Mandi Hart on the front right of the picture with the martyrs’ wives and Fr. Epiphanious at The Martyrs’ church in Samalout.
In this moving reflection, our guest writer Mandi Hart, the producer of The 21 cartoon film, shares her journey from student filmmaker to visiting the families of the 21 martyrs in Egypt. Her story invites us into a powerful encounter with faith, sacrifice, and the enduring witness of the Coptic Church.
I spent five months in Cairo while in university and traveled to Egypt several years after to film a short documentary. The documentary brought me in contact with Coptic brothers and sisters around Cairo and I began to learn more about the two-Millennium long presence of Copts in Egypt.
Fast forward to 2025, having finished production of The 21, our short film about the 20 Coptic and 1 Ghanaian man martyred by ISIS in Libya in 2015, and our trip to share the film with the martyrs’ families and community. Coptic Orphans arranged for us to share the film in the church built in the men’s honor. The experience was priceless. Hearing the families’ stories of perseverance under persecution and their pride in the courage and faithfulness of their martyred husbands, fathers, brothers and sons was both convicting and inspiring. I was struck by how these fellow Christians live with one foot on earth and one foot in heaven. How I long to learn to do the same!
Coptic Orphans did a masterful job planning and hosting our trip, striking a balance between activity and rest, learning and reflection. The opportunities to stand bodily in ancient Christian sites like the cave where the Holy Family spent a few months during their Egyptian exile and to worship with Coptic brothers and sisters in the Cave Church and in Minya were truly singular experiences. We enjoyed tastes of heaven on earth during the trip as Christians from different “languages, nations, tribes and tongues” (Revelation 7:9) joined to commemorate the 21 and celebrate the faithful God for whom they gave up their lives.