Trusting God for Peace in the Middle East

Here is a great story from Kate Osterloh, in Lebanon with YWAM. This is Kate's second mission trip in a year. She's a college student out to change the world for the glory of God. Be encouraged, and dream of the possibilities.

Whew! I am back from Lebanon and two of the most profound weeks of my life! I started out my journey up in the region of Mount Lebanon, where I joined a local YWAM team hosting a kid's camp for local children.
About 40 children were there, the majority of them Druze Muslims, but the team was able to freely evangelize and pray with many of the kids. It was amazing to see these children lifting their hands up to worship Jesus, hungry for the life He brings! So many seeds were planted, and I am in faith that these kids will share Jesus with their families and communities as well.

After the camp, we moved into the main focus of our trip, which was a combination of scouting out opportunities to send larger teams later on in the year, planning for a seminar we hope to host in 2008, and spreading the message of reconciliation and dialogue to as many local leaders as we could. We traveled all over the country, from Tyre and Sidon in the south, up to Byblos and Junni in the north, and Baalbeck on the coast with Syria. God amazingly provided divine appointments, leading us directly to many people in positions of authority. It was just a blast to see. During these meetings, we would listen to their view of the situation in Lebanon between different faith and political groups, and then discuss with them ways in which they could spread a message of peace and unity between different factions. We gave them an outline of our work in other countries, and ask how we could participate in the peace process in Lebanon in the future.

We also got to visit the Imam Sadr foundation, which is an orphanage in the south, where many children orphaned by the recent conflict were taken in. We visited refugee camps and churches, and attended a large conference on Faith in Politics, organized by the Arab Working group, which was attended by many governmental leaders. We also attended a seminar for Conflict Resolution, which was hosted for 20 Iraqis who were brought in. Meeting with them was just incredible, it was so humbling to meet with them.

Overall, we got a truly profound sense of God's redemptive plan for the nation through these meetings. People are very willing to talk with one another and all long for peace in their land. There have been huge inroads in reconciliation between the various factions. We found our presence in the country so welcome, as many people told us our visit had caused them to rethink their views of the West. We heard a lot of comments on how meaningful it was to them that people in the West actually care what happens to them and their country, and they found fresh hope that we had traveled so far to be with them. Talk about a humbling experience! I can't even explain to you how funny I felt sometimes, a 20 year old from America, getting to meet and share the message of Jesus with these really important, influential people. It's just hilarious the way God chooses to use the weak and lowly people to advance His kingdom.