Cows, airstrikes, and a wedding

Evangeline
May 15, 2024
10 min read

Updated: Aug 13, 2024

L Messih Qam! Christ is Risen. Blessed Easter and Eid Mubarak to you all.

I am just over the 6 months marker of my service in Lebanon. Here are my updates:

Photo: Enjoying the yearly cherry blossom bloom in downtown Beirut

Not much time to read? Here’s a summary:

Spring was a massive season for reporting and proposal development at MERATH. My work was largely handling situation assessments for those submissions.
We praise God that a number of MERATH’s aid projects have been extended for another cycle.
I have been invited to join a partner ministry visiting migrant workers detained in prisons. I am praying for permanent residency in Lebanon and government approval to be able to do this.
Education in Lebanon has significant challenges, for both refugees and local Lebanese children.
Tensions between Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities are at an all-time high.
Following a rare direct missile attack on Israel by Iran in mid-April, the region braced for all-out war. We praise God that there were no further significant escalations.
The UN has reported that northern Gaza has entered “full-blown famine”. 20% or more of households have an extreme lack of food (essentially starving).
Against the odds, Khalil and I were able to hold a beautiful Lebanese blessing ceremony and celebration, welcoming a handful of hardy Canadian family members and friends.

Arabic word(s) of the month

Ways to pray

Relief Work with MERATH

Photo: Vivienne* the French cow looks suspiciously at her visitors. She is part of a partially CBM-supported sustainable agriculture pilot project in Rahbe, northern Lebanon.*pseudonym used for anonymity (just kidding!)

Late winter and early spring are reporting and proposal go-time for the MERATH team. It’s a flurry of rounding up monitoring information and ‘lessons learned’ for current cycles while also completing needs assessments for future cycles.

MERATH’s biggest projects are funded by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank via its partnership with CBM. Back while I lived in Alberta, I regularly drove past CFGB-funding wheatfields on my way to work, but I had no idea what a significant donor of aid CFGB is until I arrived in Lebanon. SUPER cool to now see the funds those fields generated now put to work. In the last round, MERATH had 3 basic assistance projects funded by CFGB. Together they provided food boxes or vouchers/e-cards to over 31,000 vulnerable individuals across Lebanon and Syria. Wow! Our job is to use the funds to purchase food or vouchers, then get them to the churches - who have long term relationships with the community members and are best to handle distribution. We also take on the administrative and reporting burden so churches can keep doing what they do best.

It's been great learning to sit in on meetings and hear why certain project design decisions are made as projects are designed in relationship with community members. For example, vouchers or e-cards are often the preferred way families prefer to receive food aid – so they can shop when and how they like. However, some prefer food boxes due to concerns about facing discrimination at grocery stores. If food boxes are chosen as our modality, we have to make sure all food is purchased locally as to not disrupt local economies. So many factors to consider!

My work over the last three months was to handle situation assessments for much of the reports and proposals going out. I gather and track information on topics such as food security, employment, inflation, nutrition, community tensions, displacement, and regional demographics, and then turn that data into write ups used to inform our project evaluation and new project development.

Most of the reports and proposals I worked on is for basic assistance projects (including winterization support and emergency aid for displaced Lebanese). But in March I got to work on a proposal for a fresh cycle of an exciting livelihood projects. MERATH is piloting a sustainable agriculture project in the mountainous northern regions of Lebanon, which is the poorest and most vulnerable to climate change. The project provides jobs and promotes the use of sustainable agriculture practices. We currently have chickens, goats, and 8 French cows. We sadly lost two cows over the winter; prayers for our bovine friends are much appreciated!

Finally, I took the lead on developing a proposal for a project helping families purchase milk, diapers, and sanitary products. These things are essential but are increasingly unaffordable for vulnerable communities. Just this week we got the news that both the milk and diaper project AND our CFGB project was renewed – CFGB for a tentative 4 years more! Please join us in praising God for this amazing blessing.

You can check out MERATH’s quarterly newsletter: here.

Spotlight: Education in Lebanon

Photo: My MERATH coworker, Joy, and a cutie at a Child Friendly Space program in Syria. Check out the video here.

