And we're back in the real world...
though, truthfully, I think the Lebanese have more "real world" experiences than we France-dwellers and the highly protective government who serves us.
Sunday we did get to Wadih's church, All Saints Church, Beirut, where they celebrated the baptism of an American security specialist present in Beirut to help train the Lebanese police, the departure of another such person at the end of his tour of duty, and an excellent testimony/sermon from a Dutch missionary who works IN the Palestinian camps (one awesome story of actually talking to the Hezbollah leadership about his faith!!). The church building itself appears to be fairly new, but I think it replaced an older building on the same site. The site used to be right on the waterfront in the central business district, but is now a few hundred meters from the sea due to some land reclamation. There are huge building projects all around the church, as it is in the prestige quarter of Beirut.
After the service, the church held a community lunch in which we partook - more humus, more unleavened bread with meat in, but also a refreshingly western-style cake to celebrate the baptism (the church blog has photos of the baptism, by the way). We met up with a number of people that we had already met during the tour - Karen (the clinical psychologist), Greg and Kristina from the Haigazian University, the staff of Youth For Christ, to name just a few.
After that we went to Johnny's Cocktails for the best fruit cocktail smoothy-type drinks in town! These things really are good, but very heavy on the stomach due to the heavy clotted cream-like stuff they use to make them. Johnny's is the same we visited after the Night of the Shredders. I didn't mention: when we visited on Friday night, the place was about to close (after all it WAS 2:00 am), but they stayed open especially for us!
During this time of indulgence we had a very productive debrief with Wadih and Lindy.
We then returned to the school to pack, before being picked up by Wadih and family for a farewell meal of mezze at a small restaurant in the center of town! "Mezze?" you ask. Well the Lebanese version is basically lots of tasters of Lebanese dishes - including, of course, various forms of humus (I'm beginning to get a little tired of humus... NAH, not really - BRING IT ON!). Karen was again there, and was dutifully plagued anew with questions (we have a reputation to keep up), along with Philippe, who was the compere on Saturday night - turns out he was brought up in Boulder, Colorado, as was Lisa my wife!
After hugs and exchanges of gifts with Wadih and family and, back at LES, Jamileh, we got to bed fairly early, to prep for the early rise on Monday...
which was at about 5:00am in order to get to the airport for our 8:30 flight. We checked in and tried to get Jon (and his essential support team, of course) a place in 1st class due to his extremely optimistic connection schedule in Istanbul. Unfortunately, the check-in girl seemed to interpret "would it be at all possible to have us all sit together in 1st class?" as "could you please separate us as widely as possible at the back of economy class?" - oh well!
The flight was uneventful, the arrival slow, and the disappearance of Jon precipitous, once he'd made it through the 100's waiting at passport control. We learned later that he had in fact made all his connections despite being stopped by security numerous times on account of the number of countries that had stamped his passport on Monday! The rest of us headed to Istanbul by the more sedate means of bus and boat, where I stayed with Chris and Sarah for the night (my travel agent not having been as trusting of the vagaries of international travel as Jon's).
Tuesday, then, took me back to Ataturk Airport in Istanbul for my own second-and-third leg flights to Paris, where I was met by my good friend Lance. 20 minutes later I was enjoying a boisterous reunion with the family, handing out pressies (Turkish Delight for all) and recounting anecdotes of the trip - which would have been entirely unnecessary if they had JUST READ THIS BLOG!
There ya go - Lebanon 2009 is over - but I'll probably post a few sentences of post-tour thoughts in the days to come. Thanks for all the support, fiduciary and otherwise - it is only with the support of others that such trips (be it mine, or those of other short-term missionaries and tent-makers) are possible, and the good news of Jesus Christ and his saving sacrifice can be spread to those in darkness.
Sunday we did get to Wadih's church, All Saints Church, Beirut, where they celebrated the baptism of an American security specialist present in Beirut to help train the Lebanese police, the departure of another such person at the end of his tour of duty, and an excellent testimony/sermon from a Dutch missionary who works IN the Palestinian camps (one awesome story of actually talking to the Hezbollah leadership about his faith!!). The church building itself appears to be fairly new, but I think it replaced an older building on the same site. The site used to be right on the waterfront in the central business district, but is now a few hundred meters from the sea due to some land reclamation. There are huge building projects all around the church, as it is in the prestige quarter of Beirut.
After the service, the church held a community lunch in which we partook - more humus, more unleavened bread with meat in, but also a refreshingly western-style cake to celebrate the baptism (the church blog has photos of the baptism, by the way). We met up with a number of people that we had already met during the tour - Karen (the clinical psychologist), Greg and Kristina from the Haigazian University, the staff of Youth For Christ, to name just a few.
After that we went to Johnny's Cocktails for the best fruit cocktail smoothy-type drinks in town! These things really are good, but very heavy on the stomach due to the heavy clotted cream-like stuff they use to make them. Johnny's is the same we visited after the Night of the Shredders. I didn't mention: when we visited on Friday night, the place was about to close (after all it WAS 2:00 am), but they stayed open especially for us!
During this time of indulgence we had a very productive debrief with Wadih and Lindy.
We then returned to the school to pack, before being picked up by Wadih and family for a farewell meal of mezze at a small restaurant in the center of town! "Mezze?" you ask. Well the Lebanese version is basically lots of tasters of Lebanese dishes - including, of course, various forms of humus (I'm beginning to get a little tired of humus... NAH, not really - BRING IT ON!). Karen was again there, and was dutifully plagued anew with questions (we have a reputation to keep up), along with Philippe, who was the compere on Saturday night - turns out he was brought up in Boulder, Colorado, as was Lisa my wife!
After hugs and exchanges of gifts with Wadih and family and, back at LES, Jamileh, we got to bed fairly early, to prep for the early rise on Monday...
which was at about 5:00am in order to get to the airport for our 8:30 flight. We checked in and tried to get Jon (and his essential support team, of course) a place in 1st class due to his extremely optimistic connection schedule in Istanbul. Unfortunately, the check-in girl seemed to interpret "would it be at all possible to have us all sit together in 1st class?" as "could you please separate us as widely as possible at the back of economy class?" - oh well!
The flight was uneventful, the arrival slow, and the disappearance of Jon precipitous, once he'd made it through the 100's waiting at passport control. We learned later that he had in fact made all his connections despite being stopped by security numerous times on account of the number of countries that had stamped his passport on Monday! The rest of us headed to Istanbul by the more sedate means of bus and boat, where I stayed with Chris and Sarah for the night (my travel agent not having been as trusting of the vagaries of international travel as Jon's).
Tuesday, then, took me back to Ataturk Airport in Istanbul for my own second-and-third leg flights to Paris, where I was met by my good friend Lance. 20 minutes later I was enjoying a boisterous reunion with the family, handing out pressies (Turkish Delight for all) and recounting anecdotes of the trip - which would have been entirely unnecessary if they had JUST READ THIS BLOG!
There ya go - Lebanon 2009 is over - but I'll probably post a few sentences of post-tour thoughts in the days to come. Thanks for all the support, fiduciary and otherwise - it is only with the support of others that such trips (be it mine, or those of other short-term missionaries and tent-makers) are possible, and the good news of Jesus Christ and his saving sacrifice can be spread to those in darkness.
posted by Martin Bartlett at 2:01 PM
1 Comments:
> http://allsaintsbeirut.blogspot.com/2009/03/baptism-of-tom-beale.html
But, but, all we see on the photos is a guy pouring some water drops on another guy's head! Where are the photos of the real baptism? /o\
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