March 31, 2016

Forgive us, as we Forgive: Visiting Internally Displaced Persons in Iraq

by Kathryn Kraft “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The challenge in the words of this prayer have taken on a new weight for me after spending some time in the Kurdistan Region of […]
March 23, 2016

The Seduction of Binary Thinking

by Mike Kuhn “Perhaps what is outside is also somehow inside, what is alien also intimate.“ (Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction)[1] “There are two kinds of people in the world…”  That’s the opener.  Then a clever, self-appointed guru proceeds to divide the entire population of the world (7.4 billion […]
March 17, 2016

Responding to Syria: Five Years On

(Photograph: John Bowen – Location: Bekaa Valley, Lebanon) by Suzie Lahoud “I wonder why all children are happy around the world enjoying Christmas decorations, different colors, new clothes, but the children in our country live, every year, with a hope that the next year will be better, yet they discover that […]
March 11, 2016

Why Do We Believe As We Do?

by Arthur Brown What do you believe? And, how do you decide what you believe? Do you believe what you believe because you read it somewhere, because someone you know and trust told it to you, or because you witnessed or experienced something that led you to draw a particular […]
March 4, 2016

Syrian Refugees and the Church in the West: Some Practical Suggestions

By Martin Accad In recent months, I have received a number of invitations from the West to speak about the crisis in Syria, and particularly about the massive refugee migration into Europe. The question that keeps coming is: ‘How should the church in the West respond to the massive refugee […]
February 25, 2016

Pushed into Deep Waters: Migrants, Refugees, and the Mission of God

by Robert Hamd A Catalytic Moment I first learned about Sami* many years ago when a dear friend of mine came to me, pleading for my help. Sami had been languishing in a Lebanese jail for months without any due process. His crime? A lapsed residency permit. Lebanese police routinely […]
February 19, 2016

Leading the Struggle: Serving Migrant Domestic Workers in our Midst

by Rose Khouri For this week’s post, I want to follow up on my most recent blog post in which I discussed my frustrations with the Lebanese (Arab) Church and what I perceived as inaction on a simultaneously visible and invisible human rights crisis perpetrated by members of its community: […]
February 11, 2016

Middle East Consultation 2016: The Refugee and the Body of Christ

The church in the Middle East is experiencing a time of unprecedented change. There exist significant challenges, and yet at the same time unimaginable opportunities. How has the local and global Body of Christ been responding to the current refugee crisis? What are the implications of this crisis for the […]