BY SCOTT SUTTON

T’S A LAND OF SUN, SAND, CAMELS, AND palm trees, much like one would imagine the deserts of Arabia to be. But the United Arab Emirates (UAE) holds many surprises: a modern infrastructure, skyscrapers of glass, BMWs, and ruling sheiks who wisely allow Christians to practice their faith.

I came here in 1997 to teach English, hoping that I might be lucky enough to find some modern conveniences and a handful of Seventh-day Adventists with whom I could worship. In a place where the desert sands have shifted for a millennium is now found the cosmopolitan, liberal city of Dubai, on the shores of the Persian Gulf. I found shopping malls, excellent highways, parks, old souks, and expats from around the globe: Arabs, Iranians, Indians, Britons, Americans, and many other nationalities, all living in this fascinating city.

To my surprise, a quick perusal of a Dubai Web site revealed a list of Christian denominations, including a Seventh-day Adventist church. I called Pastor Steve Brown, who told me that there are more than 100 Adventists in Dubai. They worship every Sabbath in a compound consisting of many Christian churches.

Rich With Nationalities
Sabbath morning I drove to the place, a cluster of low-rise, squat buildings, a compound where various denominations meet for services: Emirates Baptist Church, Holy Trinity, the Indian Methodist Church, St. Mary’s, and the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The compound, moreover, is right across the street from the Iranian Club and a mosque.

I found a church rich with nationalities:  Filipino, Nigerian, Kenyan, Indian, Romanian, American, and Jamaican, and I was struck by the enthusiasm of both the congregation and the pastor. The attendance is usually about 60 or 70 of a total membership of 130. The pastor, originally Jamaican, now holds a British passport.

Pastor Steve Brown sounds like a Southern Baptist preacher at times, his voice level rising with cries and exclamations, pleas and exhortations. Despite the sometimes cramped quarters and the sound of the air-conditioner going on and off, the congregation listens attentively. The amenities are meager—no fancy podium, no expensive organ (only an old piano), no carpet, and no knee rests for a congregation that often finds itself kneeling on a hard linoleum floor. The plain chairs are restacked each Sabbath. But then again, as recently as 1995 there was no church building at all.

How did the Adventist church in Dubai start? And what’s the story of its growth? In the mid-1980s, before the boom in development forever changed Dubai from a sleepy town into a world-class city, an Indian Adventist, Esther Gallyot, and her daughter Pam were worshiping in their apartment. “There was no one to fellowship with,” says Pam, who worked as a secretary at the British Bank of the Middle East. Then one day at work a male coworker asked her why she didn’t drink coffee during the breaks. She replied that she was an Adventist. Stunned, Patrick stated that his sister was also Adventist.

Patrick Kumar and his sister joined Esther and Pam for Friday evening vespers at their home, where Esther also conducted a children’s Sabbath School on Sabbath morning. About the same time, a Filipino nurse told Esther about a group of Adventist nurses who had been worshiping privately, unaware that another group existed. They too joined the group at the house of Esther and Pam, adding a music ministry to the informal service. The Lord was beginning to build a church.

Then in October of 1984 Gloria, a non-Adventist, arrived from India to teach at one of the government schools. Her husband, Reef, an Adventist (but still in India awaiting a visa), had given Gloria one contact address, that of Esther. After getting in touch, Gloria joined the little group regularly.

Meanwhile, another Adventist came on the scene:  Roy Facey, a Britisher working for a maritime company. A committed Christian wanting contact with believers, he became involved with Trinity Church, where Esther also attended. Both Roy and Esther did the Lord’s work by handing out Bibles and forming a Pathfinder group within Trinity Church. As an outreach program, members distributed health books to a grateful police department as part of a citywide health campaign.

In 1985 an electrical fire broke out in the Kumar home. The fire raged through the entire apartment, sparing only a single room, the one in which worship services had been held. Esther, having recently obtained a larger apartment, offered to host the Friday night vespers and children’s Sabbath school at her apartment.

