letter from Morocco
‘Are you ready to find out everything there is to know about Marrakech?’ our guide asked us, with well-practiced faux enthusiasm?
We assented with as much vigour as we could muster, given the early start to the tour of this historic Moroccan city.
In fact, by the time a further four hours had elapsed, we felt we had learnt rather more about Marrakech than it was convenient or indeed desirable for us to know. Our guide – a likeable man – had delivered vast amounts of information at high speed, often delivered in an uninterruptable monologue while eye-balling one or other of us unblinkingly in the face.
But one theme had clearly emerged: water. Morocco is, of course, far hotter than the UK – and even in October my wife and I were buying and each drinking at least two 2-litre bottles of water every day in addition to large amounts of mint tea, coffee and fruit juices.
At one point our guide started speaking about the importance of water in his ritual ablutions as a practising Muslim. Called ‘wudu,’ this enables a Muslim to be ‘spiritually clean’. I was attempting in my mind to formulate a response citing Jesus’ words about cleanliness being a matter of the heart rather than external rituals (Mark 7:14-15 etc.), but our ever-voluble guide had already moved on to another section of his pre-prepared spiel and there was no stopping him.
Water also came into the conversation I subsequently had with the owner of the ‘riad’ or traditional accommodation in the medina at Marrakech where we were staying. He explained that there had been a prolonged drought in the country – now into its seventh year. Indeed, a recent news report on theworld.org states: ‘Across much of North Africa, a punishing drought is now entering its seventh year. In Morocco, wheat, a staple of people’s diet, is withering. Livestock are dying. Scientists say climate change is making the normally dry region much drier, and that things will worsen as global temperatures continue to rise.’
We saw this for ourselves on a subsequent tour during which we stopped off to look over one of Morocco’s largest reservoirs – now only 15% full. The riad owner said that last year in Marrakech he had seen queues to buy water for the first time in his life – because of the extreme heat and the increasing pressure on water supplies.
If Morocco is physically dry and thirsty, the same can be said for it spiritually too. Christianity was introduced to that part of the world in the second century. But constant wars, conquests, persecutions and migrations, not least as a result of the conquest of north Africa by the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate between 647 and 709AD, effectively extinguished it.
Today, it is illegal to convert Muslims to Christianity, or to incite a Muslim to convert, and Christians are not allowed to publicly express their faith or evangelise. So if I had managed to get a word in edgeways to our Marrakech guide about ‘living water’, it’s possible at least in theory I could have been fined, put in prison or ejected from the country.
Christian organisation Open Doors puts the number of Moroccan believers today at 31,200 – less than 1% of the total 38.2 million population. It reports that there are ‘increasing pressures on converts from families and local communities, and a rise in incidents of violence. This can partly be attributed to the church growing in Morocco, with rising number of believers leading to more incidents.’
It adds: ‘Please keep praying for your brothers and sisters in Morocco. Your prayers make an enormous difference to those following Jesus no matter the cost.’
