Nine hundred eight (908) new little faces enjoyed discovering Bible World this year. As always, it was amazing to listen to their laughters, see their excitement, and reply to all kinds of questions they asked. But if we look at the number, it is far less than what we planned for. The security situation prevented the schools to send their students, and many cancelled their reservations after the explosions in Beirut.
In response, and since what we aim for is beyond the consequences of the actual political situation, we therefore chose to go out and reach the children in their schools, with two new programs and two different characters, August the Clown and Billy-Cookie
the funny character, both much appreciated by the children. Through these two programs, we were able to reach 3,769 children from different areas and villages in Lebanon.
The Bible Society is also aware that the youth is an age group who are searching for identity. Hence our youth programs team prepared many workshops and activities for this purpose and worked from November 2013 until today with about 2,000 teenager students. The aim of the activities was to reinforce their belief, help them to find their identity in Christ, understand His unconditional love, and to encourage them to read the word of God – all done through interactive games, drama, drawing and music.
One of the activities was to write a need or a prayer on a paper and pin it on a wooden cross. The response of the youth was obvious and yet alarming, when a large number asked Jesus to “stop the conflicts in their family.” Others asked for repentance from pornography, and from speaking bad words. One young girl asked God “to interfere and make Tony fall in love with her”!
The programs are implemented with our field partners, Youth for Christ and Life Agape, who accompany our teams most of the time. More importantly are the many schools that have entrusted us with this program so as to keep on raising awareness in creative ways, particularly concerning the importance of the Bible in our families and society.
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