Page 7 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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col. But for "just a few old friends," the crowd still seemed

large. Although there were never more than a dozen people in

the house at one time, when the day was over, more than two

hundred guests had filed thrpugh to pay their respects and to

wish the Scudders some Arab equivalent of "Merry Christmas."

The sheer numbers were impressive,, of course, as a testimonial

to the high esteem in which the Mission and the Scudders were

held. But the Scudders had. after all, been serving as medical

missionaries in Kuwait since 1939 and thus could reasonably be

expected to have had a large number of acquaintances. The ob­

vious, deep-felt sinceritjr of the holiday greetings, however,

and the vast range of nationalities, races, and social classes

represented were even more impressive. Most of the callers

were Kuwaiti Arabs. One was an army ambulance driver in an

olive drab uniform. There were several traditional Kuwaiti
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Shuyuk in their long, flowing bishts with gold trim. There
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were numerous Persians and Iraqis, as well as several Indian
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families with their brightly-dressed and well-behaved little

children.

By some strange coincidence that year, Christmas fell

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on the second day after Ramadan, so the Scudders joked about

being one of the Qibla sitters (second day ’Eid al-Eitr

families). The mission compound was actually located in the

Oibla area, and so the coincidence was all the more marked.

That evening, after receiving the Christmas Day callers, Dr.
Scudder drove out to the Sha'ab Palace in Salamiyah to call

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