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Persecution Watch: Pray for Lebanon
(Voice of the Persecuted) You are invited to join us on Saturday October 9, 2021 in a prayer conference call for the persecuted church hosted by Persecution Watch.
Population: 6,229,794
Major People Groups: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%,
Religion: Muslim 54%, Christian 40.5%, Druze 5.6%,
Home to two of the world’s oldest cities, Byblos and Sidon, Lebanon is hemmed in by Syria and Israel on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its strategic location, it has been part of many conflicts with Syria and Israel. One of the most populous nations in the Mediterranean (over four million people), Lebanon is uniquely comprised of both Shia and Sunni Muslims, as well as Christians and Druze. The official languages are Arabic, French, English, and Armenian. This diversity has made Lebanon a place of refuge for minorities throughout the region.
Lebanon is a democratic republic, and each major religion is represented in the parliamentary system. After over two years without a president, Michel Aoun, a former army commander, was elected in 2016 to help bring Lebanon out of its long history of conflict. A civil war ravaged the nation from 1975-1990, and Israel and Syria became heavily involved. Hezbollah was formed during this time and is credited with driving out the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000. Widely seen as a terrorist group, Hezbollah and Israel have had ongoing conflicts, decimating parts of the country. More recently, Lebanon has taken in roughly one million Syrian and Palestinian refugees, who now make up about 30% of the country’s population. This refugee crisis has strained the economy. Roughly 200,000 Lebanese suffer in poverty due to a lack of jobs, and an estimated 300,000 are unemployed.
Lebanon is roughly 54% Muslim (evenly divided between Shia and Sunni) and 41% Christian. This nation is home to the highest concentration of believers in the Middle East. It is the only Arab nation that promotes religious freedom and legally allows for conversion, which provides an open door for the spread of the Gospel. By reaching out to provide for the physical needs of refugees, such as food, clothing, blankets and education, the Church is seizing opportunities to meet the spiritual needs of these hurting people. Both the size and influence of the Church in Lebanon has made it a unique and strategic center for Christian ministry throughout the entire Middle East.
PRAYER POINTS
• Pray for preservation of religious freedom.
• Pray for Christians to commit to staying in the land in order to spread the gospel to their neighbors.
• Pray for healing and forgiveness for those deeply wounded by the tragedy of war.
Michael, Persecution Watch Prayer Moderator
Prayer Conference Call Details
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
From any location on your phone
USA Time Zone:
9:00 PM Eastern
8:00 PM Central
7:00 PM Mountain
6:00 PM Pacific
Call in number: 712 775-7035
Access Code: 281207#
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If you are experiencing any difficulties joining the call, please let us know.
What is Persecution Watch?
Persecution Watch is a U.S. national prayer conference call ministry that prays specifically for the global Persecuted Church. For over a decade, Blaine Scogin led this national network of believers who faithfully pray for the persecuted and the global harvest for the Kingdom of God. The group meets via a free call-in service every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night at 9pm Eastern time in the United States (please check your time zone). Blaine also served as Prayer Director for Voice of the Persecuted, and the missions became one. Brother Blaine passed into glory on December 26, 2019. It was truly a blessing for all of us to serve alongside this dear man of God and he will be greatly missed. The prayer mission of Persecution Watch remains an important part of our mission. Voice of the Persecuted is committed to continue the prayer conference call for the persecuted along with the dedicated Persecution Watch prayer warrior team.
Prior to the passing of Brother Blaine, he confirmed the passing of the torch as prayer conference call leader to Nadia Dybvik. Nadia has a burdened heart for the persecuted and is a prayer warrior standing in the gap for them. She joined the Persecution Watch prayer team in 2013 and has been part of the core ever since. Before becoming the prayer call leader, she served in the role of prayer moderator since 2015. Blaine chose Nadia for her faithfulness to pray for the persecuted and her strong commitment to the Persecution Watch mission. We are blessed not only with her gift of prayer, but her genuine love for every brother and sister in Christ that comes on the call to pray. May the Lord continue to bless Nadia and the prayer team in the mission and their personal lives.
“Pray for us” is the number one request that we hear from the persecuted. As the members of the first century Church were moved by the Holy Spirit to pray, we too must continue to serve those suffering persecution by lifting them up to the Lord through prayer.
On occasion, persecuted brothers and sisters have been invited on the conference call to share the trials they are facing. The team serves to encourage them by washing their feet in Spirit led prayer. Time is often reserved for those on the call to ask questions. We believe this helps to gain a better understanding of the situation that persecuted Christians endure in their specific nations. Q&A also helps us to focus our prayers based on their current needs.
