American exchange student lives with Coptic Orthodox family in Egypt, comes home half-starved:
Jonathan McCullum was in excellent health at 155 pounds when he left last summer to spend the school year as an exchange student in Egypt.But when he returned home to Maine just four months later, the 5-foot-9 teenager weighed a mere 97 pounds and was so weak that he struggled to carry his baggage or climb a flight of stairs. Doctors said he was at risk of a heart attack.
McCullum says he was denied sufficient food while staying with a family of Coptic Christians, who fast for more than 200 days a year, a regimen unmatched by other Christians.
But he does not view the experience as a culture clash. Rather, he said, it reflected mean and stingy treatment by his host family and a language barrier that made it difficult to communicate.
Now, the kid was certainly mistreated -- I mean, look at this photo of him in the hospital and tell me he wasn't. I don't think this is a reflection of Coptic fasting habits, but rather a nutty family. Are Copts emaciated? I don't think so.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
As a citizen of this country I'm embarrassed that we have tried this Egyptian family in the press, with so little information coming from their side. I'm disgusted that mention of a lawsuit by the parents accompanied the first news items. Here is a student, who is just months short of attaining adult status in the eyes of the law. What are his responsibilities for his own health, even at age 17? They are immense. We would expect him to know not to have unsafe sex, not to drive while under the influence, and to loudly ask for help if he was not getting proper nourishment. The fact is, this child had a Facebook and Myspace presence, and was constantly in touch with his friends back home--though not his parents obviously. Egypt is a place where one can get food from a street vendor for pennies, shop at mini-marts, or eat American-style fast foods. If you think I believe he never dined out with friends, I do not. I'm angry we are being taken for a ride by this kid and his lawyer parents. They deleted his previously public internet journal of his Egypt experience, and now they have made his other internet presence private. I visited his myspace page before it was made private, and my impressions of him and his friends lead me to believe it is ludicrous to believe he could not find "anything under the sun" in Egypt. We are being hoodwinked, misled, and preyed upon by this family. I hope responsible journalism will show eventually that there is much more to this picture that has been told so far.
They are a cult. My boyfriend's girlfriend has an associate that was invited to a party by an orthodox coptic member. She was out for a few hours after one drink and got a drug test. They found barbiturate which is used to put people in comas or used as a hypnotic drug. Similar situation happened with me when I was eating with them a few times and they were asking me questions all of the time. I first thought that I had the flu or not well but they actually put barbiturate in the food as a form of mind control manipulation. After they found out that I was going to report them, they beat me up. I got a sprained neck after being around them. If you do a google search coptic orthodox barbiturates you'll find an article about how the church founded the drug in the 1800s. This probably happened with McCullum's. And yes, they are strict. Coptic or the muslim version of Christianity in my opinion.
Anonymous is clearly confusing the "Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church", a cult, with the "Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria" established in 42AD by Mark the Evangelist. The latter is not associated at all with the former. It is not clear to me why the cult decided to use "Coptic" to describe itself. Wikipedia has a brief page on the cult. I'm not sure, however, what Anonymous meant by "the Muslim version of Christianity." Anyway, I would recommend that he or she try to at least learn the basic facts about the faiths of the Middle East.
As for the original posting, I think it's clear that none of the posters have all the facts. If, however, the family had indeed a role, we, as Copts, would consider the act very sinful. As a cradle Coptic Orthodox Christian, who has spent the greater part of his life in Egypt, I know for a fact that the Coptic Orthodox Church never advocates starvation of its members nor of their guests. (My apologies to fellow Copts who might be offended that I'm stating the obvious). In fact, it doesn't take a theologian to judge such an act as sinful in light of even the most basic teachings of the Gospels. I would very much hesitate to attribute such attitude to any faith or community as a whole without serious investigation.
i found two reports of incident of barbiturates which was founded by the coptic orthodox church (st barbara) in the system of victims.
I have research coptic orthodox extensively and have found that they are a cult. Cults are unaware that they are a cult because they are raised to believe that there practices are correct when in fact they are far from the truth. st barbara founded barbiturates and i have found several cases of innocent people be drugged with this drug. And what i see posted on the comment page defending the church are coptic orthodox.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.