By Christine Beiler, Partner
Our family was blessed to hear about LSESD in late August 2021 through some dear friends who have been partners with the ministry for years. Having Lebanese roots, the ministry quickly captured my heart, and I shared the stories and videos I found on the ministry’s website with our family.
“If you have the faith of the mustard seed…” Luke 17:6
Our 7-year-old daughter quickly announced that she wanted to help children to go to school and started to think through ways she could raise money. She can be incredibly determined and persistent (maybe it’s the Mediterranean in her).
This was where our journey to grow our faith began.
After finding some ornaments that could be decorated and cute craft supplies, I brought home several and she quickly got to work creating various designs. With a couple of posts on social media, it didn’t take long before she recruited her older sister and our production line got busy.
At one point we had more orders than supplies. I called around to local stores and even a store in a nearby town only to be told they had none left.
This is when I finally stopped to pray and ask the Lord to bless the effort by supplying what we needed to fulfill the orders.
Later that morning, I drove to a store I had not checked and there were more ornaments and supplies than I could have ever imagined. I bought about 50 ornaments then called my husband to share the exciting news. He felt I should go in buy even more.
Every time we were given an order that exceeded our supplies, I would stop by a store that had been previously sold out of the needed item to find more than what was ordered. This reminded us that God cares about the little things and prayers are powerful.
We have also had the privilege to partner with others who are wanting ornaments for their evangelistic efforts. A Sunday school teacher wanted 21 ornaments with the Wordless Book colors. Another lady in our church wanted 40 ornaments and 240 cookies to include in her neighborhood outreach.
Our girls have also learned valuable lessons. They have seen that though they are small, they can have a mighty impact and felt the excitement of receiving generous gifts to help support the cause. They have seen God exceed their first, second, and third goals. At one point, I was beginning to think that they would not reach their third goal, so again I prayed that the Lord would help bring more orders. I was moved to tears when we received nearly 20 more orders around Thanksgiving.
More important than just the product, the girls and I have been sharing about the needs in Lebanon and the work that LSESD is doing to help bring hope to the desperate situation.
We are so thankful for the many examples of God’s faithfulness over the past months and how He has grown our family through this journey.
“We have talked deeply about Luke 12:48, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
After all, we could have been the family in the refugee camp. These are powerful lessons that we pray will remain with them throughout their lives.”