Persecution Watch also hosts callers who want to pray united from other nations. If your heart is perplexed by the sufferings of our persecuted brothers and sisters, you no longer need to pray alone.
We welcome all who desire to pray for the persecuted church and consider it a joy to pray together with you. If you are new to the call and cannot find your voice, listen in and pray silently or on mute. We are grateful and thank the Lord for bringing us all together to pray in agreement for our persecuted family in Christ. We can all be prayer warriors on this call!
God bless and protect you in your faithfulness to serve.
Lois Kanalos, Founder, Voice of the Persecuted, Nadia Dybvik, Persecution Watch Prayer Call Leader and the Persecution Watch Prayer Team
NOTE: Please fill out the form in the sign up link below to be included in our distribution list to receive urgent prayer requests, prayer points, notification of special prayer events and special guest speakers.
Note to Voice of the Persecuted (VOP) readers: The Persecution Watch prayer team is also the prayer team of Voice of the Persecuted. SIGN UP today.
If you are experiencing any difficulties joining the call, please let us know.
What is Persecution Watch?
Persecution Watch is a U.S. national prayer conference call ministry that prays specifically for the global Persecuted Church. For over a decade, Blaine Scogin led this national network of believers who faithfully pray for the persecuted and the global harvest for the Kingdom of God. The group meets via a free call-in service every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night at 9pm Eastern time in the United States (please check your time zone). Blaine also served as Prayer Director for Voice of the Persecuted, and the missions became one. Brother Blaine passed into glory on December 26, 2019. It was truly a blessing for all of us to serve alongside this dear man of God and he will be greatly missed. The prayer mission of Persecution Watch remains an important part of our mission. Voice of the Persecuted is committed to continue the prayer conference call for the persecuted along with the dedicated Persecution Watch prayer warrior team.
Prior to the passing of Brother Blaine, he confirmed the passing of the torch as prayer conference call leader to Nadia Dybvik. Nadia has a burdened heart for the persecuted and is a prayer warrior standing in the gap for them. She joined the Persecution Watch prayer team in 2013 and has been part of the core ever since. Before becoming the prayer call leader, she served in the role of prayer moderator since 2015. Blaine chose Nadia for her faithfulness to pray for the persecuted and her strong commitment to the Persecution Watch mission. We are blessed not only with her gift of prayer, but her genuine love for every brother and sister in Christ that comes on the call to pray. May the Lord continue to bless Nadia and the prayer team in the mission and their personal lives.
“Pray for us” is the number one request that we hear from the persecuted. As the members of the first century Church were moved by the Holy Spirit to pray, we too must continue to serve those suffering persecution by lifting them up to the Lord through prayer.
On occasion, persecuted brothers and sisters have been invited on the conference call to share the trials they are facing. The team serves to encourage them by washing their feet in Spirit led prayer. Time is often reserved for those on the call to ask questions. We believe this helps to gain a better understanding of the situation that persecuted Christians endure in their specific nations. Q&A also helps us to focus our prayers based on their current needs.
Persecution Watch also hosts callers who want to pray united from other nations. If your heart is perplexed by the sufferings of our persecuted brothers and sisters, you no longer need to pray alone.
We welcome all who desire to pray for the persecuted church and consider it a joy to pray together with you. If you are new to the call and cannot find your voice, listen in and pray silently or on mute. We are grateful and thank the Lord for bringing us all together to pray in agreement for our persecuted family in Christ. We can all be prayer warriors on this call!
God bless and protect you in your faithfulness to serve.
Lois Kanalos, Founder, Voice of the Persecuted, Nadia Dybvik, Persecution Watch Prayer Call Leader and the Persecution Watch Prayer Team
NOTE: Please fill out the form in the sign up link below to be included in our distribution list to receive urgent prayer requests, prayer points, notification of special prayer events and special guest speakers.
Note to Voice of the Persecuted (VOP) readers: The Persecution Watch prayer team is also the prayer team of Voice of the Persecuted. SIGN UP today.
“To lose Lebanon is to lose the only Middle Eastern country where Christians live in peace and equality”
The nearly seven years of conflict in Syria, the forgotten war in Yemen and the continuing conflicts in Iraq are about to destroy the Middle East. In this difficult context, the former “Switzerland of the Middle East” maintains peace as best it can.
