As international negotiations to end the war in Lebanon continued at press time, Lebanese Baptist leaders questioned whether two Baptist schools, now housing hundreds of refugees displaced by the conflict, will be able to begin the academic year on time.
Meanwhile Baptists across the world continue to solicit prayers seeking an end to the conflict and aid for relief and rebuilding work in the ransacked nation.
In an Aug. 8 e-mail update, two prominent Baptist leaders in Beirut thanked Baptists from around the world for their prayers and support in the month-old crisis.
“We’d like to take this opportunity to express our heart-felt appreciation to all of you who continue to lift us in prayer and to those who send us beautiful encouraging e-mails,” said Elie Haddad and Nabil Costa of Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut and the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development, respectively.
“We’d like to thank, as well, friends and partners all over the world … who blessed us with the poor widow’s two copper coins. God bless you,” they wrote.
But the two leaders also lamented the continuing violence.
“Friends, we are optimistic as we hear of the ongoing political negotiations but not as we see the effects of the bombings,” they wrote. “As you may have heard in the news, there were three massacres yesterday (Aug. 7) in three different parts of the country. Each was caused by an air raid that brought a building on the heads of its occupants. Yet, the reason of our hope is Him to whom we pray in anticipation.”
The seminary and nearby Beirut Baptist School have provided shelter and food to an estimated 1,000 people displaced by the conflict.
Most of the refugees have come from hard-hit Shiite regions of Lebanon to the relative safety of the Christian parts of Beirut.
International Baptist relief workers, including a medical team from Hungarian Baptist Aid and church groups from the United States, have provided other services to the refugees.
Costa and Haddad said the seminary has canceled the “intensive” monthlong courses it normally offers in September but officials “are planning, in faith, a regular start of the semester in October.”
They also said the seminary should be able to reopen for classes then, “even if most of the displaced people are still with us.”
But the situation at Beirut Baptist School “is different,” Costa and Haddad wrote in the e-mail.
“What will happen to the displaced families there?” they wrote. “Will we be able to open our doors for a new academic year before the displaced people go back to their homes?
“We don’t have all the answers, yet we live each day at a time trusting in the Lord, knowing that He is sovereign and in control.” (ABP)
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