Hello!
Its been a long time since I've posted an update - at this point we've finished our outreach, and I've graduated from my DTS. But I'll explain what we've been doing over the past few months, starting with our time in Beruit! The information we received from our contacts changed, so we've been given permission to speak more openly about the ministry that we've been involved in.
Life and culture in the Middle East:
We've been living in apartments that Horizons (the organisation we partnered with) owns in Beruit, and over the past month, we have been able to experience lots of the new culture here as we serve and learn. Moving and adapting to the culture here has been fun for most people on the team, and we've loved learning and exploring. There's a lot of new cultural things that we've had to learn and pick up on, which has been a fun challenge.
Culturally, it's a mixing pot here, with lots of different people groups living right next to each other. However, people from different groups won't mix, and there's huge divisions. Within the Lebanese people alone, there's huge variation with regards to religion, between different branches of Islam and Orthodox or Catholic Christianity. And on top of that, there's a number of different tribes and subdivisions ethnically. There's also Kurdish and Arminian people living here, who wouldn't consider themselves Lebanese. And then, there's a very large population of Syrian refugees living in Lebanon.
Even among languages, there's a massive variety. Lebanon has 3 major languages - Arabic, French and English. However there are many more different languages and dialects spoken here. There's even a huge difference between formal Arabic, and the Arabic that would be spoken on the streets. One of the first Sundays that we spent here, we went to a Kurdish Church, which was founded because the Kurdish people wanted to be able to worship in their own Kurdish dialect, instead of Arabic. It started as a Bible study which grew into a church that now focuses on evangelizing to and discipling Kurdish people in Lebanon.
The situation in Lebanon is incredibly difficult right now. A combination of the financial crisis, the Beruit explosion last year and Covid-19 has left many people in difficult and hopeless situations. Currently the Lebanese Lira is worth almost 10 times less than it should, food prices have soared and people have become beyond frustrated with the government. There's been gas shortages for months, and things just keep getting worse. Life here is beyond difficult for people, they live with a warlike mentality and are accustomed to instability and change. They are hungry for hope.
Horizons:
While in Beruit, we've been working alongside a ministry called Horizons International. They are an incredible organization who's goals are to proclaim the Gospel, disciple new believers and to equip them to lead others to Christ. Most of their work is with Muslims, and they've seen God move in incredible ways in the Muslim world. The Horizons base in Beruit is also the Middle East Centre for World Missions, who's vision is that the Church in the Middle East and North Africa would send out missionaries to make disciples in their own region and globally. There are a lot of programs and internships running, which equip and enable people to better serve.
Horizons works amongst most of the groups here in Lebanon. However, they have had many opportunities amongst the Syrian population and have seen incredible numbers of Muslim Syrian families come to Christ. It's really exciting, because Syria is so closed to the Gospel, but they have this opportunity to minister to Syrians here in Lebanon who can hopefully bring the Gospel back to their nation.
Since the blast in September, they've had a lot more opportunities to work with the Lebanese people, who ironically have been harder to reach. But through helping in construction work and delivering food packages to people affected by the blast, they've been able to reach Lebanese families to share the Gospel with them.
If you want to know more about Horizons in general and the work that they do, have a look at their website - www.horizonsinternational.org
It's been an absolute joy to work alongside them in Beruit, to hear stories from staff members and to see the passion that they have for the people here.
Our ministry with Horizons:
Our ministry in Beruit was very relationship focused. We had scheduled ministry, that often in the typical Middle Eastern way changed last minute. It was fun to learn to be a lot more flexible than I'm used to being!
But we also had time outside of scheduled ministry to be able to form relationships and do "unscheduled ministry", which gave us a lot of freedom.
Our ministry with Horizons mostly consisted of Kids ministry, construction work and house visits.
Kids ministry:
For our kids ministry, we were able to partner with the School of Hope that Horizons runs. It's a school specifically for Syrian refugee children, mostly ran by Syrians. It's based on the Syrian curriculum and helps the kids to hopefully be able to reintegrate as they return to either Syria, another country or remain in Lebanon. It's an openly Christian school that teaches the children about Jesus and the Bible, and through that they've been able to see a large number of the children come to faith, along with their families too. The School has grown massively in the past number of years, and there's a waiting list of children wanting to be able to attend.
