Good Bones and the Health of Boys
Cedar Home’s director, Karim Anayssi is a Fellowship International missionary who has been serving in Beirut, Lebanon for the past decade with his wife Rita and their two daughters.
Cedar Home is a ministry that cares for abandoned newborns, as well as orphaned and disadvantaged Syrian, Palestinian, and Iraqi refugees, and stateless girls in Lebanon: go to https://www.fellowship.ca/lebanoncedarhome to find out more about this ministry.
“Good Bones”
It has been on Karim’s heart for many years to provide a special home for boys in Beirut. A great number of boys become unskilled and unemployed young men in Lebanon. A Cedar Home for boys could be used by the Lord to change this trajectory in so many boys’ lives.
Our current FAIR appeal (September-December 2022), Good Bones, is seeking to raise $150,000 to complete a significant renovation of a building which, Lord willing, will become this home for boys.
I’ve asked our FAIR director Dan Shurr to describe the project and the Good Bones appeal:
“Often throughout the past year, when Karim Anayssi, one of our Fellowship International missionaries in Lebanon, would drive through his neighbourhood in Beirut, he would see Mohammed, a teenage boy, standing next to the community garbage bins. As people would drop off their garbage and recycling, he would sort through each bag looking for anything of value. He told Karim that this is the ‘job’ given to him by his dad – sorting through garbage to help provide for the family. He was no longer in school, he wasn’t learning any valuable skills, he was not being prepared to thrive once he [becomes] an adult, and so this is all he could do. In Lebanon, this situation is all too common.
“According to a report issued by the UN, in 2021 about 82% of households in Lebanon now live under multi-dimensional poverty considering dimensions such as employment and income; access to healthcare, education, public utilities; and housing. With extreme levels of inflation and high unemployment rates, families who used to be able to save and plan for their future now struggle to find enough food to eat each day. This has left young boys and teenagers in a precarious position.
“Karim and his wife Rita see the hundreds of thousands of boys who are in need, and they want to do their part to help. They not only have a vision, but many of the resources needed to do this. They have organizational and people knowledge from their ongoing work directing Cedar Home for girls, many contacts including mentors and potential staff, the property and the foundations of the old Cedar Home building, [and] a positive reputation in the community. The time to start is now. Once the building and staff are ready, they plan to train 100 teenage boys a year. As Karim would say, ‘I see these boys as the church of the future. They are not only doing vocational training, providing meals and sharing the gospel—I see this as church planting, as heart work.’”
Please prayerfully consider giving to the Good Bones project. A Christmas offering would be most appreciated.
I am visiting Beirut, Lebanon this week and will have more to share about this project in the coming days. Click here to donate!