This story is contributed by Alastair Greeves, former auditor for World Vision International. The friend he speaks of here is a significant character in my memoir, In Borrowed Houses. FF
“Are you Terry Waite?” the Lebanese immigration official asked me as I handed him my passport 25 years ago. “Are you returning to our country?” he added in disbelief, as the clerical envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury had just left Lebanon a week or two earlier after years of being held hostage during the bitter civil war there.*
I had just landed in Beirut after a 16-hour journey from Los Angeles to carry out an audit of World Vision Lebanon. A little disturbed by this question, I nevertheless picked up my bag from the luggage carousel and made my way into the cool evening air where the national director, Jean Bouchebl was waiting for me with a big smile and a reassuring hug.
I had been unsure whether or not it would be safe enough to go to Beirut at that time because we were unsure if the war and the hostage taking was really over or not. As we drove through East Beirut it was evident that most of the buildings had been hit by shells or gunfire. In the business district, every building was more or less a skeleton and here and there grass and even trees were growing out of the pavement or in the interior of a building. Although it was a ghostly experience driving past many severely damaged commercial buildings, Jean assured me that he would ensure my safety throughout the time of my visit. I had phoned him just before departing for the airport because I was still concerned, not just about Beirut but also about whether or not the LA riots raging at that time would reach my home town. Fortunately, the riots were on the wane as the National Guard had arrived and Jean, with great irony, told me that Beirut would be safer for me than Los Angeles.
Jean took me up the mountains that form a crescent around Beirut to a beautiful little hotel lost in the hills of Bikfaya. The next day he picked me up early for the ride back down the hill to the World Vision office in Mansouriyeh. I did the audit and got to know some of World Vision’s amazing staff who took me in the evenings to visit some of the interesting historical sites and beautiful coast line around the city.
Since that time, I have maintained my friendship with Jean over the years and learned a lot more about him, his wife Renee and his son Patrick. Back in the 1980s, Jean gave up a lucrative management position with the InterContinental Hotel chain in Saudi Arabia because he felt a Divine call to return to his suffering home country and to do something positive to heal the wounds there. He was asked by World Vision to get a ministry going in the Middle East and in Lebanon where he had his home base. This was an extremely dangerous decision. Getting assistance to suffering poor people meant crossing and re-crossing the infamous ‘Green Line,’ the line of demarcation between the ‘Christian’ East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut, often daily, where he would be subjected to intensive questioning and threats. But Jean was always surrounded by the ‘heavenly hosts’ and was allowed to pass. Once, he told me he got into a very ugly situation with his own family in the car who were traumatized by the threatening experience. Again he was let to pass without hindrance and continue his ministry. At some point, he had to send his children to a school in Germany for their safety. But this was a painful and costly personal decision to separate the family because of the war.
Jean, a conservative evangelical Christian, was an agent of reconciliation in all that he was doing. He is still like that. In a country where there was great and rampant hostility and hatred on every side, Jean made it his business to contact leaders and lieutenants of the protagonists to inform them of what World Vision’s intentions were and how it was helping their people without reference to religion, creed or sectarian affiliation. Jean builds bridges, not walls.
All this is based on Jean’s personal faith in Jesus Christ, his Savior. Although no longer with World Vision, Jean, now 75 years old continues to serve the cause of the poor in the Middle East generally through his not for profit organization, ‘Witness as Ministry’ where he is an agent of relief and help to suffering poor people.
Last Friday (16 September 2016) Jean and I met for a mountain walk in Altadena near to where we both live. It had been about 10 years since we had done this as our paths had diverged somewhat over that time. We walked about 5 miles together on Friday, discussing how the Lord had led in our lives, fascinating characters and customers from Jean’s time in the hotel industry in Saudi Arabia and what we were both doing now. After climbing about 1,200’ to the ruin of an old hotel, we stopped to drink our water and eat our snacks. Up there we met a small group of women and Jean shared with them from his daily Scripture reading and the accompanying commentary. It was a moving moment to listen to him share with these strangers, one of whom listened intently. ‘That’s Jean! He’s ‘on mission’ 24/7,” I thought to myself.
Alastair Greeves
18 September 2016
*In 1987, British churchman Terry Waite went to Lebanon in an effort to negotiate the release of western hostages, Irishman Brian Keenan and two Americans Tom Sutherland and Terry Anderson, who were being held by Hezbollah. He was himself seized and held for four years, eight months. He was released on November 18, 1991. FF