A Report by Robert R. Schwarz
As leadership development manager for the world's largest volunteer
service organization (Lions Clubs International ) , I enjoyed more than a
decade of conducting train-the-trainer workshops in several countries. Now, at
age 85 and a retired journalist I am still
asking questions of strangers
about--well, you name it. (I worked for a year as police reporter for the erstwhile Chicago City News Bureau , and after a
two-year stint with the US. Army Public Information Office,
I became executive editor of a chain of suburban newspapers.) During my travels as a reporter I was often
"blessed" with bumping into missionaries and church leaders who
answered my questions with willing transparency . What follows is what two prominent missionaries kindly and boldly shared with me from
the depths of their hearts about their Christian faith.
I He's in Troubled Lebanon, Pleading that His People Don't Give Up and Leave…
II An American Still Caring for People in
Hong Kong after 39 Years…
I
Missionary Yamout Yamout, a once wealthy
Muslim and now an active Christian missionary , began a daily walk down the
traffic-laden streets of Tyre, Lebanon on another hot humid day in July, 2020.
He was sure to feel the breath of heaven
but also the heat of hell. He passed dozens of Syrian refugees whose number had been almost
daily increasing for more than a year. Their cheeks and eyes showed lack of sleep and nutritional food . There was another
bankrupt bank and traffic lights unlit due to a four-hour daily limit of public
electricity. On the corner was a sight
normally unseen in this city of more than 200,000 people : small groups of
men standing idle while injecting typical male humor into their conversation as if it was an antidote to
their worry that the average current hourly wage in Tyre might sink even lower than
$1. 50. The simple sight of a few children
walking renewed his concern that,
according to recent newspaper
reports, many Tyre children were becoming increasingly
agitated due to the present coronavirus lockdown that was preventing
their much-needed interaction with other children. Perhaps worst of all for Yamout and most of
Lebanon's people was the brutal fact
that their country always had few, if any, natural food resources and now they feared that they were heading
into a famine . It didn't help knowing
that most of Lebanon's climate from May to October characteristically suffered from drought.
And, of course, there was the seemingly never-ending , constant threat of attacks and bombings by
terrorists upon tourist locations, shopping malls, and government facilities.
But
the 54-year-old missionary had one fear that regularly robbed him
of any true joyous moments in life and a
good night's sleep. He had an unnerving feeling that everyone in Tyre—if not the entire country--was growing increasingly
desperate for the simple living comforts
they once had . It was human nature, he reasoned, that even a strong-willed
Christian can tolerate constant turmoil and discomfort only so long
. Considering that Yamout himself
could not tolerate much longer the possibility that the people he had
learned to love and serve here through the decades might flee from Tyre ,
surely must have brought physical pain to his heart.
Yamout headed for his church, Tyre Church.
( He avoids being associated with a denominational church. )
The Backstory of Yamout Yamout
Yamout and I first met in April, 2014 in a small meeting room of St. Peter Lutheran
Church in Schaumburg, Illinois. He was there on a fund-raising mission for his
non-denominational church in Tyre and to be interviewed by me. Sitting with us were
the Rev. Eldor Richter, a pastor at St. Peter and friend of another Lutheran pastor and convert from the
Islamic faith . He was a good friend of Yamout.
During our interview, I discerned that Yamout was unlike other missionaries I had met during my
travels while conducting leadership workshops around the world for Lions Clubs
International . Having detached himself from things most of us consider essential to a normal
life—like financial security and ordinary social pleasures— he was on call
24-7. Yamout, though , surprised me when he said he had a degree in
accounting and , at age 25 , had accumulated $500,000 by "hard
work" but then lost everything
while backsliding from the Christian faith he had embraced since a
youth.
Yamout's passion for evangelism I had witnessed a
few days earlier when he spoke at Hicham's church in Lombard. He had been
invited as a guest of honor months ago but his visit had been
delayed for a several weeks while his ministry was being
investigated by the powerful Hezbollah party Lebanon . He had been warned not
to stay in Tyre evangelizing. Hezbollah had serious concerns that Muslims
would start believing in Jesus.
Tough Words Spoken for Some Christians
"There are Christians today in the Middle East who
stand with dictators to protect themselves," he had told
his audience that day in Lombard. "Only two per cent of all
the world's Christian missionaries go to the Middle East, " he said.
" American Christians are not living up to their standards of being holy
for a holy God…It's all for Jesus or nothing at all ."
