Lebanon Travel Diary - Day 1 & 2

The huge number of churches in the capital serves as a reminder that Lebanon was a Christian-majority country in living memory.

We sat down with some local ACN project partners to learn about the history of the Maronite Church and the current challenges facing Lebanon’s Christian community. Our hosts explained the continued significance of the National Pact, under which the president of Lebanon must always be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim. They also began to prepare us for the scale of destruction and suffering we were to witness in the days to come, with as much as a quarter of the country’s population having been displaced at the height of the latest conflict. 
 

A house in Tyre with a small statue of St Charbel.

Walking in the footsteps of Our Lord in the biblical cities of Tyre and Sidon was a beautiful experience. Life seemed peaceful and normal here. The huge number of churches in the capital serves as a reminder that Lebanon was a Christian-majority country in living memory.

Soreya, Maryam and Therese – three generations of a family receiving vital food aid from ACN.

And then we began hearing more and more about the latest conflict from those who were forced to flee their homes in the surrounding villages. We met families who would have had nowhere to go if the Church had not helped them. ACN has been providing monthly supplies of basic food items for hundreds of Christian families who had fled the bombardment in nearby areas and sought refuge in Tyre. In addition, the charity has funded life-saving medication for 800 sick or elderly people who would not have been able to afford their prescriptions otherwise.