Untitled - St.Francis Magazine

St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 2 | April 2012 biographies of Arab pioneers that will now be given. But what is probably far more revealing than any such summary are the descriptions which then follow of people and landscapes that emerge from a collection of reports from the CMS archives written by some of those six pioneers. Their own words, even translated into an English form that sometimes obscures the clarity of Arabic names and places, bring a fresh perspective to the story of Anglican origins. It is not too fanciful to suggest that their journeys through the Transjordan in particular have an apostolic ring to them, written with the insight of one who is a local, but aware that a whole new future might be awakening. 5. Arab Pioneers 5.1 Biographical sketches The following descriptions of seven Arab Christian pioneers are brought together from a number of different sources within and beyond the CMS archives and, no doubt, they could be expanded considerably with further research. The amount of information given in any instance is purely a reflection of the amount of information so far obtained, and nothing to do with any kind of relative importance of ministry or measure of success. Michael Kawar: described as a Syrian, he came from Nazareth from a Greek Catholic background. Records show that he served as a catechist for CMS from 1854 in the cities of Nablus, Haifa, Acre, and Nazareth. He was, with Seraphim Boutaji, the first Arab Anglican to be ordained deacon, by Bishop Gobat on October 1st 1871, on the day of the opening of the 302