Lebanon (MNN) — On April 7, the International Monetary Fund reached an agreement with Lebanon for an economic reform plan. It could unlock $3 billion in funding over several years.
But the deal depends on Lebanese authorities making several reforms. They must restructure the banking sector, and improve transparency.
Pierre Houssney with Horizons International says, “There’s a sense that we’ve seen this before, for example, back in 2018. It was the summer before an election. We had $11 billion of foreign aid come in. And we saw the politicians use that to basically rig the elections, stay in power, and embezzle the money.”
“I personally am a little bit too jaded to see this as good news, because we’re coming up on some really important elections.”
No one sees any hope in Lebanon’s corrupt ruling class. But Houssney says hope shines from the Lebanese Church. “Lebanon is a small country, but we have been supporting over 115 churches, local ministries in Lebanon, through food portions, through medical aid.”
Horizons also supports Lebanese Christians through employment opportunities. “So we’ve been actually training believers on job skills that can be outsourced via the internet to global economies.”
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Pray many people in Lebanon would see the love of Jesus reflected in the Church.
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Houssney talks about other ways to get involved. “We need prayer. We need financial support continued for the Lebanon Crisis Fund. Because the news headlines have very much moved on since the August 2020 explosion. We’ve had to cut our aid for the churches by half this year because the headline funds have run out.”
Photo courtesy of Horizons International on Facebook.