Maronite Patriarch Boutros Raï recalls the importance of cohabitation between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon, and the effects it has for the entire region. Now, even this coexistence is under threat, due to the war and the pressure it brings with the presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
CARD. BÉCHARA BOUTROS RAÏ
Maronite Catholic Patriarch
“We are living with heightened danger at various levels: economic, political, social, cultural and security. If the war does not end so refugees can return to their homes, Lebanon will be the first country to pay the price. We will easily lose a country where Muslims and Christians live in peace and equality, with a regime of democracy and culture. Lebanon risks paying this price.”
The cardinal says that the West does not care about the Christian presence in the Middle East due to other interests. Also, it does understand a region marked by Islam, where there is no separation between the State and religion, and, therefore, it does not value the moderation that Christians bring to the region. Read More
Demonstration of Christian Iraqi refugees: we do not want to go back to our Country
Iraqi Christians protests (Fox News)
VOP Note: According to reports. Lebanon has the highest per-capita concentration of refugees in the world. 1 out of every four people is a refugee.
Despite the numbers, Lebanon has a “no camp” policy which means refugees are not allowed to settle in large scale camps. Instead, they are forced to live in temporary shelters, often on waste land. Refugees are not entitled to work and have difficulty accessing schools and healthcare in Lebanon.
(Agenzia Fides) – On February 13, a small procession of about two hundred Christian Iraqi refugees staged a symbolic demonstration outside the local UN headquarters in downtown Beirut to demand their requests to travel to other countries, filed some time ago in the competent offices of several foreign diplomatic representations operating in the Lebanese capital. The posters displayed by the protesters, and the statements made by some of them to the local press, confirm the impression that most of the exiled Christian refugees from Iraq have no intention of returning to their Country, and do not even intend to take root in Lebanon but are hoping to emigrate as soon as possible towards some Western nation.
According to data provided by the local Chaldean community, difficult to verify, about 8 thousand Iraqi Christians emigrated to Lebanon, especially after the conquest of Mosul and Nineveh Plain by the jihadist Islamic State (Daesh).
US President Donald Trump, who began a tug of war with some US judges to impose provisions designed to limit or suspend immigration from certain countries with a Muslim majority, has instead recognized as a “priority” the granting of refugee legal status to the category of “persecuted Christians”. The idea of preparing a “fast track” open for Christian refugees entering the United States, while doors are closed to non-Christian citizens from Countries with an Islamic majority, “has been defined by Chaldean Patriarch Raphael Louis Sako I a “Trap” for Christians in the Middle East (see Fides 30/01/2017). “Every host country policy that discriminates against the persecuted and those who suffer on religious grounds”, explains Patriarch Louis Raphael, Primate of the Eastern Catholic Church, to which the vast majority of Iraqi Christians belong”, ultimately harms the Christians of the East, because among other things provi des arguments to all propaganda and prejudice that attack the native community of the Middle East as ‘foreign bodies’, groups supported and defended by Western powers”.
Please pray for our brothers and sisters seeking refuge from persecution.
Reminder: It was the Church that aided 1st century persecuted Christian refugees.
Jihadists target Lebanese Christian town in wave of suicide attacks
al-Qaa (Qaa), a predominantly Christian village in north Lebanon, was violently attacked by a wave of 8 suicide bombings on June 27, 2016. Four suicide bombers struck in the village of Qaa early on Monday morning, causing the fatalities and wounding 15 people. That evening, as friends and family members of the victims gathered outside a church, two men on a motorcycle threw a grenade before blowing themselves up, wounding another 13.
Al monitor reported around 4am, four suicide bombers caught the attention of a local who had woke early to eat before fasting. Suspecting foul play, the resident took out a weapon and fired at one of them, who then blows himself up. Other neighbors and Lebanese soldiers ran to the site of the explosion, clashed with the other three suicide bombers, who detonated themselves subsequently at 10-minute intervals. A rescue worker carrying one of the wounded was killed during the second blast.
A security official said the evening explosions took place while families of those killed in the earlier bombings were gathering to prepare for funerals. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Lebanon’s official National News Agency said 13 people were wounded in the late night explosions.
Fr Elian Nasrallah, a local priest, said the explosions went off near the Saint Elias church and were followed by gunfire.
Following the attacks, the army urged people to avoid gatherings and to cooperate with authorities. Villagers were struck fear and panic and barricaded themselves indoors.
