Dar Al-Awlad

We spent the morning at Dar Al-Awlad, an orphanage for at-risk boys in Lebanon.  Most of the boys aren't actual orphans or Lebanese.  Most come from refugee families that do not have the means to take care of them.  They come from as far away as the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Egypt, and Iraq.  We brought 7 kilos of oranges, two boxes of oreos, three bags of snickers, a tub of sidewalk chalk, crayons, and paper.  We played for a good long bit (I taught many how to fold paper airplanes and played a good many games of sidewalk tic-tac-toe) and then we taught the story of Joseph.  What was meant for evil, God meant for good.

Cedars of Lebanon

Hi, friends.  Fearless leader, here.

To give a quick recap of our week, we've spent a great deal of time with our friends who have been taking care of Abed.  He finally had a day without detox related headaches.  Yesterday a of us took him onto the campus of the American University in Beirut for the first time.  He used to stand near the water and look up at campus and tell himself, "If only I could go up there one day."  And today we took him to the cedars in north Lebanon for the first time (we had a group of 11 people, also giving a break to the couple taking care of him).  He mentioned today that this time last week his life was threatened, he was hooked on drugs, and thought he'd never escape his life.  This week he's been experiencing freedom, went to AUB, saw the cedars: three things he never thought he'd do.  Small things, I know, but in the perspective of the last year, each one marks a path to healing and restoration.

We spent a couple days on campus distributing fliers for our event on Monday and meeting students.  I've been thinking quite a lot about how to present the Guilty Campaign discussion on Monday afternoon (a way of pointing to law/guilt which leads to Jesus/gospel).  We've actually had quite a good response to our fliers and invitations.  I will even get to speak in a university class on Monday afternoon (the instructor is a friend and colleague of mine).  In January after presenting these ideas to a student at AUB he asked me about the possibility of giving some sort of seminar (never thought we would, though).  And after getting an earful of present Lebanese politics tonight while walking downtown with friends, I was overcome with the potential for Monday and the need for Lebanon to know Christ.  Please pray as we prepare for Monday afternoon and especially during the day when we'll be on campus again distributing invitations and meeting students.

Overall, though, we're doing quite well.  A bit tired (days here really feel like 3 or 4 normal days in the US) but feeling quite blessed to be here.  

Thank you for coming with us.  

American University in Beirut

A view of campus from a neighboring building.  On clear days you can see snowcapped peaks in the distance.

Encouraging day!

Hi everyone,

Today has been a great day.  We met with several Lebanese Christians to work out a Guilty Campaign outreach for the American University in Beirut (AUB).  The premise would be to have a discussion about "what's wrong with the world?", eluding to the fact that the problem is sin and that we are all part of the problem.  Subsequently, we would discuss where our hope lies... that the only hope for the condition of the malignant human heart, and thus all our broken situations, is Christ Jesus.  

We made fliers and invited them to a discussion forum next week at the local student ministry to connect them to a long term resource for Christianity.  

This approach is very post modern, but it's an effective way to get university students talking, many of whom are non-practicing Muslims and nominal Christians.  However, many of them are practicing Druze or Muslim and they were willing to talk to us as well.  

Discussion of religion and politics flows very easily here and people are very used to others having opinions on these matters.  It's exciting how easy it is to talk about Jesus!  His name still causes a stirring reaction though.  

We got to really discuss religion with a Shia Muslim girl. She is so sweet and very smart.  We really enjoyed her and she was willing to meet with us tomorrow to talk more!  

Please pray for her and for the other students we talked to.  Pray that she would be moved towards Christ during our meeting.  Pray that she would accept a bible from us and that we could meet with her more before we leave.  Pray that students would come and fill the student ministry next week and that the discussion would move their hearts to seeing that they, too, need a Savior.  Please keep praying for Abed too, he is still with our wonderful couple!

Thank you for for your prayers and support and your time to read what we are doing here.

Blessings,

AM

Epic evening .......

My wife and I are so in awe of this place and what God is doing here. 

