Lebanon (MNN) — The United States ordered the evacuation of non-essential personnel from its embassy in Beirut, Lebanon on February 23.
Pierre Houssney with Horizons International calls it “a thermometer check” on the growing US-Iran tensions, yet he says on the ground in Lebanon, life continues as normal.
The evacuation order comes as Iran and the United States have engaged in nuclear talks, but also saber-rattling and outright repositioning of military firepower. The US has amassed its largest military buildup in the Middle East since before the 2003 Iraq war. Meanwhile, in Lebanon stands the Iran-backed political and armed group Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah has been the best-supported kind of foreign proxy in Lebanon,” Houssney notes. “Hezbollah is a little budget line item in the Iranian ‘budget,’ but it makes a huge difference in their capacity to kind of take over the security control of [southern] Lebanon, and take over a lot of the public institutions of Lebanon.”
Houssney adds that if there is a regime change in Iran, the supply line to Hezbollah will dry up. If that ever happens, Houssney says “the playing field will be more level again” for Lebanon’s different political, religious, and ethnic factions, who would need to learn to work together to rebuild their country.
Lebanon’s wartime Church
The US embassy evacuation order is a mark of seriousness, yet Houssney says candidly, “In Lebanon, we’re used to the US embassy having us at, like, ’DEFCON 4’ all the time — ‘do not travel to Lebanon’ kind of thing. And then we just keep coming in and out, and we live there, and that’s ‘business as usual’ for us.”
Throughout Lebanon, Horizons staff members meet with people in their homes to share the Gospel and pray together.
(Photo, caption courtesy of Horizons International)
This perspective, which some might call nonchalant, is nonetheless well-founded. The 15-month ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has seen over 10,000 strikes on southern and eastern Lebanon, says Houssney. “So we’re kind of already in a state of war that’s not called war. It’s called a ceasefire.”
In all this, Horizons International partners with 130 evangelical churches in Lebanon to help resource and equip local gospel ministry. Lebanon’s Christians have faithfully shared Christ with many whose lives have been upended. Houssney names the Alawites from Syria, Shia Muslims, and traditional Christians.
“At different times and different crises. God is doing something different in the story of their ethnic group, their religious group. God is showing up and ripening hearts at certain times,” says Houssney.
“So the important thing is that the church also be positioned to show up, coordinate together to [communicate] the gospel through humanitarian aid, through bold preaching, and through loving acceptance of these communities.”
Pray for boldness for the churches of Lebanon, and for faithfulness to preach God’s Word in all circumstances.
“We also need to pray for the next generation who is being tempted to leave Lebanon, but they are the generation that needs to take over the ministries and the succession planning,” Houssney adds. “As much as we plan for succession, there’s going to be no succession without a next generation.”
Header photo: Beirut, Lebanon (Photo courtesy of Sara Calado/Unsplash)
