farewell to chaplain from Arab Times

‘Kuwait is a safe country for Christian Community’
Rev Thompson to embark on new journey

KUWAIT CITY, June 14: Being the Chaplain of St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Ahmadi in Muslim Kuwait has been a very delightful and educational journey according to Reverend Andrew Thompson and the Christian community can testify that he has brought comfort to many lives.
Sadly some journeys must come to an end for new ones to begin and Rev. Thompson’s new adventure will be taking place in Abu Dhabi where he will reside as the Senior Chaplain of The Church of Abu Dhabi. He will be heading off to the Gulf state with his wife and three children at the end of June.
“I am going to be enormously sad about leaving Kuwait. Kuwait is a very interesting country because there is such a diversity of people here. The people who leave their home country to come to work and live here are very motivated and it has been very rewarding meeting people like that,” said Rev. Thompson speaking to the Arab Times.

Awareness
Reflecting on his time in Kuwait, Reverend Thompson, who was also a regular columnist for the Arab Times, recalled first coming to the country and being surprised at how large the Christian community was here.
Like many people around the world, he believed that Kuwait as a Muslim country meant that there were a lot of restrictions on Christians practicing their faith and he was amazed to find out that the opposite was true.
“When I came to Kuwait, it was basically the tail end of the second Gulf War. There were a lot of expatriates here who were wrapping up the business in Iraq. There were a lot of military in the Churches and there was always the awareness that there was a war going on and there was real tension,” he recalled.
Rev Thompson remembered being called by the British Embassy of Kuwait to go visit a British soldier who has been wounded in action at Al-Sabah Hospital. He had lost an arm in a mortar attack. “That was a reminder to me that Kuwait is really in a very hot spot. Then Iraq became more and more invisible.”
“In my four years in Kuwait, never once have I had any negative contact with the Kuwaiti government and I’ve not had any experience of trouble or hostile persecution. Non of that exists here,” assured the Rev. Thompson.
In order to promote the tolerance and religious freedom provided by the state of Kuwait, the Reverend authored a book entitled ‘The Christian Church in Kuwait - Religious Freedom in the Gulf’ and it was published and launched earlier this year.
“What I have noticed in Kuwait is that there are lots of opportunities to learn about Islam, which is important. It is important that the world learns about Islam from the Muslim perspective, but it is equally important for Muslims to learn and understand about people of other faiths, not only Christianity but Hinduism and other religions as well,” said Rev. Thompson.
He explained that religious freedom also includes education. It is not religious freedom when one group in power says you are not allowed to learn about the rest. Therefore the Reverend was delighted about the creation of the Islamic Christian Relations Council which is a huge step towards strengthening ties between the Muslims and Christians of Kuwait.

Appreciate
“Responsible freedom says you need to appreciate the global community and that way you can take away any misperceptions, misunderstandings and fear. I find Kuwait to be a very safe country for the Christian community. The only restriction for the Christian community is the missionary activity of the Christian Church,” the Reverend added.
He was surprised to learn that missionary activity is perceived as an aggressive activity by the government - coercion, manipulating and forcing someone to change their religion - which, according to the Reverend, no Church would ever do, at least not at this day and age. “There probably was coercion in the past but not now,” he commented.
The biggest challenge Reverend Thompson has faced in Kuwait was witnessing the misery of thousands and thousands of domestic laborers with being able to do much about it.
“If you come from a country like the Philippines and India, in their home countries the Church is very essential to their community. So when they are in trouble, the first person they call up is not the police or the hospital, quite often it is the Church,” he said. “That very quickly became apparent to me that part of my ministry to the expatriate community here was being a voice for those who have no voice... and I took the opportunity to write for the Arab Times.”
What particularly disturbs the Reverend about the domestic laborer issue in Kuwait is that these workers have no protection of the law.

Domestics
“There is a labor law but domestic workers are not covered by it. I suppose if the Church was to say anything at all it would be ‘please can you have a law that would cover the rights of all workers here’,” stressed Reverend Thompson. “For me, as a guest in Kuwait, I often wonder what the appropriate response is. Shall I just keep quite and be polite, pretend not to see anything? Or shall I do something? That is what I believe most people feel here.”
He added that although abuse is committed by a Kuwaiti and expatriate minority, the distress of the domestic workers is very real and genuine and you can’t ignore it and the problem is global one, not distinct to Kuwait only.
Currently the St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Ahmadi has yet to decide he leaves. American lady minister, Reverend Renee Perkins, who is already as the Reverend’s assistant, is said to become Chaplain from September to December. “She will be probably the only female minister in Kuwait, which makes here rather special,” commented the Rev. Thompson.
The Church of Abu Dhabi was established in 1960. It is right in the heart of Abu Dhabi Island and has served the expatriate community for 50 years. There, Reverend Thompson will be overseeing a compound of about 80 different congregations and will be the liaison between the government and the Church.
“Abu Dhabi has been very generous to the Christian community. They have plans to expand the Church’s location and this has been initiated by the government itself. However, I think Kuwait is quite different from the other countries because there is much more communication with the local community,” concluded Reverend Thompson.


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By: Nihal Sharaf