Last night we got to take Abed out to the beach. He has committed to staying in the care of our friends here for a specified period of time and since he is under constant supervision due to the likely withdraw symptoms he will experience soon he usually spends his days indoors. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, a friend of ours suggested we take Abed and the whole lot of us down to the beach for some fresh air. I was expecting  a flat, motionless lake. When we arrived there I got Florida's version of the Atlantic Ocean with a full-blown windswell, and yes, completely ridable surf! Waves were waist to chest high with larger sets on occasion. Um, yeah. The Mediterranean Sea should be named the Mediterranean Ocean because in my eyes it bares no resemblance of any sea I have ever had the privilege to visit.

Though I reluctantly denied the desires of my flesh to surf it was awesome to spend some time in  the evening sun with my wife, our other team members and our new friends. The Lord has really done a work in my heart here in Beirut. Any feelings of fear or lack of comfort/familiarity in this place have been removed and entirely replaced with a passion for this beautiful Mediterranean community and its unique culture. 

The week has been encouraging in the least! Now that we are getting over jet lag (its amazing how the sun affects/influences our sleep cycles) and have really had the opportunity to plug into believers and the organizations they are involved with in the area, we are receiving good discernment for God's plan around our time here. For the rest of the day and tomorrow we will be meeting with  students near Beirut's colleges - American University of Beirut (AUB) & Lebanese American University (LAU) - to spend some time talking with them about Christ and inviting them to a night we will be holding at a local Christian Center to discuss problems with the world, etc. We are excited to help with a boy's home in the mountains this weekend and in the evenings to continue meeting with our friends to prepare dinner for them, have bible studies catered to the newer believers (most Muslim converts) that visit their home each eve and help with Abed however we can. The time is rapidly passing us by but we are thankful for each moment of it.

We appreciate your prayers and will post some more posts when posting time comes around again.   LM

Snapshots

Lebanese vanity.  Bandages from plastic surgery, here a nose job, are common place among those who can afford it.  We ate lunch today at a seaside restaurant.  

A veiled woman smoking at the beach in stilleto boots.

Abed.

At the beach this evening.  Joined by Abed, GH, and a friend from Iraq.

Beirut

A view of Beirut from the air.  The university is located at the tip of the peninsula closest to view with our apartment not far off.  The orphanage is a 30 minute drive into the mountains.  The tallest mountains, some in view, are just over 3,000 meters.

Day 3.

Hey Friends. Hey Family. Hello people I don't know who are reading this blog. 

Susie B, here-coming to you from Beirut, Lebanon where the day has technically ended but I am still awake, processing, emailing, and looking forward to tomorrow. But first, a little recap of today. 

MORNING. 

I slept and slept and slept. And then, when Audra woke me up around lunchtime, I rolled out of bed, landed in the telephone-booth sized shower and started the day. The rest of the team had apparently been up for a while, being super productive; sending emails, getting ready etc. Way to make me look good guys. 

We are staying in this really nice apartment owned by missionaries who are currently in the states. There is tons of space, and a kitchen I am dying to cook in, and even a washer and dryer! The best part? I can see the Mediterranean from MY BEDROOM WINDOW. If that doesn't get me out of bed, there is no hope at all.

AFTERNOON.

After the much needed showering, we packed up for the day and hit the streets of Beirut with our friend D.  We wandered over the AUB (American University of Beirut) area, picked up what I'd later discover to be incredibly yummy chicken sandwhiches, and headed into the campus. We met up with D's friend (who is a student at AUB) and ate our breakfast/lunch at one of the green picnic tables while the many psuedo AUB alum (aka mangy cats) milled around us and picked through the garbage cans. That, I find a little bizzare, but I guess when you think about it, it's just like having REALLY big squirrels around. Wow, that doesn't comfort me at all! Apparently, the university spends like $10,000.00 a YEAR taking care of these cats. 

With full stomachs and fat drops of rain starting to fall, we quickly headed over to the bookstore on the other side of campus where I finally bought a notebook for this trip. Up until today, I have been writing in the free magazine I confiscated from the Royal Jordanian Airlines.

