Page 110 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

128interview with Reverend Lewis R. Scudder, Jr • t Hew
Brunswick, N.J., 22 February 1977.
129 John E. Buteyn, loc.clt.

^Interviews wit la Dr. and Mrs. L.R. Scudder, Sr •»
Kuwait, Decemner 1972.

•^Kuwait Ministry of Guidance and Information, on.
eft., p. 41.

132
Buteyn, loc. clt,, and interview with Rev. L.R.
Scudder, Jr., New Brunswick, 22 February 1977.

^Lt. Col0 RoC-o Maltby (ret), "The National Evangelical
I Church in Kuwait (N.E.C.K.) from its Origin until December,
1976," address to the Annual General Meeting of the N.E.C.K.
English language Congregation, delivered in Kuwait on 2 Feb-
ruary 1977. The Kuwaiti government paid the Reformed Church
KD 840,000 (about $2,,500,000) for the expropriated land in
installments from 1269 to 1974* Since the hospitals had cost
KD 750,000 to build in 1956, there were seven other buildings
on the land and 7,000 square meters of prime real estate was
involved, this sum is estimated to be about 10$ of the proper­
ty's actual worth. The church was permitted use of the land
without payment until 1972, when an annual lease of 43KD per
annum (a nominal sum) was drawn up. (Maltby, p. 2).

Interestingly enough, although the Reformed Church had
indicated to the missionaries in the Gulf that at least part
of the Kuwait sale money would be re-invested in the Gulf
0
no appreciable portion of it was. Even the medical supplies
and equipment comprising a 50 page inventory was sold to the
Kuwait Health Service, although the Muscat and Bahrain hos­
f pitals were in need of much of these supplies. This money
also (about *250,000) returned to New York, The Reformed
Church, like all other major Protestant denominations in
the United States, was in financial straits from 1969 to
1974, and this influx of revenue from the Arabian Mission
was the only thing, that kept' the RCA out of the red. Thus
the Arabian Mission was actually subsidizing the home church
during these years. Meanwhile urgent calls for funds in the
field (an estimated $1 million for Muscat hospital moderni­
zation plans in 1969 and an estimated $500,000 for a new
Bahrain School bxiilding in 1972) were all turned down for
budgetary reasons. (Interview with L.R. Scudder, Jr., New
Brunswick, 25 February, 1977 and John E, Buteyn, "The Medical
Program in Oman and the Proposed Transfer of Mutrah Hospital
Property to the Oman Ministry of Health,” report prepared for
the General Program Council of RCA in April, 1974.

3-34in-fcerestingly enough, the possibility of land exprop­
riation is not even mentioned in the RCA policy papers justi-

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