Lebanon (MNN) — How are Israel’s targeted strikes against Hezbollah impacting the next generation in Lebanon?
Pierre Houssney with Horizons International says many Lebanese ages 34 to 50 are reliving the country’s civil war (which lasted from 1975 to 1990). Young adults and kids are grappling with this trauma for the first time. Sometimes it’s catching.
People on the streets of Lebanon. (Photo courtesy of Horizons International via Facebook)
“I grew up outside of Lebanon during the civil war, so I don’t tremble when I hear the airstrikes. My kids are not afraid of the airstrikes, because they see how I’m comfortable, I’m relaxed, I know what’s going on, I know where the strikes are happening,” Houssney says.
“But other people of my generation, they actually start to physically tremble, and that gets passed on to their kids as well.”
The UN says 1.2 million people have been internally displaced in Lebanon in the past three weeks, 400,000 of them children. Their education has obviously been put on hold, which is one more reason officials are concerned for the future of Lebanon. The nation has endured so many crises already in recent decades.
“We have over 1.2 million internally displaced people, and this is a country [where] the “nationals” — the indigenous people, Lebanese — are maybe 4, 4.5 million total. Plus we have over half a million Palestinian refugees who have been temporarily here since 1948. We also have upwards of 2 million Syrian refugees,” Houssney says.
“The whole country is in chaos right now. There’s a lot of fear, and we’re really now in a wartime mode. It’s been quite intense.”
Ministering in “wartime mode”
Horizons’ School of Hope is not open. Instead, the classrooms as well as the building where a Kurdish church once met are shelters now for hundreds of internally displaced people. Their staff have dropped their original job descriptions to cook for, pray with and minister to the displaced.
The Horizons’ medical team distributed vital supplies and provided care to individuals sheltering at the School of Hope. (Photo courtesy of Horizons International via Facebook)
The situation Horizons staff are seeing on the ground is urgent. Houssney asks that we focus our prayers with them on the spiritual battle.
“These crises that happen in the worldly realms, they always represent open doors for the spiritual impact of people,” he explains.
“We get to know them, and we see that they’re open. We do not spare any opportunity to share the gospel in a way that shows genuine love so that they can understand we [are] helping them in the humanitarian [means] because we truly love them with the love of Christ.”
Learn more about Horizons International and support their response to the crisis in Lebanon here.
Header image courtesy of Horizons International.