Signs of Fresh Life
By 1987 there were approximately 30 Adventists meeting at Esther’s. It was then that she contacted the Middle East Union (MEU), prevailing upon them to form a company.¹ Gerry Karst, the then-current MEU president, traveled to the tiny Gulf nation and granted the request. This meant that once a quarter someone from the union would visit Dubai, conducting baptisms and Communion services and holding seminars. At this time several other Adventist groups began to spring up from the desert sands, so to speak, extensions of the mother group in Dubai.

In March of 1989, then-MEU president Svein B. Johansen gave the company full church status, with Esther as head elder of the yet pastorless group. By now there were more than 30 Adventists meeting together. Says Gloria, “We started to have potlucks every week. Friday evenings were now like a spiritual oasis after a burdensome week.” Gloria was baptized with several others in the Persian Gulf near Dubai.

A Big Boost
In 1995 the Dubai church was blessed with the arrival of Pastor Steve Brown.²

Brown’s first visit to the UAE was not as an Adventist pastor, however. In the 1980s, while working in London as an IT specialist for an Arab company, he had traveled periodically to Dubai, where he’d become involved with the small Adventist group. In 1990 he began to think of leaving his well-paying position to become a pastor. After wrestling with the idea for some time, he enrolled at West Indies College (now Northern Caribbean University) in Jamaica, where he earned a B.A. degree in religion. He continued his education in England, obtaining an M.A. in Middle Eastern studies at Manchester University.

Immediately after arriving, Brown set his sights on Sabbath morning worship, as opposed to the Friday evening services. “There was some hesitation,” Brown says, “because a lot of the Filipino nurses and others were afraid they would never get time off on Saturdays.” (Thursday and Friday comprise the “weekend” throughout the Middle East.) But many in the group who went to their employers to get the time off were surprised to have their requests granted. Morning worship began in earnest, with more people showing up than had attended the Friday evening services. They met in a small bare-bones room rented out to them by Holy Trinity, the denomination managing the Christian compound.

The Lord blessed the tiny church. When the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln docked in Dubai as part of an ongoing U.S. Navy presence, an Adventist chief petty officer invited his fellow Adventists to hold a Sabbath morning service on board the biggest nuclear-powered vessel on earth. (Pastor Brown’s sermon that day, coincidentally, was about Jonah.)

When he received his master’s at Manchester, Brown’s specialization was Islamic studies, a concentration that prepared him for the assignment he was to receive. Brown holds high regard for Muslims and the faith of Islam. Consequently a small group of church members study the Koran in order to better understand Islam. Says Brown, “We found that Adventists and Muslims share many common beliefs, for example, abstinence from alcohol and pork.”

Reaching In, Reaching Out
The church promotes several ministries, including an active music ministry. “The church choir has been invited to sing Christmas carols at local malls and at interdenominational conventions,” says Brown. Additionally, there is a Dorcas Society that sends clothes and food products to places such as Kosovo and Sudan. Cell groups meet regularly for prayer, Bible study, and fellowship. Adventists were allowed to hold a Daniel and Revelation seminar, which ran for three weeks in the spring of 1999, one evidence that the Lord is blessing the church. An average of 100 Adventist and non-Adventist attendees appeared nightly for the multimedia presentation given by Brown, with Pakistani lay translator James Massih.

Participants came from both Dubai and a neighboring city where a group had begun meeting in 1997. Though that group is 30 strong, only five are Adventist. The rest (Pakistanis) meet each Sabbath afternoon to learn about the Adventist faith. So strong has their interest become that they are ministered to twice during the week inside the labor camps where they live.

The fast pace of life in consumer-oriented societies, with the changing mind-set of the majority, are enough to shake even committed Adventists. In the UAE, the same challenges exist.  But a further spiritual roadblock came in the form of a new law forcing all schools to conform to a Thursday-Friday weekend, thus making Saturday attendance for many Adventists difficult at best.

Still, this tiny church perseveres, confident of the future. An enormous, daunting task lies  ahead:  to grow as individuals and as a community of Adventists, and to meet the needs of others, both Christian and Muslim.

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¹ In Adventist parlance, a company is a small group of believers not yet organized into a regular church.
² Apart from serving as district pastor in the United Arab Emirates, Pastor Brown also serves in Oman, a neighboring Gulf state. This means that he is pastorally responsible for two entire nations.

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Scott Sutton is an English teacher at Zayed University in Dubai. He hails from Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States.