My Hope

  The street we live on.   The atmosphere in our neighborhood changed today and I’m not sure what to do.    The government here is cracking down on Syrian workers in hopes they’ll return to Syria.    The majority of the Syrians here are illegally employed.    Most of the families in our neighborhood are refugees and some ran stores here.    We can help make sure some of the people we know have enough income to feed their families, but overall, it’s barely a dent in the bucket.    I don’t have the connections, language or know-how to change the politics of a country neither of us belong to, simply reside in.    Since I’m being blunt and honest, I have to admit, I feel guilty that my presence is welcome here even though I’m even more of a foreigner here than they are, but my citizenship affords privileges I didn’t earn.    I wonder if I even made an impact in the way people think about refugees in my own count...

  Learning language and culture has a way of keeping one humble.  If you struggle with pride, I highly recommend giving it a try.  The smartest person can quickly be reduced to a vocabulary on level with a toddler.   We knew we'd make some mistakes and thought we'd share so you could get a chuckle too.   Tommy started having a conversation in the elevator with a neighbor and they asked where he worked.  He shared that he works for the 'kersay'.  Seeing a puzzled look on his face he attempted to say it again more clearly.  Finally our neighbor asked if he could please just tell him in English and chuckled as Tommy told him he works for the church.  It was then that Tommy realized 'kersay' is an upholstered chair; 'keneesay' is church. I was having a conversation with a group of women from Horizons and thought I heard one of them say to the other 'Happy Birthday'.  While there is an Arabic phrase, many people just use English and sing the ...

  We feel blessed to have had our first visitors here in Lebanon!    My (Rebekah’s) parents came and we had an amazing time together!    While they were here, we took some time to join them as tourists and saw some of Lebanon that we hadn’t seen before.    I was amazed by all the history surrounding us that is easy to overlook if one’s view is just out from our apartment.    We can see the effects of the more recent history that has shaped our neighborhood with both Lebanon’s civil war and now Syria’s.    Buildings that were battered from bomb shells and bullet holes are now crowded with refugees who have fled the bombs and bullets in their homeland.    The ruins go back much farther than that though.    We walked through ancient Roman ruins that were astounding.    While much had crumbled, a lot was still intact.    The size and scope of the stonework is a marvel but especially so without the...

  It's summer time.  My facebook newsfeed has been plastered with pictures of awards ceremonies, graduations, and general end of the year posts.  I wish I could be there to celebrate in some of these milestones with you!  Since we had time off mid-year with our move, we've still got a little ways before we finish our math & language arts curriculum.  We taking mini summer break while family is in town.   Even though I'm a homeschool mom, sometimes I am still ready for summer to end and school to begin again.  Not because I don't enjoy spending the time with the kids, but I also crave the routine and structure.   Today I visited a family without access to school, but could tell the kids crave the routine and structure that would come from classes.  They are eager to learn, but have never been formally taught.  They want knowledge and understanding... but they don't have that luxury.   Almost every week a group has gone out to sha...

  Where are you in your relationship with Christ this Resurrection Sunday?   Are you dining at the Passover supper with Jesus- blissfully unaware of what you’ll soon be called to do?  Do you know that something is coming, but you’re focused more on who is sitting where?  Are you looking for someone to overturn the oppressive government or do you search for a servant king? Maybe you’re in the garden, fighting to stay awake.  You know what you’ve been told to do and yet you struggle to obey.  Maybe you’ve seen the innocent mistreated and you react in anger and violence rather than allowing God to bring justice. Perhaps you’ve just experienced the death of your Rabbi, teacher and friend.  You don’t know what to do and so you hide from this world and wait until things are clearer.  You protect yourself by denying your relationship.   Maybe you’ve seen the risen Messiah.  You have touched his hands and feet.  Now he is telling ...

   Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time, said, "You don't know what you're talking about!     You don't realize that it's better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed."    He did not say this on his own; as high priest at that time he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation.      And not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world.    So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death.   (Joh 11:49-53 NLT) His death transcended time and space.    His death was for the Jewish nation at that time.    But his death was also for each person, no matter their nationality, for generation to generation.    I can tell you firsthand that Christ is able to unite those of us who are children of God, no matter where we’re from.    There have...

  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...