We were able to run a number of programs with the kids, to share Bible stories and activities with them. We were also able to help engage with the families of the children, and to visit them after school with some teachers. Operation Christmas Child gives shoeboxes to Horizons, so we were able to give shoeboxes to the children when we went to visit them and their families, which was really special. We were able to give the gifts to the kids, and then be able to talk to the parents and to hear their stories while we were there. We simply sat with them and listened while they shared, and we were able to share hope and life with them. The families varied from devout Muslim to born again Christians, and it was special to be able to speak and share with them.
Construction:
Horizons has a really great construction team which helps to reconstruct or improve houses that have been damaged because of the Beruit blast, or because of other reasons. So we had the opportunity to work alongside them to help out with physical labour and also to meet and speak with the families. Our physical work, was a way to show Christ's love to the families here but it also served as a way to build a relationship to share the joy of the Gospel with them.
We worked with a few different families during our time in Beruit, but there was one house in particular that we worked a lot with. It was a family of four, with a mother, father, son and daughter, and they lived in a tiny flat. It had 2 tiny rooms with a small kitchen and bathroom, and it was in really bad shape. The walls were covered in black mould because of a water leaking issue in the building, and there were a lot of problems. We were able to help with the work that the guys were doing in the house, but we really loved being able to build a strong friendship with the family. They showed us incredible kindness and Middle Eastern hospitality every time we visited, and we were able to invite them to our house for a meal before we left Beruit. The son shared with us before we left that he felt that he had found a family with us, and that he is thankful that Jesus can unite people across the world who would have never met each other if not for Him.
House visits:
The favorite part of ministry for most of our team, was house visits. We worked with a local pastor who visits families in the Beruit area and we visited lots of different families in a lot of different situations, mostly Syrian refugees. Horizons has a relationship with them all, and is in a process of sharing Jesus and the Gospel with them and discipling them. They were all in differing situations spiritually, from devout Muslim to born again Christian, but most came from a Muslim background.
We were able to sit with them and hear their stories, and share testimonies and stories with them too. We had some incredible conversations with different families, and saw God has worked and is working clearly in people's lives. I really loved sharing with the families and being able to pray with them.
Particularly, it was really special to be able to share with the women and to pray for them. We were able to talk to a lot of them about their identity, and how Jesus loves women. Coming from a Muslim background, a lot of them shared about how they felt worthless and not valued in society, which broke my heart. It was really special to be able to share truth with them, that they are loved and valued daughters of the King, and how they can find their true and perfect identity in Him.
The Horizons team usually does house visits in the Beqaa valley area, and I had the chance to be able to do this with them once before we had to stop returning due to various reasons.
Unscheduled ministry:
We had time outside of ministry to explore Beruit and form relationships outside of ministry with people that we met, which was really fun. Some of our team found this easier than others, and especially being more of an introvert, I had to push myself more to do this. Some of the dancers on our team even had opportunities to perform some dances that they had prepared, and we were able to have some great conversations with people as a result of that.
Our team members build great relationships with fruit stand owners, bakers, shop owners, waiters etc and were able to have some really good conversations with them.
One of my favourite days in Beruit was when I got to know a Syrian family, who invited me to their home to eat and spend time with them. I couldn't speak Arabic and they couldn't speak English, so we communicated through Google translate since I didn't have a ministry translator with me. It was a bit of a mess, and there was lots of miscommunication, but it was a lot of fun! God was so good and gracious to us in that, and myself and a couple of my friends were able to spend a few hours together at their house, laughing and sharing together, despite the barrier of language. They are a Muslim family, but we were able to talk a bit about Jesus and faith, and they said that their view of Christians changed a lot because of our conversation. They said that they always viewed Christians as people who hated others, particularly Muslims, but that we instead shared love with them. It was a really special afternoon, and they were so incredibly kind and loving towards us.
Our time in Beruit was really special, and I really loved it. It was eye opening and fun to experience a completely new culture, but it was even more special to see how God is moving in Lebanon. He is transforming lives, restoring hearts and bringing hope to a hopeless nation.
After Beruit we moved to Damour, which I'll post about soon!
- Amy