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Dear Friends,
On my original schedule for today, the annual staff picnic of Haigazian
University was to take place. Now, I am simply grateful that most
members of our staff could come to work and perform their tasks albeit
with minimal efficiency. We still have no idea when it will be possible
to resume the Summer Session and whether the Fall 2006-2007 Semester
will start on time.
Throughout the country, aid work in support of the refugees has been
better organized now than it was in the past weeks, including the small
efforts of the Armenian Evangelical Church. Prayer groups have been
organized in and around churches, including a daily time of prayer for
the Haigazian community. Denominational and regional barriers among the
people working for and with each other have thankfully dropped to a
minimum. Bombing has continued in the past days but focusing mainly on
the South and the Bakaa. Cars, trucks, communication centers and
neighborhoods have been occasionally targeted. The number of the
civilian victims in Lebanon has exceeded 500. The bombing of the Jiyyeh
power plant which served Southern Lebanon has resulted in a 15,000-ton
oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea causing a major environmental
disaster. The fear of the spread of skin and other infectious diseases
has invited the attention of healthcare workers and volunteers in the
extremely crowded refugee centers all around.
Despite all this, some parts of the country have enjoyed relatively
quiet days thus allowing many to conduct the necessary duties or report
to work. Lebanon has been a resourceful country in many senses, and it
continues to be so even in hard times. In general, life in Lebanon has
become once more and hopefully only for a few weeks a competition
between emergency and normalcy.
It has been seventeen days, and we still wonder what this war is all
about. It has certainly not accomplished the aims listed two weeks ago.
On the contrary, this infamous round of violence has so far resulted in:
Hundreds of deaths and thousands of
injuries;
More than 2 billion dollars of damage to the infrastructure of this
small country;
A huge and ongoing loss of investments and business opportunities for
every family, every town, and every company;
Up to 800,000 displaced people in a country of 4 million, thousands of
whom will have no home to return to;
Major damage to the environment;
Long term damage to the reputation of Lebanon;
Loss of trust in the young Lebanese generation for a safe future in
the Middle East;
Emotional and stress-related problems in families;
Most dangerously of all, this war has created a shift of the Lebanese,
Middle Eastern, and generally Muslim political center, wherever it
existed, to radical positions. The centrists have found their arguments
to be obsolete and unattractive, while the radicals have found their
fundamentalist reading of the enemy and the world to be both
attractive and justified. I am sad to notice that the current war on
Lebanon has hindered the general movement of the Lebanese youth towards
democracy.
Still, we are full of hope. Yes. The task
of reconciliation, the challenge of looking analytically at issues, our
duty to be interpreters of the Western and Eastern worlds to each other,
and the possibility for the youth to look at matters from a wide
perspective will be very difficult. But as long as we, as Armenian and
non-Armenian churches in the Middle East, have opportunities to work,
minister, teach, and serve, we can believe in beneficial change. As long
as we have faith in a God who leads, inspires and empowers us, and as
long as we can create, recreate and preserve the communities of faith as
genuine resources of our ministry, we will have reasons to remain
thankful and engaged.
Many of us have been repeating in the past days that the people of
Lebanon will overcome this crisis too. We repeat this not out of
ignorance of what is said and written about the future.
As Christians, our hope should also be a plan, an intention, and an
action. Faith is to be put to work.
Your accompaniment of our communities has meant much in the past weeks.
Continue to pray with us for peace in our community as well as yours.
Rev. Paul Haidostian, Ph.D.
President
Haigazian University
P.O.B. 11-1748
Riad El Solh 1107 2090
Beirut, Lebanon
Telephone: +961-1-739412
Telefax:+961-1-350926
<www.haigazian.edu.lb>
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