Lebanon War Relief
T hank you for your prayers and support for our Life Center projects. We felt strongly to personally see firsthand our relief efforts with our Life Center Partners, so we spent a week serving with them throughout Lebanon. We were very encouraged by our Partner's relief efforts to the displaced people from the South, but our hearts were broken over the many tragic situations we encountered.
The government placed some of the displaced in schools and government buildings. However, they provided no other material help. This would have to come from churches or non-profits (like WCF).
For families that couldn't fit into the shelters, they had to find their own places to live. We visited the temporary homes of many different displaced people groups - Lebanese Shi'a, Syrian Alawites, and Syrian Kurds.
Tents of the displaced
Many landlords took advantage of the surge in demand and hiked the rents. The rooms we visited typically had multiple families living in these small 1 or 2 bedroom apartments with up to 20 people. One apartment had 2 families there, but the room was barely bigger than my church office.
Small Apartment with 2 Displaced Families
Another challenge for the displaced was that everyone was afraid of allowing anyone connected to Hezbollah into their buildings. Even the government was verifying the affiliation and identities of the displaced before allowing them into shelters.
Hezb fighters were embedding themselves into Christian areas and these were being targeted, sometimes without warning. Sadly, innocent bystanders have been killed as collateral damage.
In some areas, we saw buildings that had been flattened, next to many buildings that were untouched, which meant they had weapon caches. In some cases, we saw a single room or an apartment in a building destroyed, leaving the rest intact, which meant a specific fighter was targeted.
Destroyed building
With your generous giving, WCF funded relief projects with all our partners. This enabled us to minister to new groups of people who were very grateful to the love and compassion they were shown.
North Lebanon (GWA)
This area of Lebanon has been free of the direct bombings that have struck other areas so many families fled to this safer area. The government gave us a list of registered families to help that were not able to make it into the shelters, but had to rent apartments.
We put together food/hygiene care packages for the families and we visited with them, heard their stories and prayed with them.
Packing kits
Central Lebanon (RCB)
We spent a day at the Beirut Life Center which has become a distribution point for hundreds of food/hygiene care packages. Extra medical care has also been provided to the newly displaced. We visited several families near the Life Center that had been helped by us.
One family was from a Syrian Alawite background. The father had a small trucking business in Syria, but they fled in the middle of the night when militants threatened to kill them for their trucks and ended up in the South and now in this area. The pregnant mom has been cared for by our Life Center's Ob/Gyn and received other relief help.
Alawite Family
East Lebanon (TFF)
Our Life Center team here spent the day at a local church where our medical team saw about 100 patients and all the families got a hot meal and a food/hygiene care package.
Medical clinic at Church location
Afterwards, we visited the school that had been turned into a shelter where classrooms have been divided up into rooms for the displaced families. We brought hot meals for families that couldn't make it to the church that day.
Hot meals at School Shelter
We went to the refugee camps near our Life Center that we visited 2 months ago. This is where a missile struck a building that had weapons stored and nearby refugee families were tragically killed in the resulting explosions.
Families shared how traumatized they've been by not just the bombing but by the sonic booms generated by warplanes. They have nowhere to run or hide and are completely vulnerable. They deeply appreciate the love and support they receive from our ministry.
Refugee camp
When the fighting started, the TFF Life Center had to close for weeks, but we were able to re-open this week and the families were overjoyed.
Thank you for your continued prayers and support for this life-giving ministry.
God bless you,
Jerry
