are being made. My mum has told me that one SM from NUA, a girl (and I know there was only one girl serving there this year), is getting out and going back to the US. She also heard that another SM was going to Beirut and that one, the other SM from Southern, wanted to stay. Not sure how confirmed those bits of news were...it's hard to know since things keep changing so fast.

The lady who got out yesterday is communicating with my parents and told them to tell Bryn NOT to bring any carry-on luggage or even any luggage at all because the airport is so packed with people that they are just leaving their luggage outside the airport and rushing inside to try to find a ticket out of the country.

I just want my sister safe and sound, no matter which country she ends up in for the time being. I wish it could be Tanzania so I could personally look after her and make sure she's OK, but it looks like she might be heading back to North America after all.

Alexandria on New Year's Eve