10/23/83

Why do I remember that date?  It happens to be the day 30 years ago when 241 U. S. Marines died when a truck bomb struck their barracks at the airport in Beirut, Lebanon.  A tragic event, but there is also another connection with that day.  On October 23, 1983 I was with a group of Middle Eastern - mainly Lebanese - international students on a Christian retreat in New Mexico.

I was working at the Baptist Student Ministry at Texas Tech at the time and one of my responsibilities was to work with International students.  The event was big enough that the camp director came and told us. 

The news devastating to them.  They were more upset than we Americans were.  I was baffled.  When I asked one of the students to explain their reaction, he said, "After this day, there will be no more Lebanon.  Not like I know it."  It turns out he was right.  The United States and other peace keeping nations pulled out of Lebanon and the bloody civil war they were supposed to try and stop, surged out of control.  The Lebanon that has emerged is said to be nothing like the Lebanon these young men called home.

These students, Christian and Muslim, knew that everything had changed for them.  I wonder how many of them had to return home?  If they did, how many were sucked into the conflict?  How many of them died in it?

I look back on that day and see how huge a day that was for them, how little I really understood it and how poorly I was prepared to handle a crisis like that.  As I reflected on that day, I was reminded that though I can do nothing about the past, I can still pray.  Pray for those students, now grown and thirty years older - if they are still alive.  I can also pray for myself, that I will be ready to minister to people, even when I cannot fully grasp their pain or understand their plight.

We too often think of prayer as a last resort.  On that day it was - and on this day it is - the most powerful thing we can do.

for the journey...

Tim