“How do we respond to the greatest humanitarian
crisis of the 21st Century?”
That was the question in the back of our minds as staff from Kids
Alive Lebanon sat down with our Global Director for two days of discussing our
Five Year Strategic Plan. The Strategic
Plan meetings had a simple, yet not easy, objective: recognize where we
currently are as a ministry, identify where we want to go, and explore the
steps we can take to get there. Even in
‘normal’ conditions this is a challenging process; nothing is ever
straightforward or simple when it comes to serving at-risk children in any
context. The reality of the ongoing
Syrian political crisis makes the challenges all the more daunting.
The three year bloody conflict in neighboring Syria
has impacted Lebanon at nearly every political, social and economic level. A real tragedy is that innocent children who
are suffering the most. The numbers are
staggering: over 1 million official Syrian refugees in Lebanon (with many
hundreds of thousands more unregistered), 2,500 new refugees registering with
the UNHCR daily (over one person a minute!), and nearly a quarter of Lebanon’s
population now consists of Syrian refugees.[i] I live here and see the reality of this
phenomenon daily yet I still cannot wrap my mind around the scale of the crisis. Lebanon now has the highest concentration of
refugees in the world! Here’s a visual
presentation of how much this situation is affecting the country:
It would be one thing if the Syrian refugee crisis
were the lone urgent humanitarian situation we face. Unfortunately Lebanon has a long history of
chronically vulnerable communities that put many children at risk. It is easy to understand why Syrian refugees
have garnered so much global attention (and funding) but there are tens of thousands
of pre-existing at-risk children who have only seen their situation worsen in
the past three years. We cannot abandon
serving our current children in order to serve an emerging at-risk population. We must expand our capacities.
The question that was discussed by this small group
from this small organization is “what do we do and how?” Not surprisingly, we do not have a clear
answer. None of us understands the
situation fully nor do we have an idea of what the future years could hold;
each couple of months brings new developments that seem to add new dimensions
to the problem. None of us have the
top-notch skills, training, expertise, and qualification to approach such a
complicated situation with the kind of competency that this humanitarian crisis
requires. Finally, we certainly do not
have the amount of resources (neither human nor material) to launch the scale
of effort this ongoing disaster demands.
It feels like we are really out of our league on this one. Personally, this is a feeling that can be
overwhelming and even paralyzing; my enthusiasm to tackle the beast head-on can
easily turn into feelings of confusion, frustration and despair.
Yet in the midst of it all there is hope. Every problem that is too heavy for our own
hands is but a feather in the hands of God.
Every place where we are weak and unable, He is strong and His grace is
sufficient. Most importantly, every
battle that is wearing down our hearts, perplexing our mind and draining our
spirit, He has already won! We are not
called to save the world. That is God’s
job and, by the work of Jesus Christ, He does it perfectly well. We are called to simply be His vessels, His
aroma, and His children of light. God is
doing something here that is bigger than any of us; He will have His way in the
end. These strategic plans are less
about deciding what we want to do or
become and more about discovering
what God is inviting us to be a part of.
Our success will not be determined on the number of children we care for,
the performance of our programs, or the expansions of our services. Our success will be determined by our
faithfulness to the Lord. If we can be faithful
in all things, starting with the smallest, there is no underestimating what God
can do through us. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask
or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in
the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20-21) God will always be
our best strategy!
