Our team has spent the week on the ground in Beirut with our partners. What I feel right now is awe: God is on the move in this country in a powerful way.
Because of the large border Lebanon shares with Syria, this small country is home to millions of refugees, and the church has had the important opportunity to provide life-saving care to people in dire need. Many Syrian refugees literally walked across the border with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the children in their arms. Many still live in ramshackle camps with no access to state-funded education or healthcare.
On Tuesday, we broke ground on our new Lebanon Life Center in the Beqaa Valley, which is roughly 20 minutes from Damascus. This Life Center will provide holistic medical, dental, and psychological care for the refugee population that settled here in Lebanon.
We believe the Life Center is a powerful form of evangelistic ministry: we are showing people the love of Christ by serving them in practical ways, meeting urgent needs in this community. We’ll have a general practitioner and a dentist in the clinic, as well as a small pharmacy to provide everything from prenatals and baby formula (yes, baby formula) to diabetic medications.
True servant leadership looks like washing feet. And just think of the great multitude Jesus healed during his lifetime on earth. We serve the Great Physician, and it is our passion to bring these mercy ministries to the most difficult places on earth.
After all, James 1:27 reminds us: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
We are unable to share photos of the patients we met because their lives are quite literally at risk for becoming followers of Christ. One woman we talked to was told the refugee camp leaders would hang her if she removed her hijab. There are countless stories like this. We will share more testimonies as we are able.
Thank you for your prayers and support. We are humbled by the opportunity to serve in this context and launch Open Eyes in Lebanon.
God bless,
