‘I am sure that in the Arabian peninsula there are easily ten million Christians’, says Bill Schwartz, OBE, Anglican Archdeacon in the Gulf and Chaplain of Qatar. Most notable is how the region’s religious mix has shifted in a totally unprecedented way, as foreign workers have flooded in to benefit from the explosion of jobs. Today, at least 50% of migrants and expatriates ‘have some kind of Christian tradition’. In Qatar, where foreign workers outnumber locals by ten to one, there are now more Catholics than Muslims. New church buildings are being built, including one in Abu Dhabi to accommodate 5,000 people at a time. There is opportunity for Christian witness in societies that have been culturally isolated for thousands of years. Schwartz says, ‘I have more opportunities to talk about faith in the Gulf than I ever do in the US, because religion is so important here.’