|PIC1|Four hundred Lebanese children (and countless more in future) have been blessed by the kindness of two UK churches involved in the BMS World Mission Link Up scheme.

Two Link Up churches, Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford and the Eden Church, Kent, have funded two projects that will be making a difference to children and young people across Lebanon for years to come. And they did it on top of their regular giving to BMS!

The Eden Church in Kent is part of a Link Up group that supports and gets regular updates from Arthur and Louise Brown, BMS workers in Lebanon. As part of their growing understanding of and increasing engagement with Lebanon through supporting the work of the Browns, the Eden Church wanted to make a gift above and beyond their usual giving commitments to BMS, that would assist in one of the projects assisted by Arthur and Louise.

Through a Christmas Appeal the church was able to raise money to fund a project supplying milk to more than 400 three to five-year-olds every week. The children live in Bourj el Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The weekly supply of milk has been very well received by both children school staff, who recognise the valuable nutritional contribution it makes to the children’s diets.

“Because of this,” says Louise, “children whose diet was really poor have been able to receive milk over four months, and it has really made a big difference to the kids’ lives.”

Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford, another of Arthur and Louise’s Link Up churches, has also provided a gift that will benefit children and young people in Lebanon and beyond. They are sponsoring the translation of a key youth-work text into Arabic. BMS partners, the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, are being supported by Central Baptist in the translation, which, when complete, will be an invaluable textbook for best-practice in youth ministries.

“This is going to be a massive resource for training youth leaders and people interested in youth work,” says Arthur. “It’s been great to see how a church can really support the development of valuable resources for the region which is incredibly under-resourced in good-quality Arabic resources.”

Re-printed in Christian Today with the kind permission of BMS World Mission www.bmsworldmission.org