CAIRO, EGYPT (ANS) -- Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that a hasty, inadequate renovation of a church building that Salafi Muslims largely gutted a year ago has left the congregation with staggering debt from additional repairs, church members said.

A scene from the restored Virgin Mary Church (Photo: Compass Direct)

CDN said that on May 7, 2011, at least 12 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded when members of the conservative Islamic movement attacked at least two churches and surrounding Christian-owned homes and businesses in a poor section of Cairo.

“Salafis, a hard-line Islamic movement with extremist tendencies rioted, then set fire to the Virgin Mary building of the Coptic Orthodox Church after a rumor spread that a Coptic woman who had allegedly converted to Islam was being held inside building against her will,” said the CDN story.

Alfons Ghatas, a deacon at the church, said that the construction company the government hired, Arab Contractors, worked around the clock on the project, but that their materials and workmanship were inferior.

The Rev. Sarabamoun Abdo, elder priest of the church, said that the congregation still owes 350,000 Egyptian pounds (US$57,760) to the second set of contractors required for additional renovations.

For more information, please go to: www.compassdirect.org 

Dan Wooding, 71, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 48 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He hosts the weekly “Front Page Radio” show on the KWVE Radio Network in Southern California and which is also carried throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK and also in Belize and South Africa. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 192 countries and also provides a regular commentary for Worship Life Radio on KWVE. You can follow Dan Wooding on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. Dan has recently received two top media awards -- the "Passion for the Persecuted" award from Open Doors US, and one of the top "Newsmakers of 2011" from Plain Truth magazine. He is the author of some 44 books, the latest of which is "Caped Crusader: Rick Wakeman in the 1970s." To order a copy, go to: http://www.amazon.com/CAPED-CRUSADER-Rick-Wakeman-1970s/dp/1908728302/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335474883&sr=1-1 . Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel “Red Dagger” which is available this link.