Syria Lebanon partners reflect on Beirut 

As Israeli airstrikes rocked the southern suburbs of Beirut early Monday, killing at least 52 people and sending Lebanese families fleeing into darkened streets, Billie Sutter, a ruling elder at Heritage Presbyterian Church in Acworth, Georgia, could only watch the news in grief, remembering friends who are now fleeing their homes.

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Sutter was one of eight members of the Syria Lebanon Partnership Network (SLPN) — a volunteer mission network of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — who completed a trip in late January to Beirut to visit the ministry partners they have nurtured across years of relationship, advocacy and prayer. Their visit was cast in fresh shadow on Monday when Israeli jets struck the Lebanese capital in response to Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel, widening a regional war ignited by the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran days earlier. Lebanon's Health Ministry reported that at least 31 people were killed and 149 were wounded in overnight strikes in Beirut’s suburbs and southern Lebanon. 

For the SLPN travelers, those numbers are not abstractions. They are the neighborhoods they drove through, the congregations they embraced, and the friends who served them coffee and tea. 

“The Lebanese culture offers the height of Middle East hospitality — from warmly greeting visitors and feeding them well, no matter when they visit, to providing whatever you might need within the means of the host, to cups of tea and Arabic coffee offered all day and night, even in the simplest of homes or communities,” wrote Sutter, SLPN’s education chair and the author of the team’s reflection on the trip. 

SLPN brings together Presbyterians from across the United States to build partnerships with churches and church-related ministries in Syria and Lebanon. According to the network’s website, its priorities include building the capacity of the church in Syria and Lebanon, supporting leadership development and theological education, and working toward God’s just peace in the region. It had been several years since the last in-person visit to Beirut — and for one team member, this journey was a first. Ed Sutter, a ruling elder who became an avid photographer since retiring from the United States Air Force, documented the trip, saying, “It was the most exhausting, most empowering and most amazing experience I have had in a very long time.” 

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Moderated by the Rev. Edgar McCall, retired clergy member of Providence Presbytery, the SLPN consists of more than 350 members with a steering committee of 15 members. That committee met for two hours on Monday morning along with Luciano Kovacs, Global Ecumenical Liaison for the PC(USA), to share news and prayer requests they had received directly from partners over WhatsApp. SLPN members shared and prayed over stories of church leaders in the area as well as the evacuations of those served by partner nonprofits in south Lebanon to seek shelter and services in Beirut fearing future attacks in southern areas. Kovacs was also reaching out to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance to gather other requests for assistance before the group reconvenes in the coming days and weeks to plan and respond to needs.  

The grief and chaos of uncertainty, separation and continued threat replaced the connection and warmth of just a few weeks before when eight members of SLPN visited a wide range of ministry partners of the PC(USA), both longstanding and new. Among the new was the Good Shepherd Church — a Christian Kurdish congregation newly connected to SLPN and comprised almost entirely of Syrian refugees, pastored by the Rev. Usama Alomar.  

“Such an amazing experience to be greeted warmly in four languages — Kurdish, Arabic, French and English — by another group of Christians, our siblings in Christ, who may not speak one another's language but share God's love through Christ,” Billie Sutter wrote in a recent reflection for the SLPN’s newsletter. 

The congregation is made up of Syrian refugees “who mainly make their living begging on the streets of Beirut, since the Lebanese government severely limits the jobs refugees can have,” Billie Sutter noted. Yet on a Wednesday evening, worshipers of all ages — “from babies to very senior grandparents” — arrived dressed in their Sunday best and lifted their voices to God in two languages, Kurdish and Arabic. 

The team, which consisted of members from the Presbytery of New York City, Wyoming Presbytery, New Castle Presbytery in Delaware as well as Eastminster, Providence and Cherokee presbyteries, also reconnected with longstanding partners of the PC(USA): the leadership of NESSL, the Reformed Christian denomination headquartered in Beirut and SLPN’s primary denominational partner; the Compassion Protestant Society (CPS), NESSL’s diaconal arm, which operates learning centers for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon; and the Near East School of Theology (NEST), the Protestant seminary training ministers and educators throughout the region. Kovacs expressed gratitude that the SLPN, as demonstrated through its January trip and its immediate response to this week's military action, “has the capacity, care and willingness to deepen the relationships, especially with local congregations.”

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In January, the group also visited the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches (FMEEC), which brings together all parts of the Protestant community in the Middle East as well as work in partnership with Catholic and Orthodox churches in Syria. Through FMEEC, the Syria Lebanon Partnership Network helps to support children's ministry and Sunday school leadership across the region.

The Middle East Council of Churches, another partner of SLPN, unites Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant faith families in shared witness. While the Forum for Development, Culture, and Dialogue (FDCD) holds a vision to offer "humanitarian support working toward a sustained peace" among all ethnic groups, faiths and denominations across Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. 

In addition to connecting closely with the global ecumenical liaisons, who work in the Global Ecumenical Partnerships ministry, the SLPN relates with many other Interim Unified Agency ministries, such as Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA), the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, the Office of Public Witness, and the Israel Palestine Mission Network — now the Palestine Justice Network. 

Sutter observed that Beirut is a city of extremes that must be held together to be understood. “You can go from Western-style malls with Starbucks, high-end jewelry stores and Ferrari dealerships to a Palestinian refugee camp with dangling spaghetti power lines and dark narrow streets, where houses without running water are built one on top of another” — all just a few minutes’ drive apart. The country of 4.6 million citizens now hosts approximately 1.5 million refugees, a staggering proportion born of years of war and displacement. 

As airstrikes intensify, Sutter explained that 50 villages in South Lebanon have been warned by the Israeli Defense Forces to evacuate, forcing families to flee from Sidon and farther south up toward the Beirut area, where some are sleeping in cars, on the streets, or in hastily opened public schools  when they have no relatives to take them in. She notes that the  SLPN had previously raised significant funds for displaced people in Lebanon, but much of the most immediate work now falls to partners on the ground. 

Yet amid it all, Sutter found something clarifying. “The Middle East is still a place Jesus knew, with Israeli, Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi place names found in Scripture as well as on current maps. But to SLPN, it is a place of partnership with our ministry friends.” 

To learn more about the Syria Lebanon Partnership Network or to support its work, visit syrialebanonpn.org. To contact Billie Sutter, SLPN's Education Chair, email [email protected]