Motor Mission Blog #13

Look out in Lebanon
When Nathan and I had initially discussed our motorbike trip we had allowed about six months. This, we had thought, would be sufficient time to travel from India to London. The focus of our trip would be the section between India and Syria and then after that we’d travel to London via Europe and take some time to chill out and check out the sights. It’s always amazing how plans can change and there was no way we could have anticipated what we encountered on the way and just the kaleidescope of people that we met.

As Nathan turned and walked towards the security check at the airport I started to wonder what was it going to be like from now on. With no partner and no immediate back-up a feeling of uneasiness started to overtake me on the ride back. In Damascus a friend came to me and was saying how that familiar Psalm 23 - ‘The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want…’ - had a renewed significance after observing traditional shepherding in this part of the world. The traditional shepherds here, the Bedouin, are a nomadic people who graze their flocks over vast areas. These animals don’t live in pens, they roam around. But they are always under the watchful eye of the shepherd. He doesn’t let even one stray too far. Surely with the Lord as my shepherd how much more safe was I, what did I have to fear?

Palestinians in Beirut
After spending a few days to gather myself I set off for Lebanon. I had been in contact with a man who’s reputation preceeded him. When I arrived in Beirut I stopped at a kebab shop and grabbed a quick meal while I sat down to ring this man. I was unable to contact him on the phone. While I was sitting down a young guy dressed in a police uniform came in with his friends and invited me back to his house. Not having anywhere else to go at the time I accepted and the group of us rode off to his place.

After some time we arrived in an area called Harat Hreik, a suburb of ramshackle buildings all squeezed together with narrow twisitng lanes. This placed seemed a lot different to the other places in Beirut, and around every corner was a banner with the face of Yassar Arafat emblazoned on it. I realised this was a Palestinian refugee camp. Abbas and his family are Lebanese but they choose to live in the refugee area because it is significantly cheaper than the other parts of Beirut. Harat Hreik is one of a number of refugee camps situated in greater Beirut. They are designed to contain Palestianians in order to keep them from ‘polluting’ the rest of the city.

I was treated like a bit of a celebrity in the neighbourhood and Abbas’s family were very excited to have a foreigner staying. Compared to some of the other Shi’ite Muslim families Nato and I had stayed with the mother was always around. We had alwasy been warmly received wherever we went but it was usual for the mother and the older girls to vanish and rarely be seen again. But in this house of five boys mother was a regular sight all over the house fussing over me like mothers tend to do. After a number of fruitless efforts to contact my freind in Beirut I accepted their petitions for me to stay and settled into my new surroundings.

Hanging out with my adopted family and my new freinds in the neighbourhood gave insight into the plight of the Palestinian people. Many of the younger people here are second generation refugees. They are Palestinian although they were all born in Lebanon and have never been home becasue they are unable too. They are unable to travel anywhere becasue they have no passports, no real identification. The Lebanese government won’t give them citizenship for fear that they will stay, and they are unable to leave so they remain trapped inside the camps. Work is difficult to get, many jobs are not available to them, and they subsist on any odd jobs they can get. Their saviours are Yassar Arafat, a man who is worshipped by his people, and another figure, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The Palestinians revere Nasrallah because his group was seen as the ones that resisted Israel and eventually caused them to withdraw in the 1982 Lebanon War.

After three days of living and sharing with this community I was able to get in contact with my friend in Beirut and I left under protest from the family with the promise I would return soon.

The Evangelist
When I eventually did meet with my friend Hansel and his wife Gretel they certainly lived up to their reputation. Hansel had come to the Middle East about 25 years ago, to the Sahara desert where he received instruction from God and went to Egypt. He remained there until he was kicked out and from there proceeded to inhabit various countries in the Middle East. He was removed from all of them until he ended up in Lebanon. Why did he get kicked out from so many countries? Did he do something illegal? Well it was simply for spreading the good news of the Jesus.

Lebanon is somewhat more open than a lot of other countries but Hansel’s life still reads like an action movie. He’s been kidnapped, threatened with death and his house has been bombed (killing a foreign girl who was also working in Lebanon). But he refuses to stop telling the good news as long as he has breath. Hansel had met Gretel on the field after both resolving that they would probably not ever find any like minded people around and have formed one of the most dynamic duos in the Middle East. Everyone who was in the know had heard of them; I had been told that they really were something.

Hansel and I visited some street kids living in a orphanage. There he took the opportunity to speak about Jesus and who he was. We spent some time with some new believers from Muslim backgrounds and listened to their fears about telling their families about their new found faith. Their fears are real; some people have been killed by their own family simply because they have renounced their Islamic faith. When asked about the trials they have experienced they just sit back and say ‘Hallelujah that we are still here’. They really don’t get phased by much.

My recent sojourn in a police cell (read Motor Mission Arrest) was only met with much laughter and concern as to whether I was alright. Incidentally this wasn’t the last run-in I had with the police in Lebanon. I was detained for an hour after illegally riding through the city of Saidon where motorcycles were banned (unbeknown to me there had been a number of ride-by shootings in this city persuading the governement to ban motorcyles withing the city limits). This coupled with numerous spot checks and questions left me with the impression that even though Lebanon is currently experiencing a time of peace. there is an expectation that tomorrow could bring anything.

Aunty Joan
Before leaving Syria I was asked if I would return in two weeks to accompany an older lady that was coming to Syria to visit and pray for the country. I accepted and on my arrival back in Damascus met my new aunty. Joan hails from Victoria and is really an amazing lady. She is roughly 75 (ok Joan?) and while most of her friends are kicking back at home, Joan is travelling all over the world encouraging people in their work. The two weeks or so that we spent together were an opportunity to find out what makes this lady tick and to receive some wisdom from her experience.

Leaving Syria
Leaving Syria was the most difficult experience yet. The Christian Syrian family I had been staying with for the last week were very upset when I said I had to go. The father protested saying that if I went to leave he would let my tyres down and take my bike to the police station. In the face of on-coming rain and the constant cries to stay ‘just one more day’ I capitulated and stayed one more day much to everyone’s delight. When I went to go in the morning I was met with the same ‘one more day’ but determined to push on I didn’t yield. Instead, I promised that I would come back soon to visit. I really didn’t think I could handle another day of constant attention and continuously being stuffed with food. The father’s favourite song to me is ‘do you love me. do you love me?’ that he sings over and over again while he prepares mountains of food. I’m thinking he is quite crazy. One night I was woken at 1:30am with a platter of food because they thought I might be hungry. I informed them that the copious amount of food they’d fed me 3 hours ago would probably last me through the night but this made no impression at all so I dutifully ate more. Originally I thought I was going to be starving out in the desert; if only I’d known. When I asked why they offered such constant hospitality he replied ‘My God he see me and he know, he always looking’