Christian Orphanage Raided

A few weeks ago while waiting for my roommate at the McDonald's here in Meknes, an American family passed by. And by "American family" I mean an American couple and two or three young Moroccan children that were obviously not theirs.

The couple was wearing very comfortable-looking sweats emblazoned with "Calvary Chapel" in large letters clearly betraying their Christian affiliation, or at least to my eyes. They stopped and talked to us a little bit, explaining how they worked at an orphanage an hour or so outside of Meknes and how a trip to McDonald's is a huge event for their kids. In our short and friendly conversation, they were quite open, which surprised me a bit given that Christian proselytism is illegal here in Morocco.

But Morocco is also a country without a strong sense of rule of law. Just because a law exists doesn't really mean anything. If you get pulled over for speeding, you pay the cop and go on your way. The few times a Moroccan gets taken in for hashish possession or for frequenting a prostitute the same thing happens. Mainly the poor are punished for breaking the law. When it comes to alcohol sales, the law is blatantly and openly violated every day. Even though it is technically illegal for Moroccans to sell alcohol to Muslims (which most Moroccans are required to be), alcohol is sold everywhere without recriminations.

I learned yesterday that the Village of Hope Orphanage where that couple worked was shut down by the Moroccan authorities. This follows in the wake of a series of expulsions of Christian missionaries in the past few months.

The Village of Hope is different, though. The orphanage, which took in children no one else wanted, was established with Moroccan approval and had existed in some form since the 1950s.

I know very little about this case. All I have is an email from a friend in Rabat, this Moroccan press release in French, my short encounter with The Village of Hope couple, and this history of The Village of Hope from their website.

As I mentioned, it's hard to know what really is permissible and what is not in Morocco since a rule on the books does not necessarily mean anything. So perhaps, the Moroccan authorities turned a blind eye for the past few decades just as they do with alcohol, hashish, prostitution, and speeding. Or perhaps The Village of Hope hid some of their activities. I do not know.

The new crack-down seems to be sparked by the Moroccan authorities' realization that Christian evangelicals are aggressively targeting Moroccans, as this quote from the press release hints:

L'ensemble des mesures prises par les autorités marocaines s'inscrivent dans le cadre de la lutte menée contre les tentatives de propagation du crédo évangéliste, visant à ébranler la foi des musulmans.

These raids are taken within a broader fight ("s'inscrivent dans le cadre de la lutte") against evangelical attempts to shake the faith of Muslims ("ébranler la foi des musulmans").

Another thing I do not know is how The Village of Hope found children and took them into their homes, a place which sound quite nice. I assume it was not the pseudo-kidnapping that got American missionaries into trouble in Haiti after the earthquake. But even if their adoption of the children was in the clear, I do not know what they stated to the authorities about the religious teaching given to those Moroccan children.

Their website is rather discreet in its description:

New housing units have been designed to accommodate a married couple and 10 children. We believe, that parents will within this family environment be able to spend time, energy, patience and concentration in order to actively become involved In the child reasing process. There will be 10 housing units so the home will, when fully occupied, be able to house 100 children. We would endeavour to train up each child in the way he or she should go, so that when they are mature they will not forget the training they have received. The results will be well balanced and thoroughly equipped young people.

To the Christian ear, the part about "training up each child" is clearly a paraphrase of Proverbs 22:6 ("Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it." NASB). It's essentially a coded message that the children will receive Christian teaching. A Muslim reading the same description would not catch the allusion. Whether or not the Moroccan authorities knew that instruction went on at all is another unknown. I think it's obvious, but then not all Christian organizations teach Christianity. The Catholic church is involved in a number of humanitarian activities devoid of Christian teaching.

I am curious about what sort of education they received. Generally, I believe in religious liberty. But depending on the law, Christians should also render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. We could debate what that means when it comes to a country without a strong rule of law tradition, but there are ways to minister to Moroccans while still staying on the right side of the land.

Now, religion is one thing, but culture is another. I'm curious what these children were going to do once they grew up. The ability to reintegrate into Moroccan society is important enough for The Village of Hope to mention (how I understand "Well balanced and thoroughly equipped young people"). And yet that would be difficult for those children if all the teachers and families at the orphanage are American. Not knowing even the rudiments of Islam or the omnipresent cultural reminders of it presents a challenge to anyone trying to integrate into the culture.