Lebanon | NEO Leaders | Even When You Want to Say “No”

“I carry them with me when I go home. I see their faces before I fall asleep. I pray for them. And I love them.”

During a period of intense bombing, the people working with NEO Leaders, Novo’s Global Partner in the Middle East, faced the same fear and uncertainty as everyone else. The U.S. embassy, only minutes from their office, was even considered a potential target. Yet they continued to gather, worship, and pray, asking, “How do we remain faithful to what God is asking of us here?”

As displaced families began arriving in the area, members of the team felt called to serve them.

One woman from the women’s ministry knew she needed to help—but she didn’t really want to. “In a way, I was a bit like Jonah,” she shared. “There was conflict inside me.”

She didn’t know how to share Christ with women who came from such a different background, and she was afraid. Finally, she told herself, “Fine. I’ll go, but I’ll do it out of duty.”

It was a reluctant yes. But it was a spark.

When she first arrived, she was confronted with her own fear and assumptions. The displaced women were Muslim, many veiled and dressed completely in black. She had never been in such close contact with women from this community before. Looking at the group, she remembers initially seeing what felt like one “black block.”

Still, she knew she had to cross the barrier between them. So she walked toward one of the women.

“What’s your name?”

“Rehab.”

They began talking. How are you? Do you have children? Where are you from? What happened when you fled?

The next time she returned, she met Waad. Then Randa. Then Fatima.

Slowly, the “black block” began to disappear.

“They told me their personal stories beyond the war,” she said. “They shared how they fled, how they arrived here, and how afraid they were. That broke down the barrier between us. I realized they were women just like me. They carry the same struggles I do, the daily struggles, the daily pain—and on top of that, the pain of war.”

She began thinking differently about Jesus’s story of the Good Samaritan and the question, Who is my neighbor?

Was her neighbor only the person who looked like her? The person she already loved? Or could her neighbor also be the person she had once been afraid to approach?

Then Waad told her something she didn’t expect.

Her family had intentionally fled to Jal El Dib, a predominantly Christian area.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you Christians are different,” Waad replied.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something about you. Something unusual. You have compassion. You have love. There’s something different. What’s your secret, Christians?”

The woman explained that what Waad was seeing was the love of Christ.

As their relationship deepened, the women began asking more questions. She offered to read passages from the gospel with them so they could discover for themselves how Jesus thought and lived.

And somewhere along the way, the woman who had reluctantly said yes realized that God had changed her heart.

“Now, whenever I come here, I no longer see that black block. These women now have names. Rehab. Waad. Fatima. And many others.

“I carry them with me when I go home. I see their faces before I fall asleep. I pray for them. And I love them.”