Peace talks held IN IRAQ? Wow...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17544431

Muslim students protest for prayer room at Christian university

There was a report last week that a group of Muslim students at St. Anthony University in Lebanon staged a small protest to demand a prayer room for Muslim students inside the university.  St. Anthony is a Christian university and to establish a prayer room for another faith would go against its bylaws and principles.  Just as Islamic universities have the right to say “no” to making a chapel for Christians on their campuses, St. Anthony also has the right to stick to its principles.  If praying during university hours is essential for some Muslim students, then they may have to find the nearest Mosque or transfer to a university that does have facilities for Muslim students to pray.    While this event has made it into the news and people are discussing it, it was not really a big deal.  The students were not very big in number, they simply lay down prayer mats and prayed together in the middle of the campus and nothing has happened since then except that people are talking about it.  The ones who are making a big deal out of it are political parties who are trying to use the incident to their advantage.  The politics need to be kept out of the university campuses so that students can focus on the reason why they are there: to study!!!  But I can understand why people are interested in this story and it has raised discussion, especially in a country like Lebanon where this small protest can incite feelings which are bound up in so much history and politics.   How do you think the university should have responded?

Mother's Day Event for Iraqi Ladies

On Monday, there was a Mother's Day event with Heart for Lebanon for the Iraqi Women's Bible study group.  The Our Lady Dispensary provided a beautiful cake and the gift of a scarf to each Iraqi lady.  We had the time for a funny game, laughter, prayer, songs of worship and of course, eating!  The women were very excited and it was a great morning.  In Lebanon, Mother's Day is officially on March 21, so Happy Mother's Day to all! 

"So teach us to number our days..."

This has been a good and busy week.  The highlights were my chances to be involved in some local youth groups.  On Wednesday night, I gathered with some of my old friend from Haigazian University.  They meet on their own without any pastor just to go through different books of the Bible taking a chapter every week and trying to better understand through discussion.  This week we discussed 1 Timothy Chap 2. 

On Thursday, I attended a meeting for Intervarsity which previously, I didn't even know existed in Lebanon.  It is a campus ministry that stretches all across the U.S. and my friends told me about here.  It was great.

Tonight, I will give a presentation for my friend's youth group in the Armenian Evangelical church.  I have prepared a message based on Psalm 90: 12 which says "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."  I will speak about what it means to "number our days", to value them and appreciate our time by giving it to a specific purpose, that in all things we do, whether it is music, sports, teaching, we do it to the glory of God.  That each day gets its meaning through our mission to "gain a heart of wisdom".  For me, personally, this means that each day I must take steps closer to God, towards knowing His will for my life, trying to accomplish it and sharing the love of God with others. 

I invite everyone to reflect on their own lives...do you "number your days that you may gain a heart of wisdom"?  What does that mean to you?

I wish you all a blessed weekend!

My own observations and questions about Syria...

Almost everything about my work is different from what I expected but maybe that is usually the case when it comes to starting a new job.  One factor that has shifted greatly is that when I arrived to Lebanon, my focus was on Iraqi refugees.  However, many things have changed, personally, work-related and of course, externally, the situation in the Middle East is changing every day.  Everyone is talking about Syria.  On the news and in the office at work.  The discussion of refugees in Lebanon has suddenly shifted, after almost a decade, from the Iraqis to the Syrians, those Syrians who have already arrived and even more so, towards those who might arrive in the future. 

The UN has estimated the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon to be around 8,000, though the number seems that it might be a bit exaggerated and no one can know the exact number for sure.  Unlike the Iraqis, most of the Syrian refugees who have come to Lebanon have family and friends who they are living with in Northern Lebanon or other areas.  For this reason, the relief agencies in Lebanon are not feeling the full “weight” of this problem yet.  However, the biggest fear, and what the Lebanese government and relief agencies are preparing for, is the possibility that the situation in Syria will escalate, possibly into a civil war. 

Each person should read the news and try to come to his own conclusions or opinions about the situation, but from what I have read and learned through discussions with people who have family in Syria and are traveling back and forth between Syria and Lebanon, the situation in Syria is worse than what it appears to be in the news.  As always, the innocent people suffer, fleeing their homes in Homs  to live in the surrounding farms and gardens, killed at random by snipers, caught in the crossfire…

Of course, Assad’s army is stronger than the “Free Syrian Army” and could crush it if that were the command, however, Assad is watching his steps, in order to avoid a certain reaction from the international community.  I wonder how long he will wait to give that command and if the opposition will be crushed before a civil war breaks out across the country.  Kuwait announced that it will support the “Free Syrian Army” by providing them with weapons and if this happens, if the “Free Syrian Army” is able to grow from a mere gang of army defectors (as they have been called) to an army with sufficient numbers and weapons, then a civil war will break out.   Syria and its neighbors may suffer beyond what we can now imagine. 

This situation is further confused by two factors, first, that it is impossible, in this circumstance, to rightfully determine who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are.  How many human beings have been killed, imprisoned and tortured throughout the decades of the Assad regime’s military dictatorship?  How many Lebanese has the Assad regime thrown into  prisons, stealing their given names and identities and replacing them with numbers?  Yet, the reality is that most people, at least those who I have spoken with, are desperate for Assad to take control of the situation and remain in power.  Why?  Because they fear that unknown entity that might arise in the overwhelming absence of a regime that has controlled Syria for decades. 

This brings me to the second factor which makes understanding and knowing how to intervene in the situation, from an international perspective, very difficult.  No one knows who the “Free Syrian Army” is.  Many, maybe most of its members, could be defectors from the official Syrian army.  Or, they could be any person, from any city or village, from any religious sect or ethnic group, who has grown angry at the regime and seen his chance to grab on to something that might make a difference.  Or, they could be Islamists.  The recent bombings in Damascus suggest that Al Qaeda could be active in Syria.  Even if Al Qaeda is active in Syria, does that mean that it is a part of the “Free Syrian Army” or is it a separate entity?  Who gets to decide who is in and who is out?  Who is organizing and controlling the “Free Syrian Army” or is there any organization, control and central leadership at all? 

The fact is that no one knows who the “Free Syrian Army” is and even amongst those who consider themselves to be in, there may exist differing and separate agendas and beliefs.  So how can the United States, Russia, the United Nations, Kuwait or any other entity intervene positively in a situation it does not understand and support, even arm, a militant group whose face and agenda it does not know?

Article on Syria from Foreign Policy Magazine

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/08/syria_free_army_rebels?page=0,0