ATLANTA (ABP) — At dinner one night in Cairo, Egypt, Chaouki Boulos invited a restaurant waiter named Mario to the final night of a four-day “Celebrate Jesus” rally. The next night, Mario joined nearly 900 people at the rally, heard Boulos speak, and became one of more than 300 new Christians that week.
“I am very excited about what God is doing,” said Boulos, who along with his wife, Maha, works for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in Beirut, Lebanon.
The Bouloses do relief work in the aftermath of recent Middle East conflicts — the worst of which came in 2006 and displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese. There were drastic needs for food and medicine, and although most have returned home, many struggle to rebuild.
“The traumatic event has definitely opened many doors for ministry,” Maha Boulos said. “People have shared with us stories about how one-on-one ministry was effective and how they shared the Lord with many.”
The Bouloses have helped coordinate rallies in Lebanon and neighboring countries for several years. Church members from the United States and Lebanon help at the celebrations, where thousands of people learn about Jesus — some for the first time. At a young adult celebration several months ago in Lebanon, “many people came forward and accepted the Lord,” Maha Boulos said. “Some got baptized and joined local churches.”
The ministry stems from a goal Chaouki made in the late 1990s: to share Christ with large groups of people. Because Maha and he grew up in Lebanon, he knew the relatively lax religious freedom there might provide “the open door to reach the peoples of the Middle East,” Chaouki said.
That freedom allows the couple to facilitate prison outreach, vacation Bible schools, sports camps and children's ministries. They help distribute food and medicine to families in need, they give street children shoes, and they provide women with dental care. Now, one of their priorities is opening a conference and training center for area churches.
“Several years ago, the Lord laid on my heart the need for a conference, refuge and training center in Lebanon, the one nation in the Middle East where there is religious freedom,” Chaouki said. “There is a great need for a place where Christian churches in Lebanon can take their people on a retreat for a few days.”
Now, 12 acres of land and the completed construction of an almost-finished building will become the White Stone Conference Center.
“We envision it being the host facility for international conferences, sports camps for youth in the summer, and ministry to people [struggling with addictions] in the winter,” Chaouki said. “Since Lebanon is a natural meeting place for business people from the East and West, we will also host business conferences and meetings.”
-30-