Faith and Light is marking its tenth anniversary in Lebanon this year. The growth has been extraordinary: forty-five communities now spread across seven regions in a territory smaller than 1,500 square kilometers.
Yet the situation is nearly always brutal.
Bombardment and fighting have made community gatherings nearly impossible. Many families have suffered the loss of loved ones or the destruction of their homes.
Water and electricity shortages grip the country, forcing residents in some neighborhoods to draw from makeshift wells. But the lines for water have become, for some community members, a chance to meet—between bombardments.
War has not stopped these communities from living out the "fourth time" intensely—the time of daily friendship—or from organizing twenty-nine summer camps last year despite all the risks.
In this situation, Faith and Light represents an immense hope for parents, handicapped people, and the young people who commit themselves to it.
If Nohra and Rachel, parents of Sabina (profoundly handicapped), did not emigrate to Canada, it was largely because of their mission at FL, which changed their lives. Nohra is a regional coordinator.
Sami, whose parents died, used to wander the streets of Achrafié (a district of East Beirut) with his head down, ducking under shellfire and bomb whistles while everyone else took shelter. One day he told me: "Roland, I used to want to die in a bombardment. But now, with Faith and Light, everything has changed for me."
Eight days ago, at the Faith and Light Middle East office in Beirut, I received a phone call from Jezzine—a Christian enclave in the South, surrounded and cut off from the rest of Christian Lebanon. It was Mona, a young friend, calling with joy to announce a new community had been born there.
In early April, I learned that Michel, coordinator of a Beirut region, intended to cross the "new" front line running through Christian Beirut—a zone hit daily by snipers—in order to lead the election of a new coordinator. My first thought was: "Michel is mad. All this risk for an election?"
But I could not help thinking that because of Michel, Sami, Nohra, Rachel, Mona, Faith and Light, and so many other Christians with faith in Jesus—all love and all power—Lebanon will endure against every logic.
— Roland Tamraz, 1990