Meeting our priest...

Once a week we're meeting a priest to talk about a topic concerning faith, the bible or simply our week with the boys.

We found him by coincidence when he celebrated mass in our Philippino church and liked him so much that we asked him if he would want to be our "spiritual guide". Since he turned out to be a teacher and to live at the school Jamhour where we're doing sports, it was a perfect match and he couldn't say no. :-)

Baalbeck and winetasting in Ksara

Last Friday we did a trip to the Bekaa-Valley, a beautiful area between the two mountain chains of Lebanon. First we visited Baalbeck, one of the best preserved Roman temples in the Middle East. The village is in an area which is today controlled by Hizbollah, so like in the South we drove by a lot of yellow flags and pictures of Hassan Nasrallah.

But once inside the archeological site we enjoyed the amazing ruins (with a lot of breaks in the shadow of the pillars due to the extreme heat...) and took many beautiful but not so serious pictures (good that the Romans didn't know about that...)

In order to relax after this exhausting day we visited the vineyard Ksara which was founded by Jesuite monks in the 19th century and had a taste of the delicious wines there.

South of Lebanon

Last weekend we did a trip to the South of Lebanon, discovering a completely different country. First, we visited Tyrus, a city that dates back to Phoenician times and we had a look at the ruins there. Today, Tyrus with its Souks in the old town looks a lot more oriental than Beirut.

The rest of the weekend we spent in a Christian village close to the Israelian border, one out of three in the area that is otherwise inhabited by Shiites and mainly controlled by Hesbollah.

A local youth organization took care of us and the young people gave us very interesting insights in their daily life that is shaped by their position between Israel, Hesbollah and the UNIFIL.

The UN-troops are very present in the region, located there to maintain the fragile peace after the 2006 war and the respect of the border, but without a real competence.

The youth organization tries to stop the increasing Christian emigration from the region that is considered to be part of the Holy Land by supporting the families, developing new agricultural opportunities and other forms of income.

The trip opened our mind to the problems that Lebanon still faces, and to the completely different life conditions within this little country.

The road marks the border between Israel and Lebanon

UNIFIL soldiers from Indonesia ... who is the tourist now?

A crusader castle that was used as a Hesbollah base and then destroyed by Israel

on the way home - after an inspiring and exhausting weekend! :-)

Church Choir

Since the priest of our church had asked us to contribute a German song to mass, we sang "Groß sein lässt meine Seele den Herrn" last Sunday. The church is to 99% attended by little Philippino ladies (the 1% is us) who welcome us always very warmly in their midst.

For some reason they liked our singing and invited us not only to sing the last song with their choir but also to prepare another song by ourselves - next time in French!

Outing with the elderly

Another event organized by the Lebanese Youth Order in which we participated: an outing with elderly people from a day center in Beirut.

In the morning we drove to the church St. Rafqa (a Lebanese saint) with a big bus. Whoever thinks that elderly like to sleep on a one hour drive is terribly mistaken. We had a small bus party with clapping, singing and dancing.

Once we arrived at the church we took a small break to enjoy the quiet and holiness of the place and then had a mass. After the spiritual program we drove to Surat, a small village in the mountains. There we had a delicious lunch at Dr. Issa’s house. And after a wonderful day out we drove back home (this time sleeping J ).

Operation Big Blue

Last Sunday, Nayla, our professor about Islam at university, invited us to participate in a big event where many different youth groups join to clean up the Lebanese coast.

Of course we said yes and had a very funny day cleaning up a very dirty beach.