Lebanon Trip Report
I n 2018, WCF launched 2 Life Centers in Lebanon with the generous support of a Christian foundation and The Brooklyn Tabernacle. In 2022, WCF launched a 3rd Life Center with the generous support of other ministry partners. Our Field Partners have continued to faithfully run these clinics and we've seen collectively more than 44,000 patients come through our Medical and Dental programs and more than 1,500 students through our Vocational Training Programs. The military conflict that arose last year caused hundreds of thousands from the south to settle in the central city here and we've had an opportunity to minister to them.
Families Registering at our Life Center (LC)
Two weeks ago, WCF brought a ministry team to serve at our 3 Life Center locations with our Field Partners. We had a mix of medical, children/young adult ministry, ESL and Computer Teaching teams. We had a blessed time of ministry.
Character/leadership Training for Young Adults at LC
Medical + Children Ministry
Our medical team served at all 3 Life Center locations where we saw 354 souls come through our clinics. As always, medical teams provide opportunities to share the love of Christ tangibly. Our trip opened doors for new people that never came to the Life Center in the past as well as build on existing relationships.
On our medical team was a pediatrician, Kia, who hadn't been on a trip with us in more than 10 years. Her last trip with us was to Uganda when she just entered medical school. She reminded me that 10+ years ago, I said in a Ministry Meeting, 'Lord, give us a pediatrician' after we lost a pediatrician volunteer. She silently replied - 'give me 10 more years'. A little more than 10 years later, here she was back on a medical mission, but this time as our pediatrician! The Lord is faithful and I'm thankful to those that are in turn faithful to their commitments to the Lord, even years later.
Doctor returning as a Pediatrician
Our Children's Ministry team conducted lessons around the themes of Love, Forgiveness and Obedience which incorporated skits, music, crafts and other activities. This team was able to minister with all 3 of our LC partners in their various settings.
Ministering to Syrian Refugee Children at the LC
We were blessed to serve at our partner's new Life Center building in Nabaa area. For the first time, we were able to have our mobile medical clinic running here while our children's ministry team ministered in another part of the LC. The families that were ministered to were mostly Syrian refugee and Lebanese backgrounds, but we also had Iraqis as well as migrant workers from places like Mauritania.
Young Adult Leader Training Group
In the North, our ministry partner has been running a children's program for the mostly Syrian refugee children in the community. We were able to run a children's program at the same time as our medical ministry also for the first time.
Children’s Ministry at one of our LC
In the Bekaa, our partner here has had a long running set of education, vocational and medical programs for about 150 children and youth. We ran our medical clinic at our Life Center building while our ministry team worked with a rotating set of children and youth doing Children's programs, ESL and Computer classes.
Children’s Ministry at one of our LC
English as a Second Language (ESL) and Computer Ministry
We also had ESL and Computer classes during the week. Our students were mostly older teens and young adults. At the Nabaa LC, our students were graduates from our existing English class at the Life Center, which was a blessing to see their progress. In the Bekaa, our students rotated from different parts of the ministry such as the nursing students and the auto repair students. As part of our classes, we always end a class on a conversation class where our topics were the same as the children's ministry - love and forgiveness. We were able to minister to 140 students throughout all the LCs.
Our Computer Camp Students
Character/Leadership Classes
We met with different sets of Young Adults where we taught from our Character/Leadership curriculum - a series of lessons on topics like 'Self Control' or 'Overcoming Fear of Failure' which are applied to life and business/work contexts. The first group was a set of around 30 Young Adult leaders. The second group was Syrian Young Adults during their regular meeting.
Retired teacher sharing his testimony at Young Adult Leader Training
One of our teachers was a retired tech company manager who was himself a refugee when he was younger and ultimately made it to the USA. He was able to share his testimony during these classes and it resonated with the mostly refugee students.
Overall, we were greatly blessed and encouraged serving with our 3 local ministry partners. They are doing a tremendous work here under very difficult conditions such as war and political/economic instability. In fact, towards the end of the trip, the neighbor to the south bombed some areas somewhat near our partner church. We were not in the area, but it did cause a few redirections on our way back to the airport. In addition, a week later, the same neighbor and another neighbor have been exchanging missiles as we've seen in the news. This region continues to need a lot of prayer.