So, it's nice to have a notebook without any cigarette ads.  We're planning to spend a decent amount of our time this week at the university so it was cool to have a little bit of time to get a "feel for the place" (whatever that means). the campus is super pretty and really green and nicely kept. Tomorrow, we'll walk around, and hopefully make some friends and invite students to different events a campus ministry is hosting this week. I am looking forward to hanging out at spanish language club tomorrow afternoon that the student ministry hosts weekly. Cool how stuff like that happens. I mean, spanish club in Beirut? Excellent. :)

LATER IN DAY...

After our time on campus, we dropped by the student center or "The Bliss Center" as it is properly called; accompanied by some local students. The center is actually an apartment across the street from the University and very hip looking, with cool green and brown decor and alot of pillows and mod art. It feels kind of like a Starbucks. I liked it. 

A little bit later, we left the center and spent a few minutes at a friend's house before leaving for dinner at another friend's house (yay, relationship!) where no limit of excitement and drama awaited us. 

I guess by now, a handful of you have heard about Abed. He is a male prostitute currently using A LOT of drugs. He is staying with some of our friends (believers) so that he can be held accountable. It's been cool to see his desire for change and humbling to witness his struggle firsthand. Anyway, we were all just hanging out; eating yummy Lebanese dinner, listening to someone read from Ephesians and having good, mellow conversation when someone came to the door, a cell phone rang and suddenly everyone was talking and everything just sort of HAPPENED. Apparently, Abed's brother had learned where he was staying (Abed doesn't want his family to know about his addiction because of the shame it would bring) and didn't actually know about his situation. The next minutes and hours were full of talking, explaining, convincing, praying, hoping, and eventually seeing God work stuff out in a way that kept Abed at the house (a safe place for him) and his brother broken and sad but more understanding about what Abed is going through. So, we were happy to see Abed stay and not leave with his brother (which would surely have meant a return to drugs etc) but sobered by the conflict he is facing not only within himself but between his family and "outside" life. He needs our prayers. 

Okay guys, having wrote probably WAY too much at this point, I think I will try to figure out how to post a picture, hit publish and maybe find a late night snack of the huge circular bread that is popular here. Thanks to jetlag I am not sleepy at 2:30am like I should be, but hungry! 

Good night everyone. We love you and thank you for being apart of our adventure. 

First Night

Perhaps it's the result of fascination or romanticism, but I often find that Christian workers have one kind of person in mind when they enter ministry.  

"I want to work with Berbers in Morocco so I'm going to find the Berber community where I live and only minister to them."  

"I want to work with Muslims so I am going to work with Muslims."

This certainly is not wrong.  But in searching for this one person or group, we often end up not ministering to the people God places directly in our path.  The night before we left for Beirut, we prayed as a team that even though we have a tentative schedule of who and where we'll minister, that we'd be open to who God placed in our way.

Seven months ago I asked for prayer for a young male prostitute that our friends in Beirut had begun ministering to.  It's a long and complicated story, but after arriving we stopped by the apartment of our friends to find the same young man.  He's been battling drug addiction and pressure from his family and pimp to remain a prostitute because they like the money he brings in (he can make more money in two nights of prostitution than a month of honest work).

Yesterday after overdosing on opiates he came over to our friend's apartment.  He wants to be clean.  He wants freedom.  He read a beautiful prayer that he'd written (in Arabic) several months ago about how God gave him life and freedom and, when he continuously turns away, to seek the pleasures of life, God's hand always comes to bring him back up.

We read through Isaiah 61 and Romans 7 last night & prayed over him.  If we can find a mature brother in Christ fluent in both Arabic and English we'll have this young man spend some of his days with us, provided he goes through detox safely.  They're going to attempt a detox in their home so that he doesn't have to go to the only other detox center in Lebanon and raise questions from his family and others.  Shame is an integral part of the culture here and even though he would be seeking help for a deep problem, the shame he's experience is, in his eyes, worse.

We're going to spend this evening with him and our friends.  Please pray for this man's recovery.  Jesus said, "I have come to give life and life to the fullest."  Pray that this man would experience this life.

Welcome to Lebanon!

The view from the apartment.