On Wednesday evening, January 21, we had a visit from Chaouki Boulos of Lebanon. He is a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship missionary. What he told us was encouraging and downright amazing. Historically Muslim countries like Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Bahrain are beginning to develop religious freedom. He showed us some photos of a Christian worship service being held outdoors in Beruit with the largest mosque in Lebanon in the background. On his video was a Muslim imam welcoming a Christian group from the US as they were preparing a “Jesus Festival” in his neighborhood. As CBF of Florida Coordinator Ray Johnson said to us as he introduced Chaouki, “God is doing some incredible things in the Middle East.”
Your response to our missionary guest was wonderful to see. We gave him our usual honorarium for a speaker of $100. And when I asked us to give him a love offering for the Christian retreat center that is being built in Lebonan, we placed another $200 in his hands. Thank you for giving in a way that shows a heart for harvesting the souls that are responding to the good news about Jesus in the Middle East.
I thought of how faithful our giving has been lately at New Hope as I read these words from Henri Nouwen in a devotional book: “Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another. Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own (see Philippians 2:4). The question therefore is not ‘How can we make community,’ but ‘How can we develop and nuture giving hearts?’”
I am happy and proud to be the pastor of New Hope Baptist Church.
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