I saw how God passed by, cleansed and purified me and made me His Queen in his kingdom. That’s what touched my heart deeply, to know that now I do have a crown, and I am the daughter of the King. After that, I became a disciple and have witnessed many great days, despite the hardships that Jesus promised we would have in this life.

TIMES OF TESTING

In 2003, the church passed through hard times and I was faced with the decision of either quitting and leaving the church or standing up and not letting go of God, no matter what had happened to me. It was really a very tough period but in it I learned a lot.

After that time, life continued and things got better, and I felt safe again. I was now 47 years old, and the church was doing well; all was going fine. I thought to myself, “Now I can relax and settle into my comfort zone.” But to my surprise, 2017 brought with it the huge challenge of leaving my homeland of Lebanon and moving to Egypt instead.

That was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made in my life. The church in Egypt wasn’t doing well at all. I was leaving my beloved church where I had been involved in the conversions of many of the women disciples there. I would often tell people how blessed I felt to be living in that church, with my people, surrounded by love. I felt spoiled (in a good way!) by the people in Beirut. Deciding to move meant losing all I loved and had invested in for years. Around that time, as I was reading the Bible in Luke 23:52-53, I came across the story of Nicodemus when he came to take away the dead body of Christ after the crucifixion. I asked myself, “why did he take the body of Christ after he had died, since when Jesus was alive, he did not follow him?” Why did the body of Jesus matter to him after his death, when he could offer him nothing anymore, but still he took it? What amazed me even more was that he didn’t only take the body, but he washed it from its blood stains, purified it and put perfume on it. Why did he do that?

In my spirit I felt that God told me that day, “maybe my body today --my church in Egypt-- has a bad smell and maybe it is dead…but are you willing to carry my body even if it is lifeless?” This was my turning point. I wept and said, “My Lord, I love you and I want to love your body even if I will get nothing out of it!”

I went to Egypt and the situation there was very bad. Moufid, my husband, got sick. He had some kind of stroke. Then he was exiled from Egypt. They put him in prison and deported him back to Lebanon. Now I had to decide if I would return to Lebanon with my husband or stay there in Egypt for a few more months, to help the church in its transition. Moufid and I decided together that I should stay in Egypt, because that was for the church’s best interest. So I stayed with my children in Egypt without Moufid, for 6 months. I felt much relief when I came back to Lebanon, expecting everything to be as encouraging there as when I had torn myself away a few months earlier. But I was surprised to find many problems inside the church, a lot of new challenges to face that I did not expect. I had to travel a lot, which was inconvenient and made everything harder.

Last year I thought that now, finally, we would be able to settle in and relax into our life in the church in Beirut. And so, I relate a lot to Esther. If we look at Esther and see that she won a beauty contest and was chosen as the most beautiful, the most desirable woman to be the next queen. Maybe Esther thought after winning that contest that now she had reached the throne and became a queen to sit and relax, maybe have spa treatments and be pampered, and everything would be great. I think she might have thought that her beauty brought her to that position, and so now she would have to make sure to take care of herself and to rest and to make up for the bad years she endured as an enslaved Hebrew woman-child in a foreign country.

TIMES OF UNEXPECTED TROUBLE

But Esther did not expect what happened, that Mordecai would come to share with her the King’s order to abolish her people. So he challenged her to speak up to the King. And he told her that if she refused to talk, God will save his people in other ways but it’s better to save them through her. He clearly said to her, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14) If I put myself in her shoes, that was a very tough decision, especially knowing what had happened to the previous queen who refused to obey the king. We all know that Esther came as a replacement to the previous Queen. Imagine the fear that Esther experienced: fear of a terrible consequence, fear of getting killed, fear of failure, fear of losing her comfort zone, the luxurious things she was enjoying. Definitely, she was facing a very hard decision. We might read her life as a story, but if you think deeply about her situation, you wouldn’t want to be in her place. Esther knew that she was very weak in the face of that decision. That’s why she depended on the power of prayer, on God and on fasting. She asked the people to fast and pray with her, because she was not able to make that decision on her own. She needed divine intervention; fasting shakes the throne of God. So she needed to shake God’s throne to help her do His will. That’s why she fasted with her people and prayed and then made the decision to face the King. And we all know the rest of the story: we have a happy ending because Esther made the choice of facing the king, so she prepared herself, took care of her beauty, but most importantly she prepared her heart by depending on God’s strength to do what is right.

What happened with Esther reminded me a lot of what happened with us in Lebanon. Last year when I had come back home, I thought that the time had come for me to rest. But suddenly a huge fire started in Lebanon that continued for several days and burned a big part of the country. After that, a revolution started and that movement kept us for four months on high alert because people had set up camps along the roads, and the fear of another civil war grew. We started hearing shooting guns and watching scary outbreaks of violence. I was scared for my children because people lost control and were shooting each other on the roads. My sense of home and stability was shaken.

