Across Lebanon, families are once again living with displacement, instability, and uncertainty.
The conflict involving Hezbollah, Israel, and Iran has pushed hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Combined with the surge in refugees from Syria, which is experiencing its own internal conflicts, the country of Lebanon is overwhelmed with families in need. Entire communities have been uprooted. Some families now live in temporary shelters or church buildings. Others move between relatives, schools, and overcrowded apartments, unsure how long they will be able to stay.
For many parents, daily life has narrowed to immediate concerns. Finding food. Securing medication. Keeping children safe. Trying to create some sense of stability while the future feels increasingly fragile.
In southern villages, destruction has forced families to leave homes and communities that had shaped their lives for generations. Some return briefly to gather belongings, only to discover damage too severe to remain. Others have nowhere to return to at all.
Lebanon has endured years of economic collapse and political instability long before this latest escalation. Now, the pressures of war have deepened an already overwhelming humanitarian strain.
Help The Persecuted has served in Lebanon for years through pastoral care, safe houses, emergency relief, discipleship, and our longstanding Crisis Response. As displacement spread across the country once again, we launched the Matthew 25 Project to meet families directly inside affected communities.
A Ministry Built Around Presence
The Matthew 25 Project is centered around a simple but intentional goal: spend full days with displaced families, caring for physical needs while creating space for the gospel to be shared naturally through relationships and presence.
Rather than operating as a brief relief stop, each outreach day is designed to create meaningful engagement throughout the day.
The morning begins with the Mobile Ministry Unit arriving on-site as fresh flatbread called saj manakish is prepared for breakfast. Families gather slowly while volunteers serve food, coffee, and tea. Children gravitate toward activity tables with coloring supplies and games while parents make conversation with others and members of the pastoral care team.
Later in the day, families are served full rotisserie chicken meals with bread, pickles, and garlic paste. Alongside the meals, Emergency Relief Kits, hygiene supplies, mattresses, blankets, fuel coupons, and Christian materials are distributed to families facing urgent needs.
What unfolds during these outreach days is far more personal than a distribution event.
Conversations develop over meals and coffee. Parents speak about displacement, fear, financial pressure, and exhaustion. Children who have been surrounded by instability begin laughing and playing together again.
That rhythm of care creates space for trust to form naturally.
Compassion That Buildes Bridges
Many of the families being served through the Matthew 25 Project are Muslims who never expected Christians to care for them this way.
Members of Help The Persecuted’s Lebanon team talk with many displaced families who are carrying assumptions shaped by fear, distance, or misunderstanding about Christians. Then they encounter something different.
One woman named Asmahane came seeking medication for her mentally ill son. After receiving help, she told the team, “Nobody served us like you did for nothing in return.”
Another woman, Carmen, received an Emergency Relief Kit and said, “You invited us as if to your houses, and we saw real love.”
Mariam described the meals by saying, “What food served with love and generosity and presented to us out of a loving heart!"
Those responses reveal something important about the ministry taking place during these outreach days. Families are not only receiving practical help but also experiencing compassion expressed with dignity, patience, and personal care.
A Help The Persecuted team member described one outreach where several women hesitantly asked whether the team could help them obtain medication. Someone immediately went to the pharmacy and returned with what they needed. “They said this is the first time some people quickly brought or helped them without hesitation, with love, with care,” he shared.
That witness leaves a lasting impression.
Conversations About Jesus
Throughout the outreach days, the pastoral care team spends time sitting with individuals and small groups, listening carefully and beginning conversations about God, suffering, fear, and hope. As trust develops, many become open to hearing about Jesus more directly.
The team distributes Gospel of John booklets and a tract titled The Cross: A Message of Endless Love. Families are encouraged to read them before going to sleep that night.
For some families, these are the first meaningful conversations they have ever had with Christians. As the conversation grows, many Muslims are shocked to learn they can speak directly to God personally rather than approaching Him only through fear and ritual.
That is one reason the Matthew 25 Project matters so deeply. Every meal, every conversation, and every act of kindness creates opportunities for people to encounter the love of Christ in ways that feel personal and real.
Caring for the Whole Family
War and displacement affect entire families, and children often carry confusion, fear, and instability quietly. The Matthew 25 Project creates space for them to experience joy, care, and consistency in the middle of disruption.
During each outreach, children participate in games, coloring activities, and age-appropriate programs designed specifically for them. Many arrive with very little. Some have gone weeks without normal routines, school materials, or opportunities to simply play.
What may appear small becomes deeply meaningful in that environment. Children are laughing again. Parents are breathing again. Families are being reminded that they have not been forgotten.
A Steadfast Witness in Lebanon
The Matthew 25 Project is part of Help The Persecuted’s larger Rescue, Restore, Rebuild ministry in Lebanon, which includes pastoral care, safe houses, crisis response, and long-term support for persecuted believers. Outreach days often become the beginning of ongoing relationships that continue long after the meals have been served. In many ways, the ministry reflects the words of Jesus in Matthew 25, where caring for the hungry, the stranger, and the vulnerable becomes an expression of serving Christ Himself.
The apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.” Those words describe what Help The Persecuted’s Lebanon team continues to model in the middle of instability and war. They keep showing up. They keep serving. They keep opening the Scriptures and sharing the hope of Jesus with families carrying immense uncertainty. And through your support, that ministry continues every day.
Please continue praying for displaced families across Lebanon and for the teams serving them faithfully through the Matthew 25 Project. And if you would like to help sustain this work, we invite you to give and stand alongside persecuted Christians and vulnerable families throughout the Islamic World.