No organization has claimed the responsibility for the 8 attacks, but, experts believe it was ISIS fighters who crossed over from nearby Syria.. Lebanon is a hosts huge numbers of refugees fleeing the Syrian war. It is claimed that ISIS fighters have sent their families to refugee camps in Lebanon. Their jihad subsidized by the disorganization of the international community.
The attacks raised tensions in Lebanon. Last week after meeting with Prime Minister Tamim Salaam, Lebanese security officials released a statement warning the al-Qaa attacks could be the “harbinger of a wave of terrorist operations.” Lebanese security forces stepped up efforts in arresting alleged IS sleeper cells in the north.
Lebanese Army have arrested over 200 refugees in wake of bombings. “It is our humane duty to protect the Syrian refugees, however we will never allow them to harm the Lebanese people.”
The Catholic Herald reported Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, while visiting Qaa, said the village formed part of a “fence” for Lebanon. “When a terrorist enters, he can go anywhere,” he said.
Bassil, heads the Free Patriotic Movement party, the largest Christian bloc in parliament. He sparked condemnation for calling on municipalities under his party’s control to ban any gathering or camps of Syrian refugees.
Bassil said he did not want to “tie any particular nationality or religion to terrorism.” But he said “no one can deny the reality that displacement will be used as a cover for terrorism.”
VOP note:
Please pray for peace and the people of Lebanon. Pray also for the strength in faith and endurance of our Lebanese Christian brothers and sisters.
LEBANON: Thousands of books, manuscripts torched in fire at historic Lebanese library
A Lebanese soldier stands guard, on January 4, 2014 in north Lebanon’s city of Tripoli, outside a decades-old library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest that was torched after “a pamphlet was discovered inside one of the books that was insulting to Islam and the prophet Mohammad” said a source, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity. (AFP Photo)
Two-thirds of a historic collection of 80,000 books have gone up in smoke after a library was torched in the Lebanese city of Tripoli amid sectarian tensions. The blaze was started after a pamphlet insulting Islam was reportedly found inside a book.
Firefighters struggled to subdue the flames as the decades-old Al-Saeh library went up in smoke on Friday in the Serail neighborhood of Tripoli. Despite firefighters’ best efforts, little of the trove of historic books and manuscripts was recovered from the wreckage.
“Two thirds of some 80,000 books and manuscripts housed there,” a security source told Agence France Press, referring to the items destroyed. The source added that the blaze was started after a manuscript insulting the Prophet Mohammed was found hidden in the pages of one of the library books.
A demonstration had been planned in Tripoli after the pamphlet was found but was reportedly called off after the library’s Greek Orthodox owner spoke with Muslim leaders. Lebanese news outlet Naharnet also reported that one of the library workers was shot and wounded Thursday night.
The library owner, Father Ebrahim Surouj, met with Islamic leaders in Tripoli. It became clear the priest had nothing to do with the pamphlet, and a demonstration that had been planned in protest over the incident was called off,” the source said.
Christians and Alawites target of Tripoli attacks
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Residents of the Tripoli neighborhood of Zahrieh were still reeling from attacks targeting businesses owned by Christians and Alawites over the weekend, with some fearing the incidents were meant to fuel sectarian hostilities. The attacks took place overnight by unidentified armed men, as owners were surprised to learn early Friday when they arrived at the main street of Zahrieh to open up their shops. They rummaged through the debris, as many shops had been burned, to see if any of their merchandise could be salvaged.
All of the owners belong to the Christian and Alawite communities of Zahrieh, causing some observers to muse that they were paying the price for long-standing sectarian tensions in the northern city.
The affected shop owners, identified as Fadi Khoury, Jean Maamari, George Rachkidi, Farid Estephan, Tamim al-Atrash and the owners of retail chains Eskandar and the Nidal boutique, expressed frustration over the incidents, saying they were shocked and saddened that their properties had been damaged and fearful that there were certain parties in Tripoli seeking to remove them from the city.
Belonging to a minority group in Tripoli, some shop owners said they didn’t have authority figures to complain to either.
“My neighbor called at 6 a.m., and told me that plumes of smoke could be seen billowing from my shops after unidentified men attacked the stores and threw fire bombs,” shop owner Maamari told The Daily Star. “When we arrived at the scene it was horrible, we could see our properties and stores, our only means of making a living, burning before our eyes.”
“There is no one here to protect us, because we live in Tripoli,” Maamari said dejected. Residents have long complained that the area is underdeveloped and constantly overlooked by the government, centered in Beirut.
Read more: (The Daily Star :: Lebanon News )
VOICE OF THE PERSECUTED 