We Are Free to Worship!

We Are Free to Worship

June 24, 2012

            A glorious welcome on our first full day in Beirut opened with worship service at a church in Lebanon. Christian worship in every language is the same when the Holy Spirit is present. Freedom in Christ means we are free to worship God in spirit and in truth. What a blessing to be in the midst of the enemy’s camp and freely worship together with our Arab brothers and sisters in Christ. What a joyous day it was. Hallelujah!



            Please continue to pray for this church’s ministry as they are doing so many amazing things to reach the lost in this area. Some of their ministry activities include a college student ministry that provides exceptional copy and print services at below market prices for college students throughout the community. Another ministry is a powerful women’s ministry with a very special focus that includes opportunities for women that are victims of domestic abuse and cultural biases to learn skills to improve their sense of well-being and self-worth. Classes include language lessons, cooking classes, salon skin and hair care training, jewelry making, and even computer lessons. This amazing ministry is available throughout the week to minister to these women through activities that give them income producing skills for life and counseling that helps them learn more about the love of our Savior and how as women they are worth so much more to God! The primary needs of this ministry are first and foremost prayer, secondly people to help, and support.



            Another welcoming and much needed surprise of our first full day in Lebanon was lunch and fellowship time with Gladys and her family after service. What a joyous afternoon of bonding and resting in the favor of God among our Christian friends.

            After such a miraculous first day in Lebanon, our true work had only just begun. God had a special plan for our team in Lebanon, and it was not just the children’s camp, as we have not yet departed for camp at this point. The words of the following poem will explain in summation the sequence of events over our first two nights in our current living quarters and the glorious outcome:

Setting a Captive Free

Lost soul crying out for help in the darkness…

Seeking, searching, knowing there must be an answer within,

Watching from afar, fear he instills, while his spirit cries out from these hills.

Chained slave to sin, waiting for someone to show him how to win,

Seeking a redeemer, but unable to communicate…

This lost soul crying out for help in the darkness.

A desperate soul enclosed in a lifeless body, demon bound, ready to drag him into hell,

Seeking for someone to release him from his cell…..

~Candice

            Twice two of our team members were visited while in their rooms by what most would consider a ‘peeping Tom’ or ‘voyeur.’ As a team we rallied together in prayer two sleepless nights in a row praying for God’s protection and that the enemy would be rendered powerless in his efforts to use this lost soul to continue to harass our teammates. At that point we all knew we had encamped on enemy territory and that there was a soul on this property that needed our witness and that God had orchestrated a miraculous plan for our presence there that was unfolding right before our very eyes. During the stranger visit on the second night of our stay at Beit Mary, our team leader, Sarai, met a young man of Muslim heritage who so graciously allowed her to use his cell phone to call our local missionary coordinator to inform her of what had happened. Unknown to any of us at this time, that something as simple as him allowing us to use his cell phone to call for help during our time of crisis was God’s way of opening the door to our witness to him and potential for future salvation. We confirmed that what the enemy intended for bad, to distract and instill fear in us, was what God used to lead us to this young man for the good of the kingdom.