The Lebanese author of this story is known to me. She prefers that both her name and the name of the center where she works be withheld, not for her own sake but to protect the privacy of the refugee children whose stories she tells. In these two stories, the focus is on the children, […]
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Did you see the evening news about the starving Syrian town? The pictures of children crying for food? The 11-year-old boy too weak to walk? The little chests with rib bones protruding? All of it is even more shocking, because while the people of Moadamiya starve to death, barrel bombs delivered by airplanes of Assad’s […]
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Several years ago I was in Burlington, N.C., and needed a place to spend a couple of hours while my daughter was in a meeting at Elon University. Someone recommended a little coffee shop on the main street past the campus. There was, they told me, a comfortable place to sit and read my book. […]
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(Note to readers: I have changed the original title of this piece to emphasize the point of my article. You are encouraged to read it again and think with me about this and similar commonalities or needs that might help us to create peace between us and the Middle East.) A few days ago […]
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A Middle Eastern Love Story By Martin Accad Director of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, Lebanon Maryam was born a Muslim. Her society required her to live as a Muslim and eventually to die as a Muslim as well. Youssef was born a Christian. His society too required him to live and die […]
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By Jan Therien Bethlehem, November, 2015 “Litany- a series of petitions for use in church services or processions, usually recited by the clergy and responded to in a recurring formula by the people. Synonyms: prayer, invocation, supplication, devotion. A tedious recital or repetitive series. Synonyms: recital, recitation, enumeration, listing, inventory”. Also, “a resonant or […]
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(My friend Jan Therien traveled to Israel and the occupied West Bank late last year. It was her first visit ever to any part of the Middle East. Before she left, I asked her to take notes and be prepared to write her impressions for my website. Below is her first contribution. FF) East Jerusalem. […]
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Look at Those Fish By Emmett Barnes In the early part of the 1970s my wife, LaNell, and I started working closely with Pastor Fuad Shorrosh in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon. I took a lighter responsibility at the Arab Baptist Seminary in Beirut so that we could move to Baalbek in 1974. This meant […]
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My last blog promised that on January 4 I would tell you about my plan for “carrying on” my effort to be a positive influence in this violent world. And here it is. This is an invitation to you, a regular or occasional reader of my blog. I want to encourage you to write […]
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2015 is gone! I am tempted to say, Praise God, al hamdulilla, good riddance. In 2015 my husband was sick, I was exhausted and stressed and trying to keep appointments, when I discovered I was not superwoman and got hauled off to the ER myself. A few months later, expecting to return home the next […]
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