MEET CLAUDETTE

I am Claudette from the Brethren Church in Lebanon. I serve people in need in our community, in collaboration with MERATH and other Christian NGOs. I have been working with MERATH for years, and it is beautiful how they always stand by us in difficult times.

Since last October, we have been helping families who have been displaced from their villages in the South. I am myself originally from the South, so I can feel with these people. MERATH  is the first organization who helped our community in the South. They sent us mattresses and blankets and many other things, such as food boxes, hygiene items, milk, and diapers for the children. Thanks to them, we have been able to help close to 1,000 internally displaced families since the beginning of the crisis.

After an entire year, and before the recent escalation of violence, over 110,000 people from South Lebanon were still living as internally displaced and in very tough circumstances. The situation has become unbearable for the people and their needs are unprecedented. They lost their jobs, their lands, their homes and shops, their transportation means. They have no money and no source of income.

There is a lot of destruction in the South. Some villages are almost entirely destroyed. Other villages are often targeted by machine gunfire, which breaks the windows and sometimes expensive solar panels. That is without even mentioning the white phosphorus and incendiary shells that have been burning and contaminating the lands and fields.

Some people had stayed behind, mostly men who wanted to watch their houses and property or to keep working as much as possible, and elderly people who had been living there for 50-60 years and who say they prefer to die in their homes than to move.

But now, the escalation of violence is forcing a new wave of civilians to flee. They are seeking refuge with their relatives, most of whom are also displaced and are struggling to make ends meet and to feed their own families. People are physically and mentally exhausted and they desperately need material, emotional, and psychological support. We have been receiving messages non-stop since last weekend.

Like so many other people, a displaced woman told me: “I need help. My brothers-in-law and their families fled from the South because of all the bombings and are staying with us. I desperately need some food to feed them all, as well as mattresses and blankets for them to sleep on. They are very vulnerable, frightened and traumatized. They are coming without anything, and I myself don’t have anything.”

More than ever, we need to continue helping these families, not only materially but also by comforting them and providing them with a shoulder to cry on. So far, thank God, we have been able to help in a very holistic way, through food, milk, diapers for babies and for adults, as well as feminine pads. People are touched and grateful, and tell us we “think of every detail, and of everyone in the family, from babies to elderly”. The distributions are usually smooth and easy because all the displaced people themselves are volunteering to help us. They want to be helpful, and this is beautiful. It gives us some joy amid the prevailing sadness.

But we don’t just distribute food boxes, and people leave. We get to know the families well. They thank God for the assistance, and they know the reason we serve is because we love Jesus and we seek to obey His commands and walk in His footsteps. That makes people want to know more about Him. Sometimes they even ask us for a Bible.

What keeps us going is the calling to respond to the needs of people like our Lord commands, and the feedback we receive from the families we serve. Most people are extremely grateful and tell us the most inspiring things. There is a woman we help. She has a disability and cannot walk, so we go to visit her or sometimes we take her out. She told me: “The care and the love and the joy you share with us is amazing. I see Jesus in you. In all my life I have never met people who love and serve others like this, with all their heart. It makes such a big difference in our lives.”  We also help a family whose house was destroyed in a bombing. They told us :

“It is so difficult to see your house destroyed in an instant! All our furniture and things in it, everything is gone too. At the same time, I really want to thank you and MERATH from all our hearts! You gave us encouragement to move forward despite everything happening. You reminded us life can be beautiful.”

In the end, and despite everything, we Lebanese people are very attached to our land. We don’t want to abandon our country and leave. No matter how tough things become, we are certain that the Lord is with us and we believe in the promise that He will never abandon us. If we have any hope at all, our hope is in God’s word.

Besides the displaced people and their children especially, please pray for our team, that we would truly reflect Jesus’ image to the people we serve. That in everything we do and say they might see something different than everything they have seen before. That we would never serve as the result of a habit or without heart, from a place of self-righteousness. Thank you for feeling with us and helping us.