Johnny MacManky
August 3rd 2006, 08:17 PM
I just received this e-mail from a Church of the Nazarene Missionary. Often we think that the Middle East conflict only involves Jews and Arabs/Muslims.
"Lebanon is in a terrible, almost inconceivable situation. Nobody can imagine what is happening here. Only God can help us now!" Abdo Khanashat, principal of the Nazarene school in Beirut, reports.
Children and parents not knowing if they'll live through the night. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from the country's south camping in the parks of the capital Beirut. And nobody knows how all this will continue! Neither the Hezbollah nor Israel show any signs of relenting. And now the UN soldiers have left. Will that allow the fighting to increase?
With three centres in Beirut and one each in Haifa and Nazareth, the local workers of the Church of the Nazarene are living right in the middle of the conflict. They experience it as twelve-year old Sarah in Nazareth who asked her mother fearfully: "Mommy, will they throw a bomb on us too?" But her parents are convinced that amidst the chaos they have the task of sharing God's love.
That is what the Church of the Nazarene has been doing in the Middle East for over 85 years, since long before the various states were founded in their current form. And now they are distributing water and food, providing milk for infants and help with mattresses and medicine wherever they can. Their resources are limited and yet there are so many that need help right now and of course also later, when the fighting has ceased. Which will hopefully happen soon!
If you can pray, then please pray for the people in the Middle East. This is not a question of "who started it or who bears the greatest guilt?" It's about mothers and fathers, boys and girls, that don't know how to face tomorrow. And they need our help!
You can reach out with a 'helping hand' to the people in the Middle East and our local workers. ...
"Lebanon is in a terrible, almost inconceivable situation. Nobody can imagine what is happening here. Only God can help us now!" Abdo Khanashat, principal of the Nazarene school in Beirut, reports.
Children and parents not knowing if they'll live through the night. Hundreds of thousands of refugees from the country's south camping in the parks of the capital Beirut. And nobody knows how all this will continue! Neither the Hezbollah nor Israel show any signs of relenting. And now the UN soldiers have left. Will that allow the fighting to increase?
With three centres in Beirut and one each in Haifa and Nazareth, the local workers of the Church of the Nazarene are living right in the middle of the conflict. They experience it as twelve-year old Sarah in Nazareth who asked her mother fearfully: "Mommy, will they throw a bomb on us too?" But her parents are convinced that amidst the chaos they have the task of sharing God's love.
That is what the Church of the Nazarene has been doing in the Middle East for over 85 years, since long before the various states were founded in their current form. And now they are distributing water and food, providing milk for infants and help with mattresses and medicine wherever they can. Their resources are limited and yet there are so many that need help right now and of course also later, when the fighting has ceased. Which will hopefully happen soon!
If you can pray, then please pray for the people in the Middle East. This is not a question of "who started it or who bears the greatest guilt?" It's about mothers and fathers, boys and girls, that don't know how to face tomorrow. And they need our help!
You can reach out with a 'helping hand' to the people in the Middle East and our local workers. ...