In Beirut, on August 4, an explosion at the port rocked the city…we all watched, almost in real-time, as social media captured the cataclysm and it went viral in minutes.

The effect upon a fragile, densely packed city – already reeling from street protests, a collapsed economy, and a pandemic – was stunning:

170 dead
6,000 wounded
300,000 homeless

With ministry partnerships that are both deep and wide, The Outreach Foundation was in touch with our “family” there within hours. Within a day, we had launched the Beirut Compassion fund to raise resources for their recovery as well as their outreach to others, and that very same day, your gifts began to arrive in our office. Within 48 hours, we had made an initial wire of funds.

In a little more than two weeks, we have been able to send an initial gift of funds to all our Beirut-based partners ($80,000 total, to date):

National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon (our primary partner) which has two congregations and a large school in the city
Near East School of Theology, the seminary which trains Presbyterian pastors and educators for the Synod’s 40 congregations, was closed for the summer break, thankfully, but suffered much damage
Our Lady Dispensary (Iraqi and Syrian refugees)
Blessed School (autistic and blind students)
Philemon Preschool Project (children of migrant workers and refugees)

Those funds will repair their damaged buildings as well as support the fragile families whom many of them serve. All will be done with an assurance of God’s love and Christ’s hope.

A week after the blast, our trustees gathered on a Zoom call with the Rev. Joseph Kassab, the General Secretary of the Synod (he is in the upper left corner in the picture below).

He spoke of the emergency mobilization of the diaconal “arm” of the Synod – the Compassion Protestant Society – who are coming alongside those in need to provide food vouchers and home repair supplies. When asked about the spiritual impact of this event upon his Church, he shared this:

We need to tell them the story of Jesus, retelling the story – every time – of Jesus. If they watch the life and ministry of Jesus they would discover the answer – we were never promised peace and success! People are always facing difficulties: in economics, health, family, and relationships…We have to tell them that nothing evil can come from God – all that we are experiencing is done by human will and human hands and especially in Lebanon…

But at the same time, people, in such a situation, look to those who claim to be representatives of God: the Church, the pastors, the community of faith. So we have to take care of how we are behaving in such situations – what kind of testimony, what kind of witness? I always tell our pastors that our ministry is under observation – people look at us and either they get close to the Church and the truth behind the church or they run away. We pray that God helps us to be up to our call. We are called to faithfulness. We might not be called to solve all the problems but just to be faithful…

The Outreach Foundation is enormously grateful for your faithfulness in giving and encourage you to continue this journey with us on what we know will be a long road to recovery and restoration in Lebanon. And we remain confident, on behalf of our beleaguered family-by-faith in Lebanon, in a God who has promised his children “a hope and a future” and a Spirit who “intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

Click here to give online now or mail a check to The Outreach Foundation, 381 Riverside Drive, Suite 110, Franklin, TN 37064 designate your gift for the Beirut Compassion Fund.

The Compassion Protestant Society, the diaconal arm of the National Evangelical (Presbyterian) Synod of Syria and Lebanon, sets up its office on the street to offer “hope and a future” to those whose lives were fractured by the August explosion.