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“If you do not gain 10 pounds while you are here, we have failed,” Mahar (the Youth for Christ Director in Lebanon) declared to our team, amidst a day of orientation and dining on some of the most incredible Lebanese dishes. So our first day in Lebanon has been a relatively relaxed day for us while we get over jet lag and while the country celebrates its independence from France.
I joined the team as part of The Well Creative Department, to document the trip as well as train some of the YFC staff to enhance their already thriving video skills. During orientation today, Maher told us stories that would give us just a taste of what we can expect to experience.
We heard stories about how Muslims are sending their children to Christian private schools when seeking out the best education, and how Muslims are beginning to go to churches after seeing what the extremists have done that has forced them out of their country of Syria. And he told us about how an Imam donated their Mosque’s soccer field to YFC to start a soccer program so their Muslim youth would have an alternative to the Muslim extremist soccer program just up the road.
As a documentarian, being able to film and tell these sorts of stories is what gets me up in the morning.