After that, a huge explosion happened in Lebanon which destroyed the capital of Beirut. It destroyed the people that I love. More than 200 young men and women died in a few seconds. Buildings were destroyed. Hundreds of people lost their homes and were forced to live on the streets. The Beirut that I used to be proud of became a city of ghosts in one evening. Honestly, the destruction was vast…fear was enormous, and I couldn’t handle the shock. I fell into depression and cried for more than 2 weeks. I couldn't contact anyone. I couldn't respond to people who were calling to check on us. Many questions came to my mind. That destruction reminded me of my childhood. Maybe as a child, my dream was stolen to be a princess and to live a normal childhood. But the destruction of Beirut stole all my dreams, not only my past but also my future. It didn’t only steal my dreams but my children’s dreams as well. What should I do with my children? Where should I send them? What do I do? All those events made me feel so confused and lost. But I believe that the prayers of my sisters around the world made me stand on my feet again. I believe that the prayers that Jewish people prayed for Esther were the main reason she was able to stand up and face the king. Same with me. Those prayers helped me tell God, “Give me back my courage. You put me in Lebanon for a time like this, for a reason, not to enjoy a nice church atmosphere, and to love my sisters. But because you wanted me to stand up in this era.” And I did the same as Esther. I asked my sisters in Lebanon to wake up daily at 6am to pray together and to fast as a church. And we did that! We fought with the promises that God taught us. One week after the explosion, the disciples started going out on the streets to help and to clean up the shattered glass. Then H.O.P.E. Worldwide started working powerfully although it was its first year of launching our chapter in Lebanon. Until very recently we hadn’t known how to organize it, and from where to get its funding. Suddenly, the entire planet started donating and we were able to rebuild homes that many big NGOs could not accomplish. We were even praying with the people, giving them hope in a time when they lost all meaning to their lives. Not only that, we decided to start classes and to study the Bible with many people at the same time.

Then the COVID-19 lockdowns began and destroyed what remained of our economic structure. We lost our banks, and people lost all their savings. There are predictions that many in Lebanon will face hunger in the future because so many people have lost their jobs. The unemployment rate is 70%. Increase in prices on everything is now 87%. We don’t have many things like electricity and our basic needs. After being proud of our green Lebanon, unfortunately Lebanon has become one of the most corrupt countries in the world and the least developed. We struggle from lack of electricity, high pollution levels and piles of garbage accumulating.

FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS

I had to stand up and ask myself “Should I surrender and leave the country? Or did you put me, God, here for a time like this? Because you wanted to make a difference in life here?” That’s why we cried out “No, my Lord, we will not leave Lebanon!” and really the power of prayer and fasting brought out the best of what we had, because as humans we are weak; but He changed our fear into strength. So we decided to start classes and study the Bible with many people online. We started meeting online as a church every Sunday and worked on improving our performance on a daily basis. When we used to meet in the church building, our attendance was not much because we are a small church, but now we have more than 200 attendees on Zoom. Last year despite all the problems and the Coronavirus we baptized 21 persons who studied online and joined the body. This year we decided to do a prayer chain for one whole week 24/7. And we made a decision to study the Bible together as a church and to fast together. Every month we are challenging ourselves.  This month is the month of fasting. And the classes we started, we called them “Deep Roots,” as we study the Bible with people. We now have seven ongoing Bible study classes: teens, campus, marrieds, singles, Armenians, special needs and we have more than 200 people studying the Bible.

Maybe today the most-played verse in my mind is Romans 8:28 which says all things work for those who love God. We hung on to these words… all things? How can you change Beirut's explosion for our own good Lord? The good that H.O.P.E. was able to do in this short period might have taken years to accomplish under normal circumstances…as for the growth of the church, we had never before baptized 21 persons in a single year. The maximum had been 6 or 7 per year. But now we have become 100 members who study the Bible with more than 200 people. If today God were to ask me, “Jessy, would you be willing to go through all this, in order for the church of Lebanon to reach the place where it is today?” I would surely respond with a big, “Amen Lord!” I thank you God, because just as you were with Esther, you have been with us, and nothing has been just a coincidence. As Christians we don’t believe in coincidences. We believe that God can bring good out of everything. Esther was not put in that time or given that beauty for her sake to be comfortable and relaxed. Esther was put in that time and in that position because through her God wanted to save his people.

Today we are not placed in Beirut to have fun. We were put here for times like these because God wants to be glorified in his church in Lebanon. I recall one time I woke up and I was crying and praying, I was reading a story about a person who knelt and prayed to an extent that his knees left traces on the ground so that God could use him for something great. Indeed that person was used by God to build many churches. So I knelt and begged God to do the same with me despite the high price of pain that comes with it. I asked God to do it through me because seeing the church and the people grow is a dream coming true even if it were in the hardest times… Do it through me Lord.

Finally, I want to end my message by telling you that God’s plan will come in whatever way He chooses because God always wins. I can do all things through Jesus who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13) because I was created for a time like this!

Proverbs 21:30 NIV There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord.

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*The Lebanese civil war began in 1975 and lasted until 1990. Between 120,000 and 150,000 died, much of the downtown area of Beirut lay in ruins from bombing throughout this period, and 1 million Lebanese fled the country as a result of the war –which was, at the time, one half to one third the population of the entire country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War, accessed February 23, 2021.

Jessy and Moufid Tohme lead the church in Lebanon. They have been married for 21 years and God has blessed them with two wonderful kids, Andrew and Abigail.

Photo of downtown Beirut 1975 https://libnanews.com/lebanon-civil-war-a-day-in-hell-april-13-1975/ Photo credit DR

Photo of Queen: @AlbanyCapture on www.unsplash.com