(ABP) — A deadly, demoralizing bombing in Beirut on Oct. 19 prompted a Lebanese Baptist leader to issue a worldwide call for prayer — and prayer alone.
The blast killed eight people, including a high-ranking government official, and wounded an estimated 110. The result has been religious clashes that are beginning to unravel several years of relative peace.
“We feel we are losing the opportunity that God has given to Lebanese and to Lebanon — we feel the risk of losing our country,” Nabil Costa, a vice president of the Baptist World Alliance, said by telephone from Beirut.
Costa, the executive director of the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development, acknowledged the surprise by some that his first appeal was for prayer and not money, medical supplies, food and clothing.
But he and others who have experienced tragedy — man-made and natural — say that prayer is in fact a tangible help to those in the midst or aftermath of devastation.
Costa’s on-the-ground perspective can translate into a focus for Baptists around the world, BWA President John Upton said.
“Any way we can take this and make it global, that’s the role we see we can play,” said Upton, also the executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
Upton added that the European Baptist Federation, of which Lebanon’s 32 churches and 1,600 members are a part, is looking into any humanitarian and social justice efforts it may bring to bear in Lebanon.
Jeff Brumley (jeff@baptistnews.com) is assistant editor of Associated Baptist Press.