Page 72 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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residences. Wien the Mission attempted to transfer ownership

of the church sanctuary from the Arabian Mission, in whose

name it was, to the National Evangelical Church in Kuwait,

the Kuwait government refused. The following year the whole
!
of the property was expropriated, later leases were drawn
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up for certain parts of the property to he rented at a nominal
:
* annual fee by the church. The government took over use of

the two hospital buildings for its own purposes. 153 The

! likelihood that the land would be expropriated by the
;
I government when the hospital was closed had been pointed out
;
to New York by some of the missionaries in the field but had
i 134
not been taken serious^, Now that it had become a reality
I
and the entire Mission had been placed on a more precarious

footing the decision to close the hospital came to be viewed

increasingly as an unfortunate one. By its mistakes in Kuwait,
however, the New York Board learned to be somewhat more cir­

]
I cumspect about abrupt withdrawals and more consideration was
;
I given to the secularisation of mission activities and mergers

with local governmental institutions.

The aftermath of the Kuwait closure had a palpable ef-
i
feet on the process of decision-making in New York, In 1970,

when Sultan Qaboos overthrew his uncle Sa’id Ibn Taimur in

Oman and the hospital there was threatened with closure,

New York negotiated with' the Omani Ministry of Health and

reached a compromise whereby the mission hospitals (maternity,

contagious diseases and general) would be absorbed into the

state medical program. The Mission would continue to staff

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