My Hope

  Finding community with other Horizons' staff at a game night. Fitting in It’s hard to believe that we’ve now been in Lebanon 3 months.    Most days it doesn’t feel like we’ve been away that long.    We still feel very much like newcomers, both in the neighborhood and as part of Horizons.    Lebanon has churches, though not many when compared to the population.    There are believers here reaching out to those who have never heard the gospel, but the laborers are few.    Still, I wondered, where will we fit, what will be our role.   How will God use us as we cross both language and cultural barriers? And yet, God has already given us glimpses of ways we can come alongside those already here.    There are gifts and strengths we have that compliment the gifts and strengths of others.    He keeps reminding me, we are here by His design- and His plans are perfect! Today I listened to a woman share the ways that...

  Old Brain Made New! Arabic makes my brain hurt on a daily basis.    It’s hard thinking about everything in the masculine, feminine or plural.    I’ve (almost) gotten used to reading from right to left and the different forms the letters take depending on where they’re located in the word.      It’s tricky and complicated working between different dialects since we’re living in Lebanon but ministering to Syrians and while most words are the same, many are not.      It’s also complicated working between formal Arabic and dialects.    Formal Arabic is used in most written texts, particularly religious writings, but is not spoken by the general public.    Just imagine that everything was written in the style of the King James Bible (or older) but spoken as we do now.    I tell you this not to complain, but rather to give a glimpse into why Arabic is considered one of the hardest languages for native Engli...