All of life happens somewhere, and a lot has happened in many lives at Dar El Awlad. Its soil is a stage on which key elements of my
own life’s drama have been acted. The story actually begins long before I was around. In
the 1950’s my American grandparents arrived in Lebanon with a simple desire to
serve needy children in Dar El Awlad, and in 1957 my father joined them at the
home as a scruffy child from a seemingly hopeless situation. God providentially directed
the twists and turns of circumstance to weave together lives in ways that resulted in my very own existence. Every life comes into existence this way, but for me it just
so happens that much of it took place at Dar El Awlad.
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| The original missionary prayer card for my grandparents featuring my uncle and mother (another uncle and my aunt also grew up "on the field"). Kids Alive was called Home of Onesiphorus at the time. |
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| My father with the tribal chief on the day of his arrival at Dar El Awlad, a providential moment. |
Just like my grandparents and parents, my own life’s path
led to Dar El Awlad, first as a 6-month old infant and eventually as a Kids
Alive volunteer in October 2007. I arrived here with little more to offer than
an enthusiastic willingness to give back to a place that has given so much to
me. Though my original intention was to serve at Dar El Awlad for a year a two,
I am still here more than a decade later. There are many reasons for this
“change of plans” and I am thankful for each one.
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| My first visit to Dar El Awlad in 1984 finding myself beside a special girl. |
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| 28 years later and once again finding myself at Dar El Awlad beside the same special girl. |
This month my family and I will bid farewell to Dar El Awlad.
The river has run its course and God is leading me to new opportunities in
Lebanon. Over the years I have said goodbye to many children, staff members and
volunteers as they departed this place, and now it is my time to part. A
whirlwind of emotion is stirring within me, but anchored deep down is a great
sense of peace and gratitude. Dar El Awlad is a land saturated with story and I
have been privileged to live my own story on this blessed turf. The stories are
sweet and bitter, some crowned with victory and others tinged with failure, but
all are seared on my heart and mind in permanent ways. I pray that my time here
has somehow been used by God to contribute to the stories of others who have
called this place home.
We often make a big deal of places, which is actually a very
human, even godly, thing to do. Biblical faith is highly concerned with place
as a concept and as an actual fact of life. We see this truth throughout the
entirety of scripture. History begins with God’s loving act of creation, the
establishment of a physical place where everyone and everything is made to
dwell. Tragically the fall corrupted everything and place deteriorated from a source
of comfort and security to a matter of discord and disappointment. Sin undermined
our place in this world. Still God did not give up on his plan and place remained
central to humanity’s journey to redemption. A gifted land was promised to
God’s people to serve as a “home base” from which all the world is to be blessed.
Christ incarnate then joined us in this place and ushered an expansive kingdom
into which every weary, displaced soul can claim the fullness of belonging. In
Christ all territories are promised lands. Our ultimate hope is indeed a new
place, a new creation that will transform all that we currently know into a final
reality where our yearning for a “home, sweet home” will be completely satisfied.
Place absolutely matters to God and it must matter to us. Our fatal problem is
that we too often worship places as gods rather than worshiping God as the
Lord of all places. But when we manage to hold places in the right kind of way
we experience a meshing of life and faith’s within a threefold sacred relationship
between ourselves, God and the places in which we dwell. This is how we are
meant to live, and I am blessed to have lived it in many ways.
Perhaps Dar El Awlad’s greatest impact in God’s kingdom is in
existing as a missional space and a much-needed place to call home. Its history spans long before me and its time
will no doubt stretch far beyond, and for a few years in the middle I have been
fortunate to be here. Thankfully our relationship is not ending; I will remain
in the neighborhood and anticipate future opportunities to engage the ministry.
But the fact remains that I will soon leave, and Dar El Awlad will inevitably become
a different place for me. One thing that will never change is that this place,
full of its people and its stories, will always be a promised land of faith,
and I will miss it. In fact I already do.
