The apostle Paul gave us the word which encapsulates faith-lived-out-through-much-difficulty: perseverance. Few of us have had to live it, but we know it when we see it. And we saw it today in Mahardeh, an all-Christian city of about 25,000 halfway between Aleppo and Damascus, where the Presbyterian Church is pastored by the Reverend Ma’an Bitar. In a place that doesn’t receive all that many visitors, our team was greeted with great joy by Ma’an, his wife, Ghawth, and their daughter, Fida, who had just graduated from medical school in Damascus. But the hugs were extra long for Jack, Julie, Steve, and me because we had been here before—and in the midst of the war. And indeed, as we sat on the patio of their home, overlooking the church, and drinking the first of many subsequent cups of tea, we were very conscious of the fact that the former sound of shelling in the distance (which we well remembered) had now been replaced by the gentle rustling of leaves in the nearby lemon tree and the voices of children playing at the kindergarten which is run by and at the church, a few hundred feet away.
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