Dear Friends,
It’s January 11, 2019, and I am writing this from my room at the Gems
Hotel in Beirut, Lebanon. There is a crazy man on the street below
hurling insults at passersby’s and I’m trying not to get distracted. I
see that he is well known in the neighborhood because many of the people
on the receiving end of the insults are also good-naturedly bumping
fists with him. Arabs yell and scream at each other a lot, even when
they’re friends, so maybe he’s not actually insulting them after all.
Who knows!
I have so much to tell you about what I’ve discovered here, how I have
been received, and what my plans are for work here that I can’t possibly
do it in one email. It will surely take several to make the points I
feel compelled to make. I hope you will read all the installments so
that you come away with a better sense of what it’s like here and what
is needed. Hopefully, you will be moved to work with us.
So, I thought I would start this series of updates by giving you some
background. Lebanon is a very ancient and complex civilization going
back literally thousands of years. Beirut is the tenth oldest
continuously inhabited city in the world, dating back to at least 3,000
BC. It is even older than Jerusalem according to the list before me.
Three other cities in Lebanon are in the top twelve oldest cities in
the world, with two of those being even older than Beirut. The three
are Tyre (2750 BC), Sidon (4,000 BC), and Byblos (5,000 BC). Although
much of Beirut is now ultra-modern, the skyscrapers and luxury hotels
belie the fact that Beirut is ancient.
Historically, Lebanon was a racially heterogeneous place where
Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, and Arabs and others met and intermingled.
For hundreds if not thousands of years, Lebanon was considered part of
Syria. Moreover, from the birth of the early church until the 7th
century AD, Lebanon was largely Christian. However, in the middle of
the 7th century, Muslims conquered Syria, including Lebanon. The
dominance of Christianity began to erode as Islam spread. Today,
Muslims represent 54% of the Lebanese population and Christians make up
44% of Lebanese. (The remainder of Lebanese are primarily Druze, Jews,
and Bahai.)
Lebanon’s political problems are many and complex. I can’t even begin
to comprehend the religious, secular, and geopolitical tensions which
led to the Lebanese civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. Many of
those same tensions continue even to this day. However, I do now
understand some of the religious dynamics at play today in this
complicated place. For those of you interested in the development of a
project in Lebanon, it is critical that you understand some of the
forces at work here today.
Islam is divided into two major “denominations.” The vast majority of
Muslims are Sunni Muslims (87-90%). (My family are Sunni Muslims.) A
much smaller percentage of Muslims are Shi’a Muslims (10-13%). The
large majority of Shi’a Muslims (70-80%) live in four countries — Iran,
Iraq, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan, but Shi’a Muslims are present in all
countries in the middle east to one extent or another. It is estimated
that half of Lebanese Muslims are Sunni Muslims and half are Shi’a
Muslims. (I have no idea how this came to be or why, but this is what
the data shows.)
Sunnis and Shiites have fought each other relentlessly for centuries,
but things have taken a very interesting turn in Lebanon. You have all
heard of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is a political party and militant group
formed in 1982 by a bloc of Lebanese Shiites who opposed Israel’s 1982
invasion of Israel. Their stated aim is the destruction of Israel and
the establishment of an Islamic state there. Since its inception in
1982, Hezbollah has made a strong alliance with their Shi’a compadres in
Iran, and with Iran’s help, Hezbollah has built an impressive arsenal
that they surely plan to use against Israel when the right time comes.
It is well known and not hidden that Iran is continuing to actively
assist Hezbollah in stockpiling and modernizing its arsenal of weapons.
I read somewhere recently that Hezbollah has 150,000 missiles and
rockets stockpiled in Lebanon. In the last few weeks, tensions have
risen considerably as Israel keeps discovering and destroying Hezbollah
tunnels running from Lebanon into Israel, tunnels that Hezbollah intends
to use to mount an attack on Israel.
Although Hezbollah controls some neighborhoods and districts in Beirut,
its strategic stronghold is in the Bekaa Valley, a valley running the
length of Lebanon and situated between the coastal mountain range and
the mountain range father to the east that runs along the border with
Syria. The Bekaa Valley is a fertile farming area. Christians largely
have been driven out of the northern half of the Bekaa Valley.
Now we come to the Syrian civil war started in 2011. I don’t pretend to
know everything (or much) about it, but I know that millions of Syrian
Sunni Muslims — primarily women and children (a fact I did not
understand until today) — fled into Lebanon, Turkey, and other
countries, including Iraq, to escape the factional fighting going on in
their home country. I have read that there are at least 1.5 million
Syrian refugees in Lebanon. A pastor I spoke to today said that the
number of refugees in Lebanon is likely much higher, because there are
also Iraqi and Palestinian refugees here as well. He said the actual
number could be as high as 2.5 million. Lebanon’s population was only 4
million to begin with!
Many of the husbands of the women who fled Syria were ISIS fighters —
ISIS is a Sunni group — who either stayed behind to fight or were
killed when they tried to flee with their families. As fate would have
it, most of the refugees from Syria landed squarely in the Bekaa Valley.
In Bekaa, they have suffered attacks by Hezbollah and even attacks by
ISIS. Although ISIS does not have a large-scale presence in Lebanon,
apparently, they still send in stealth squads to capture or kill the men
who evaded conscription and escaped with their families. The Lebanese
army has its hands full just trying to keep Hezbollah at bay and doesn’t
have the resources to guard the camps. In addition to being worse than
slums, the camps are vulnerable to attacks by ISIS fighters and
Hezbollah. I have spent the last two days in Bekaa and can attest to
both the dismal state of affairs in the camps as well as the fact that
the camps are totally vulnerable to attack. More about the state of
affairs in the camps to follow.
In coming installments, I am going to move away from the dry political
narrative and onto the toll this terrible situation is having on the
people who are being affected and how we, as a faith community, can make
a difference and speak into the lives of these suffering families with
compassion and mercy. We must be Jesus with skin on (as they say) to
these hurting folks if we are to be true to the calling to which we have
been called. I don’t yet know what I am going to do or how I’m going
to raise the money to do it, but I know one thing for sure; I’m going to
do something and I’ll find the money somewhere!
Peace!
Niles
