Lebanon (MNN) — As conflict between Israel and Hezbollah drags on across Lebanon’s southern border, the spiritual landscape of the nation is transforming as one family, one child at a time grasps who God is.
Camille Melki with Heart for Lebanon says, “Christ’s compassionate heart leads us to love on and care for unconditionally without any discrimination to all the people who God puts in our way.”
Kurds, Arabs, Lebanese, Syrian refugees, local internally displaced persons, and impoverished local farmers receive the friendship of Heart for Lebanon.
The needs truly are massive. More than 90,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced since the Israel-Hamas conflict began last October.
“We have a tall order ahead of us as the needs are overwhelming. But more important than that is that we focus on attending to the spiritual loss as much as we are attending to the physical loss,” says Melki.
The Heart for Lebanon team goes out regularly to visit and build relationships with families as Christians. Melki says that rather than argue over politics and religions with these people, “what’s important is to move every conversation into a Jesus conversation.”
Muhammad is a student at one of Heart for Lebanon’s programs. In the afternoon, he turns teacher and shares with his friends and family in a refugee camp what he learned that morning.
(Representative photo courtesy of Heart For Lebanon)
When people realize God’s unconditional love, Melki says the first change that happens is they start to accept others with whom they don’t see eye to eye. This is a huge shift.
“Arguments in the Middle East are not words arguments, they’re not fistfights: they’re wars. For us to change that, we need to have a calmer, a kinder, a more caring individual,” Melki says.
With that in mind, Heart for Lebanon is deliberate in what it teaches the next generation. The ministry has the privilege of serving 1,300 children in multiple locations in Lebanon with programs and schools that are formative on a spiritual level.
“We build character formation programs in every lesson. We have ten biblical traits, such as forgiveness, such as love of others, such as generosity, such as accepting people of different faith,” Melki says.
“In those biblical character traits, we’re raising a new generation, a generation that does not revert to anger, to hatred, to revenge, but rather reverts to love, forgiveness and acceptance.”
Pray for the gospel to launch in Lebanon like never before. Pray for individuals to be radically transformed by God’s love for them.
“Those kids are are not only learning biblical truth, but they are teaching that biblical truth to others. That’s transformation. That’s when Christ is alive and active in the lives of young kids. They become disciplers of others,” says Melki.
Header photo of Syrian refugee children courtesy of Heart for Lebanon.
