My Hope

  The cultural and personal insights while learning a language can be really interesting.  One of the (many) things that’s hard for me is the conversational back and forth.  There’s nothing concrete to connect it to but more than that, they aren’t words or phrases I would’ve said in English.  It’s more than just training my brain to replace one word with another, it’s training it to talk in a whole new way.  In the Arab world, God is brought into almost every conversation.  For example, if you ask someone ‘How are you?’ you’re likely to get a response of ‘Thanks be to God’.  There’s both a Muslim and Christian equivalent so you can sometimes tell the person’s upbringing.  It does not actually answer the question, but then again, ‘fine’ is often more of an automatic response than anything.  Having this constant focus on God has advantages and disadvantages.  We do need to thank God for each moment and each day.  There’s a song titled...

  I’ve been thinking about the shootings in New Zealand on and off since hearing the news.    I didn’t see the headlines right away.    I hadn’t been on my phone much and had been out in the community.    An entirely Muslim community.    I don’t know if the news had reached them yet or not, but if it had, they didn’t let on.    Instead, they invited a group of Christians into their homes.    They served us coffee and we talked.    Our pastor has been preaching out of 1 John recently and I was thinking about the Christian love we are called to share.    The focus of 1 John is primarily targeting how Christians are called to treat other Christians and I don’t want to take those verses out of context and apply them to the love we should share to unbelievers.    How many times do we really show a Christ like love for others?  What about the love to show to people of other faith?    ...

  This was taken on the edge of a cluster of tents.  It isn't an official camp but rather they arranged with the landowner to live on the land in exchange for working in the fields.  The top of the mountain in the background runs along the border with Syria. Hagar has been on my mind lately and I thought maybe I needed to brush up on the story to share with some of the women we minister to in the Bequaa.    Instead, I got to see it.    Last time I posted I mentioned that I sometimes wonder where our place will be and that we’re seeing the possible roles we might have.    There are times I feel so unqualified for this and yet time and time again in scripture we see flawed people being used by God for his purposes and His glory.    Abraham was told that he would be the father of a great nation… but he relied on himself to bring forth an heir with his wife’s servant.    He was told he would be a blessing to others… but he cou...

  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...

Our neighborhood is different than most in Lebanon.    Generally speaking in Lebanon neighborhoods classify people…by faith, socio-economic levels, and cultural backgrounds or ethnicities.    Ours classifies too, but only by socioeconomic level.    Unlike most, we are surrounded by Muslims and Christians, both orthodox and evangelical.    We live on the outskirts, in a building that would probably be classified as gentrification.     We’ve been told that 80% of our neighborhood was foreign born, primarily moving in as refugees.      The buildings bear the marks of the civil war decades ago.    Other areas around Beirut were hard hit too, but many of them have been rebuilt.    Nabaa hasn’t had that luxury.    The walls bear the marks of bombs long gone with no repairs in sight.     It isn’t just war that has quickly aged the area.    The winds blowing through have ...

  Do you ever have those moments where you walk away and realize what you actually should have said to someone?    I’m not even talking about a quick comeback.    Just the words that would have gotten your message across clearly.     That is how it has felt with language learning.    I walk away from people and then it dawns on me what they’ve said to me or how I could have responded.    I know with time the words will flow more naturally, but for now, if the words are ordered differently than I’m used to hearing them, it throws me.    (Conjugation is something even more difficult). Sadly, it isn’t just with Arabic either though. We went to a New Year’s party at the pastor’s house and played a game.    They wanted to include us, so someone offered to translate so we could give clues…. And I still froze.    (Granted, there’s a good chance I would’ve frozen in the States too, but I especially felt li...