In an sad but exciting turn of events, my lovely coworker and MERATH education program coordinator, Lauren, is leaving us to get married in the states. As such I’m getting trained up on the education projects MERATH supports in case I need to fill in.

Education in Lebanon, in a word, is complicated. Here’s what I’ve learned about the mess of problems the current education system finds itself in:

#1 Over capacity: Since the Syrian crisis began in 2011, hundreds of thousands of families fled to Lebanon, doubling the number of children needing education. The promoted best practice at the time was integration of refugee children into mainstream public schools. Public schools were already at capacity before the influx of students - first the Syrian children, and then Lebanese once Lebanese parents could no longer afford private school fees after the economic crisis. The solution the government chose was to require teachers to teach two shifts: Lebanese children in the morning, and Syrian children in the afternoon.

#2 Strikes: With the economic crisis starting in 2019, teacher salaries – who are paid in Lebanese Lyra as government employees – tanked to 2% of its previous value. That’s like being paid $2000 a month in 2018, and $40 a month in 2020. With double the work and a fraction of the pay, it is understandable that teachers go on strike frequently, however the strikes derail student learning terribly.

#3 Limited options for unregistered refugees: Registered refugees are given priority for mainstream schools. In 2015 Lebanon stopped issuing status to any new refugees from Syria, meaning that an estimated 80% of the refugee population does not have valid residency permits. Furthermore, many Lebanese schools are taught in French or English, whereas most Syrian children only speak Arabic. For the children that can’t access mainstream education, or can’t adapt to the new system, their only option is non-formal education programs like those are offered by MERATH, churches and many NGOs. While the quality of education in these learning centres are remarkably high (a side effect of NGOs paying in dollars (USD) while mainstream schools pay in lyra (LBP) is that many of the best teachers have left public schools for non-formal ones), the downside is most centres offer education only up to grade 6.

#4 And the biggest problem – lack of certification: There used to be big hopes that non-formal learning centres could help refugee children catch up, and then have them re-integrate into mainstream schools, for example using a shared curriculum and aptitude tests. This would mean refugee children could still get school certifications, opening the door for higher learning. Many different attempts at setting up such a system have tried and failed. Most recently, the ministry of education simply stopped offering these tests, thereby closing all chance of non-formal learning centres offering accreditation. Generally it's only those that have the means to bribe officials can access certificates. We have heard of youth in their middle school years taking grade 6 classes repeatedly, as they have no other education available.

The result of these compounding challenges is a frustrating and disheartening cycle for both refugees and vulnerable Lebanese kids. I am always amazed by the dedication and skill of the teachers I meet at our partner learning centres. Some, like those at True Vine Church in Zahle, teach 3 shifts in one day to keep up with the demand of kids! And others, like the youth workers at Tahaddi Education Centre, are creating innovative livelihood training programs for teenagers that are not able to access higher learning. But as one educator I met summarized, “the greatest threat to enrollment is a lack of hope – why learn if there is no chance of their situation changing in the future?”.

Please pray with us for a significant change in education policy and structures in Lebanon.

Updates on Regional Conflicts

On April 13 Lebanon watched as Iran launched over 300 missiles toward Israel in response to the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Some of the missiles were visible from Lebanon. As flights were canceled and additional travel advisories came out, we braced ourselves for a much bigger war. However once again we praise God that there were no further significant escalations.

MERATH’s church partners continue to support Lebanese displaced by airstrikes in the south. At the latest count, there were 92,621 internally displaced individuals from the southern areas. Others – including Khalil's uncles and cousins – have chosen to stay in their homes despite the risk and destruction. They are heavy on our hearts.

Over the last 3 months there has been an increase in IDF airstrikes further north in Lebanon. Khalil and I have experienced just a couple closer calls: there was a drone attack on a warehouse only a short drive from Khalil’s parents house in Saida. We also witnessed an airstrike on the other side of the mountain while Khalil and I were visiting Jezzine. However, by and large we feel safe in Beirut and life has stayed much the same. MERATH staff are continuing to visit partners in higher risk areas in the Bekaa valley, and Khalil and I have chosen to still visit churches and families we know living in Sour/Tyre as the security situation allows.

