Little old me in little old Lebanon!

I wake up at 6:09 AM and stay in my bed praying for a few minutes. I scuttle out to get dressed for the day, then pour myself some cereal to snack on while I walk around. 

We get our transportation down into town and shuffle outside and we’re off by 6:45. Our taxi driver doesn’t speak very much English, but we’re communicating anyways. I’ve got my bible open in my lap and headphones in my ears and I’m smiling out the window at this sleepy city showing it’s first signs of life, a hazy blue pink sunrise still lingering and nobody in any particular rush yet. Our driver buys all of us little coffees on the way. It’s bitter and thick, but it’s laced with his kindness, so I drink it all knowing it’s got a different kind of sugar inside. 

At the cafe we’re meeting at my sweet friend Molly puts on a BOP so I have a little dance party to wake myself up. Then we realize the pastor we’re traveling with today is behind us in his car. Perfect.

We all pile in and pick up a man who will be translating for us. We make our two hour journey to do some house visits. We meet with a sister who came from Syria and used to be Muslim. She’s got Jesus in her smile. She shows us around the building where they hold church and hold school and daycare for some of the refugee families. My sweatshirt blends into the walls here. I become a chameleon. Perfect.

We get to hear some of her story too, while half the team leaves for a house visit. We can’t all go together because it would be dangerous. She’s given up everything for Jesus, even her husband in a way. They are still together, but I’ll tell you more about it later…

When our teammates return, we pack it up and head to another sister’s home. She’s very young and has a little baby boy who’s a little bit shy and finicky. She shares her story with us. She also fled war torn Syria, where she saw horror upon horror. Her husband and his father had been kidnapped and held hostage, but they escaped and once they did, they fled. She’d recently accepted Christ and was amazed to see her marriage improving and herself changing. We all pray for her and God asks me to anoint her baby boy with oil that I carry in my bag. It takes a little maneuvering, but it gets done. 

We hop into the car and our pastor shares with us on the way home that the husband of the woman we’d met first that day used to be very devoutly Muslim. He tells us that once she accepted Jesus, her husband would send her threatening messages and beat her very often. He threatened to kill her several times and she was terrified of him. Eventually, our Pastor invited her husband to the church and he came. 

If you can imagine with me for a moment how these men must have felt about each other. Her husband full of rage towards Pastor for changing his wife  and the pastor beyond outraged at the way this daughter has been treated, moved by love into a place of protection and intervention. But when the man enters the room at the church, the pastor becomes overwhelmed with compassion and runs to him, kissing his cheeks, and hugging him, and they’re both crying. And He shares the gospel, and lets this man know that despite all he has done, despite his cruelty and the abuse he’s heaped not on only His wife, but on Christ through his treatment of his wife, that Jesus STILL LOVES HIM. JESUS STILL WANTS HIM. He accepts Christ into his heart and asks for forgiveness from God for what he’s done and how he’s been acting.

Now, this husband is a carpenter and a wood worker. After he gave his life to Christ, he wanted to gift the Church and the pastor, so he asked if there was anything he could do for him. The pastor told him that they needed a cross for the church because they didn’t have one. The man makes it, a big beautiful one, but he has no car.

So 

He 

Carries

It 

Across 

Town

On 

His

Back.

Across his Muslim town, in sight of everybody he knows, knowing that he will be treated as an outcast after such a scandal. He attracts a crowd and as they shout at him, asking if he’s crazy, telling him to put it down, he responds by saying that Jesus said that we need to carry our cross, so he is. 

Wow, what a turn around from beating his wife for her Christian faith to risking his life for his own. We see you Jesus! You are good good good. You say you want everybody and you mean you want EVERYBODY!! 

I cry as I listen to this story, picturing the woman who just poured out love on us suffering so much. Not only as a refugee, but also at the hands of the man in her life that was supposed to lay down his life to protect her. And I cry at their family now. That they’re so in love, treat each other with gentle love and respect, and raise their children together as a team. She embodied faith and seeking first the kingdom when she gave her life to Christ, and He met her there and blessed her faithfully. 

We drive back to the city and shuffle into a Falafel shop around the corner, rearranging tables so that we can all sit together. We order a platter and a couple of wraps and hang out, talking about our dreams after the race is over. The owners are kind, and they eye us and laugh with us and probably at us a little bit too. We head home and spend some time gathering ourselves and then head to another teams apartment. 

Since it’s an all squad month, all of our little teams gather together purposefully once a week to share a meal and spend time together. We laugh, we cry, we reconnect, we share stories. It’s an incredibly sweet time. We scurry home at 10:30 and dive into our beds, ready for some divine rest. 

Jesus, such a sweet, sweet friend of mine to give me not just one day like this, but many.