A New Church - Because of YOU

Matt and Julie Hattabaugh
Nov 27, 2017
3 min read

Bekaa Valley

Part of Eastern Lebanon is known as the Bekaa Valley. This area, bordering Syria is home to more than 800,000 refugees - most of whom live in small camps. These rent little plots of land with money they don't have, then work for the landowners to have a place for their family to stay. In addition to the refugees, the Bekaa is the home to muslim and catholic Lebanese communities - all of which, to a person, have been impacted by military actions from the civil war that stretched from 1970 - 1995.

The Lebanese families in Bekaa have not only been touched by the civil war, but of the 2 million refugees that have came into Lebanon - half of them settled in this valley, crushing the struggling infrastructure and economy.

A CHURCH reLAUNCH

It is in this valley where we came across a closed church. The building had been built in the 1960's, but had been closed because there was no pastor.

"But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were faint and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." Matthew 9:36

That is what happened in Kfar Zabad. Families that had been faithful to the church some since it was first established, had been scattered. In July 2017, we began building relationships with families of this village. At the same time, we developed an all Lebanese evangelism team.

WATCH THE VIDEO

It was because Word of Life Church, Flowood, MS that joined the CLUB1040 GoTeam in July that made this outreach possible. They purchased supplies for our Lebanese team to distribute in the village. We invited 80 families from the area - and everyone received Jesus.

On November 12, a CLUB1040 GoTeam went with us back to this village and we worked to re-launch the church. Thank God - He gave us great success. The team ran children and youth outreaches, ministered to the families and distributed Treasures to everyone that came.

"Treasures" are solar powered audio Bibles in the Arabic language. The ministry that provides CLUB1040 these units (at no cost to us) is called World Mission (worldmission.cc/treasure) tell us that on the low average, 144 people listen to one of these Treasures in the first two years after they are distributed. CLUB1040 has distributed 4,000 of these in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and in North Africa. Using World Mission's estimate, that touches over 500,000 people with the living Word of God. During this outreach our team distributed 250 of these Treasures - many of these to young people under the age of 20!

His First Word Was "JESUS"

One young muslim mother brought her two children to the outreach. Her youngest was 4 and had never spoken. He had hearing aids in both ears, but couldn't hear - even with the aid. One of the team members asked if anyone had problems hearing. The mother brought the boy to the front. Hands were laid on him, and we asked the mother to remove the hearing aids. She did, and our interpreter asked the boy to say, "Jesus". The boy looked at his mom, then looked at our interpreter and said, "Jesus". The mother said, "He has never spoken"! His first word was, "Jesus"! Our team rejoiced - and some of the new believers in the church were very surprised.

We were outside shaking hands with people as they left and this same young boy was talking to his mother. Totally healed!

God did amazing miracles during this outreach - so much so that by our last night of our outreach meetings people from the village arrived asking, "Who is the healer here?" We all said, "His name is JESUS!"

In four days, 127 people received Jesus, and the following Sunday -- after the team was gone, that church was full! For now, this church is by alone; BUT we believe that there are more to come and we are already planning for the next launch!

All of this is because of your support of us and what we are doing here in Lebanon. Thank you for obeying God and helping us to GO to these least reached families of the Earth.