On the other side of the border, over 35,000 Palestinian and 1,130 Israeli citizens have been killed by the Hamas-IDF conflict. Expectations of what will happen next are polarized: some feel optimistic that the most recent ceasefire proposal has been accepted by Hamas. Others fear that the IDF will soon push for a land invasion into Rafah in a final effort to destroy Hamas. Such an invasion is expected to kill tens, if not hundreds of thousands of the 1.5 million people living in the area. Please pray for peace.

Tensions between Syrians and Lebanese

Photo credit: PHB/L'Orient Today.

On April 8th tensions between Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities reached a new high when a Christian Lebanese politician’s body was found in Syria. Since then, we have heard reports of increased attacks on Syrian refugees in Lebanon, as well as their cars and businesses. A little Syrian girl who attends one of our education centres in Beirut told her teacher that she was too afraid to come to class for fear of being harassed. Similarly, our partners supporting Syrian refugees have faced increasing opposition from host communities who feel that the support churches or NGOs give is encouraging Syrians to stay rather than return to their home country.

The recent incident appears to be just the latest spark in a widening trend of anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon. The presence of the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees (in a country of only 5 million total) is being blamed for the economic crisis, increase in crime, and pressure on already failing infrastructure. In late February we began to see the billboard shown above pop up all-over Beirut as part of a controversial campaign calling for the mass deportation of undocumented Syrian refugees. As I mentioned earlier – that’s over 80% of the refugee population.

The situation is complex – Syrian refugees have little hope of a good life in Lebanon, where most are restricted from legal work and cannot receive accredited education. But to return to Syria would risk living in even worse economic hardship and the arrest or forced army conscription for the young men. Whereas host communities are concerned that Syrians will soon outnumber Lebanese and cause more social issues. Lebanese don’t see the government providing a solution and some groups are taking matters in their own hands. Over the last two months we've heard of spikes in random deportations of families, forced closures of businesses, destruction of informal settlements, and enforced curfews for Syrians, particularly in Christian municipalities.

Please pray with us for the church to speak out against hate and bring compassion to the hearts of the people. Please also pray for wisdom of the leaders to find a solution.

Personal Update: The Wedding!

Yes, in the middle of everything going on, Khalil and I had our long-awaited wedding celebration.

On April 27th we had a blessing of our marriage in a beautiful crusader-era church in the historic city of Byblos. It was a fairly traditional Lebanese wedding including a procession through the streets to the church with drummers and dancers. We still roped in a couple Canadian/Albertan traditions like wedding games and dancing the Cadillac Ranch. Somehow the best man surprised us on the dance floor with a guy in a polar bear costume waving a Canadian flag. Camels are NOT a Lebanese tradition (there’s only 2 in the country!), but when you can rent them by the hour, why not?

The best blessing of all was that some of my close family could join despite travel advisories and last-minute flight cancellations.

With much pain in the world right now it felt weird, maybe even self-indulgent to celebrate, especially to the extent that the Lebanese like to celebrate. But I am learning from my Middle Eastern community that it is especially important to celebrate life and love in the middle of hardship.

Here is an excerpt from the poem by Khalil Gibran that my dad and Khalil’s dad read during our ceremony:

“When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep...

For even as love crowns you so shall he

crucify you. Even as he is for your growth

so is he for your pruning…

And think not you can direct the course

of love, for love, if it finds you worthy,

directs your course."

Fundraising Update

I am thrilled to say that I have reached my fundraising goal for 2023/2024 and have begun to fundraise for my second year of service (2024/2025) year. Currently I’m just over 15% there.

Thank you to all of you who have chosen to partner with me. And an extra thank you for those that have chosen to give monthly; it’s a huge help for forecasting future budgets.

Thank you

That’s it for now. Thank you so much for reading this longer update and thank you for your prayers – they are needed!

May you experience the presence of the risen Christ richly this season.

Salam,

Evie