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.