SUMMER CAMP:

Warm thanks to all those who prayed for our ninth camp! 35 children were enrolled, a record! We had decided to give more time to spiritual reflection times and, with the prophet Jonah, we considered important themes such as obedience, prayer and God’s grace. Each morning, the children worked in groups and presented their work or a skit to the entire camp. What an encouragement it was for us to see these children taking the freedom to pray and make steps of faith as they discovered a God that was just but also full of love!

A team from the children’s ministry Grain de Blé called Just for Kids reinforced very well the teaching of the morning as they presented the Gospel in a very contemporary and humorous way during two of the evenings.

Our Syro-Iraquo-Franco-Swiss team is much of the reason for the success of this camp. For five very tiring days, they gave their best for these children who have so little opportunity to really experience the joys of childhood. And of course, the return home was difficult, for they came back to their shacks with the heat, concrete and inactivity of three months before they return to school.

Concerning the beginning of school, we hope to begin in early September the work of renovation and transformation of a three-bedroom house with kitchen and bathroom, with an interior courtyard. This facility is in such bad shape that to transform it into a pleasant place for study will be no easy task!

We have had to shoulder numerous expenses at the end of this school year and it is by faith that we hope to pay our teachers during the summer. Thanks for carrying this prayer request with you as we present our ministry this summer to several churches in Switzerland, France and the USA.

MEDICAL WORK:

The operations on Maha and Qamar were successful and both girls can see well!  Thank you to those who prayed for them and contributed to their treatment. We hope that Maha will be able to join our literacy classes this fall, but her mother, who lives from begging in the cemeteries, needs her to keep her little brother and sister during her absences. These operations completely emptied our Surgical Aid Fund. Fadi, the husband of our dispensary assistant, must be operated on ASAP for the removal of a testicular tumor, but he is waiting for us to help him with the costs of hospitalization.

Dr. H seems to be doing well as substitute doctor at the dispensary during Agnès’ absence (she is in the USA for two months). We hope that he will continue to work with Tahaddi this coming school year.

Pray that Agnès’ fundraising and information visit in the USA might result in bringing the necessary funds to take up our new challenges, such as the opening of the dispensary four days per week instead of two and a half. This involves the longer-term hiring of Dr. H and that of Zeina.

During her time in the USA, Agnès is also doing a medical in-service with medical practitioners in various specialties, for six weeks in July and August.

Our objective is that the Tahaddi dispensary might not only be a place of free medical access, but also that it would bring a good quality of care and a holistic approach to the problems of this underprivileged population.

Julie, a young Australian woman trained as a lab technician, is in Lebanon for six months with O.M. and is currently studying how we might improve our laboratory services.

We thank God for the volunteers who give their time and their gifts in behalf of Tahaddi.

MARCH 2003

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OCTOBER 2002

JUNE 2002

MAY 2002