Show love in Beirut this Christmas.
Soaring food and fuel prices and unreliable electricity, often for only an hour a day, have become the new normal in Beirut. The financial crisis that started in 2019 has only been made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, a devastating 2020 explosion, and food shortages from the war in Ukraine.
Now, costs are 25 times what they used to be—basic food necessities like grains or infant formula have become luxury items.
Through the NCM Christmas Project, you can stand with people in the midst of crisis in Lebanon.
This year the Christmas Project will...
- Purchase food staples and other necessities for those who can no longer afford them
- Cover school fees and scholarships for students at the Nazarene school in Beirut so they can continue learning
- Fund salaries for teachers and psychologists who provide students and their families with vital care
- Facilitate after-school programs for students living in Lebanon as refugees
LAURE’S* STORY
Laure is an English teacher at the Nazarene school in Lebanon, where her two older children also attend. “The situation here [in Lebanon] is really difficult,” she explains. “We're really facing too many challenges, too many obstacles. ... We're not living our normal lives.”
The school administration is doing what they can to help support the teachers; everyone is in the same situation, the same financial crisis. Laure explains that the teachers get vouchers for the supermarket, and during the pandemic the school helped buy medicine and oxygen for her father. At school, Laure wants to be part of the healing process even in the midst of the crisis by teaching children good values, empowering them to grow up and become agents of transformation.
“In my opinion, it's a child-centered school,” she says. “They really care about kids. ... We experience too many things, but at the same time, we are family here.”
LAILA'S* STORY
Laila* is 12 years old and in the seventh grade. She wants to be a lawyer when she grows up because she likes defending people and wants to make a change in the world. Everyone should have a chance to be treated equally, she says. The last few years have been hard, though.
“I want everything to go back to normal because life back then was just so relaxing,” she explains. “It felt so friendly and such a lively environment because back then the dollars price wasn't high.”
The school has been a constant in her life over these difficult years. There, she can find love and stability in the midst of a very uncertain time. “There’s just so much going on in the school,” she says. “It’s such a friendly environment.”
“I don't know about the others, but for me it feels like home,” she adds.
*Children’s names are changed for privacy.
When you give, you will tell people in Lebanon that they are not forgotten.
DOWNLOAD RESOURCES
These resources are provided for churches to promote the Christmas Project to their congregations. Images may be used in digital and print form, and the bulletin insert may be distributed to small groups or your entire congregation.
