When you’ve risked it all and lost it all — when you’ve been ostracized by loved ones and cut off from help — when there is no food to put on the table for your hungry family …
Nothing says HOPE like this image:
It’s a photo of an extraordinary agriculture project recently launched in Lebanon, where food insecurity is taking a devastating toll. Here’s why:
The Economic Crisis in Lebanon
The scale of the economic crisis in Lebanon has reached unprecedented levels. Here are some numbers to show for it:
- 50% of Lebanon’s wheat is imported from Ukraine
- 1.5 Syrian refugees in Lebanon
- 46% of Lebanon’s population is hungry
Our Field Ministry Team in Lebanon reports the declining conditions — from massive shortages of necessities for survival: food, fuel, electricity, and medicines to the increase of violence and political unrest.
At the same time, Lebanon is dependent on Ukraine for a significant amount of its grain, which is compounding the issue. The outlook is grim.
But, there is HOPE.
Our Response to the Crisis in Lebanon
By God’s grace, Help The Persecuted is positioned to make a difference. With the support of friends and partners like you, we are an established presence on the ground in Lebanon, the hub of our ministry presence in the Middle East — and a critical country for the Gospel. You can learn more about our initial response to the Lebanon crisis here.
More Christians are living in Lebanon per capita than in any other Middle Eastern country. It is one of the most open countries in the region to Christianity, a nation where multitudes of persecuted Christian refugees seek shelter.
However, the country is deeply divided by political factions and radical Islamic groups. Hostility towards the Church is increasing as the economy deteriorates.
We are continuing to respond to the crisis in Lebanon in three powerful ways:
- Sharing the Gospel, discipling new believers, and connecting them with local churches.
- Addressing specific practical and spiritual needs of persecuted and vulnerable believers.
- Developing sustainable livelihoods and income opportunities for believers through training and employment.
Through your support, we recently built 11 greenhouses that will:
- Produce enough vegetables to fill 35 full-size pick-up trucks every month
- Provide enough food to supply our hot meal program and Emergency Relief Kits
- Open multiple job opportunities to the persecuted community — giving families food, a livelihood, and a purpose.
How You Can Help
Today, we need your immediate and generous help to provide vegetable seeds and equipment for the greenhouse initiative and continue all our crisis response efforts in Lebanon:
- Hosting Gospel outreach and discipleship events to foster prayer, worship, and spiritual growth.
- Distributing Emergency Relief Kits with essential food items, discipleship materials, clothes, and fuel.
- Providing access to primary medical care, prescription medication, and biblical counseling — to help persecuted believers through trauma, anxiety, depression, and grief.
- Operating a food pantry and kitchen outreach in Beirut. This will address issues of food insecurity for persecuted and vulnerable believers, provide training and employment opportunities, and provide outreach to the local Muslim population.
- Training persecuted Christians in agriculture to provide an income and livelihood — a great bonus: the food grown in our greenhouses will stock the food pantry as well!
Your generosity today will empower our Field Ministry Team and ministry partners to intervene, meet needs, and encourage and disciple refugees, new converts, and vulnerable Christians struggling in Lebanon.
You will plant seeds for food and seeds for the Gospel so that the hungry will be physically and spiritually filled. Nothing says hope like this. Thank you for being part of it!