Beirut Mission Team: The Story in Pictures

Here is Rhiannon, Maggy, Ron & Marlene sharing a meal with some of the Cedar Home girls.  There are 21 total girls:  13 who range in age from 6 - 18 and 8 college age girls who are in a more independant living arrangement.  Chadi & Joyce Melki and their staff are doing powerful and effective ministries with these fine young women and girls!

Here you have our team with most of the Heart for Lebanon team.  A talented and committed group of young men and women who are impacting the very culture of a nation by their God-given mission and hard work!  Camille & Hoda Melki and their staff are setting an example for how ministry is to be approached and lived out no matter where you live!

Rhiannon McKinley and Marlene Crump are visiting with one of many Iraqi families we visited in their homes.  What a privilege it was to sit, talk, listen to their stories and minister to these good people.  Many (probably most) of the Iraqi families we met were Christians who had been driven out of Iraq by Muslim extremists who had either killed some of their family members, kidnapped family members or threatened them simply because they were Christians.  Most are now waiting to be permanently placed in other countries by the United Nations.

This is Pastor John with a little spitfire known as Simona.  She keeps everyone hopping at Cedar Home.  She is a great example of the life-change happening with each of the girls that God has entrusted into Chadi and Joyce Melki's hands. 

We took some time to learn about the history and culture of Lebanon.  What a great and interesting history it has!  Here we are standing on a late 1st Century church floor in the city of Byblos.  Though we don't know for sure, it's possible that the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John or some of their students might have spoken here at some point!  The possibility alone left us in awe.  We laughed because anything we have in the USA regarding our history is 234 years old or younger.  So sites that are thousands of years old are almost beyond our comprehension!

These are the tallest Roman columns in the world!  The engineering feat alone is breathtaking, but the intricate carvings and construction is incredible.  You see Pastor John standing at the bottom of the first column and get a sense of how big they are!  These columns are a part of a pre-first century pagan temple built by the Romans called Ba'albeck.  It was a temple where people could come and worship any god they chose.  Throughout the ruins there were sections devoted to certain gods.  The temple is in a Shiite village of the same name.  It is located in the beautiful Bekaa Valley, a valley set between two mountain ranges in the center of Lebanon.  If you travel east from the Bekaa Valley you reach the Mediterranean Sea.  If you travel west you enter Syria.





The Beirut Mission team will be sharing during our Sunday morning worship on Sunday, May 16th.  We hope you can come and hear about what God is doing in Lebanon!