After giving
a power point presentation of refugee scenes in Lebanon, his voice rose: " I have learned that we don't need
methods to reach Muslims. .. It's simple: You love them ! Give them a
hug, take them to lunch, visit them in prison…the Gospel is so sweet and
awesome because it's simple ! "
 |
| Refugee children on the street of Tyre about to hear the Words of Jesus . Yamout is in front on his knees. |
In our interview,
Yamout wore dark blue pants, a
pullover shirt with red and dark blue horizontal stripes and an a brown suede
jacket , which he wanted me to know was "old. " He has brown
eyes and his black hair is flecked with gray . I found out he is five-feet
ten inches tall and weighs 192 pounds . Yamout is ruggedly handsome
. A few other things one senses is
that he takes his faith quite seriously and never is at a
loss to make his point by
quoting from the Bible if necessary. He laughs a lot . When stirred,
especially about the threat of radical Islam, he rubs a finger across a
short beard and raises both hands chest-high. He speaks English clearly
and with a fast wit.
While asking
him questions about his personal life, I noticed he was often glancing down at
his hand-held smart phone.
" What are you doing, " I asked ,
wondering how attentively Yamout had been listening to my questions.
"I'm texting some of your questions to my wife in
Lebanon ."
" And she's been answering you ? ! "
He laughed. " I can do five things at the same
time "
"I'd like to first talk about your conversion,
" I told Yamout.
"Of course," he replied.
His Conversion…
The milestone in his life ? " The day I got
saved, " he said. " I was living at the time in a very
rich community near the American University of Beirut where a lot of
professional people lived, where one gets an education on the street. They
talked about politics and social issues and the Israeli-Arab conflict. It
was a volatile neighborhood. I was a street kid , living with my mother
and step-father , and my real father left us before I was born and
divorced my mother. I started to think and ask questions like 'why am I here ?
' and 'who is God ? ' I was trying to find answers in the Islamic faith
but to no avail. I spoke to an imam [ a Muslim prayer leader ] but
still did not find rest ."
Yamout then recalled when , at age 14 and having been raised as a Sunni
Muslim , he was sitting in a religion classroom which he had been
attending since age 7. He was listening about the Christian way of
salvation. Irresistible thoughts about Jesus kept coming to him. "
The moment and the hour was awesome. But I was not ready to make a
commitment to Jesus in front of my peers. I was
afraid. I walked out of the classroom , and that
night I could not sleep. There was a big struggle in me. But at 3 a.m. I
knelt down and prayed about how to make a commitment to Jesus . I
prayed out loud ; it just came out of my mouth. ' Jesus, I am a sinner,
Lord Jesus, forgive me, I need you. ' There was joy and I slept for four
hours , and the next day I went to school , and my whole life was
changed. There was so much going on inside me that I could not shut my
mouth. I was on fire and I wanted to share with everybody what had taken
place inside me. "
Yamout paused to catch his breath. Then glanced at his smart
phone for any new text from his wife .
…and the Price
" After I got saved , I found out that to
live for Jesus is not cheap, " he continued , and then told me
that during his early years as an evangelist
Muslim fundamentalists—both Sunnis and Shiites— twice tried to kill him
in public . "But it wasn't time for God to call me home.
"
 |
| Yamout's barebones Sunday school class |
Three and a half years later, Yamout returned to
Lebanon with his diploma and soon began planting new churches and
handing out thousands of New Testaments. "We were in a devil's den,
" he said . He was persecuted , of course, such as the
day his wife was driving their children to Sunday school and a young
Shiite man rushed on foot at her car and tried—unsuccessfully— to
drag her out, hitting her in the process. The Shiite was
angry, Yamout said, because he and
his wife were "preaching the Gospel to Sunni Muslim children . " ( Shiites and Sunni,
the two major Muslim sects, have been in conflict, often violent,
ever since the death of their prophet Mohammad.) "But my wife
came home smiling, " Yamout
said . Excluding refugees, Lebanon is 54
per cent Muslim, 40.4 percent Christian.
Courtship and
Family
Yamout claims being born into one of the largest
Islamic families in Beirut (a cousin was a Muslim cleric ) .His father was born
in the Gaza Strip, making him a "Palestinian-Jordanian."
In 1948 , the father moved to the West Bank ( then Jordan) and later to
Lebanon, where he met Yamout's mother , who came from a "well-known
" Sunni background . He married her in 1965 but later left his
wife , who then raised Yamout alone and remarried in 1991.
Yamout
met his wife, Grace Hanan—the Arab word for ''comfort'—at a basketball game at
the American University in Beirut . "I was on fire for Jesus and was
telling her that she needed to get saved. She was a nominal Presbyterian and
thought I was a nut and for awhile was cautious with me. She was nice to me but
didn't want to continue with me. " The couple courted for a year
and a half, during which time Hanah was "saved and baptized. "
They were married in Yamout's church and honeymooned for three days
in " a big hotel up in the mountains. "
Hanah, then 48, gave birth to five
children: Laya Nour, Selina
Yasmine, Lynn Samira, Peter Karim,
and Sara Hanan, One daughter
wanted to become a doctor, another an
evangelist to children. The other children were living then with their parents in Lebanon.
Lunch After Our
Interview and Yamout's Personal
Challenge
After
the interview , the four of us drove to a café and took an inordinate amount of
time filling our plates with a variety of Asian and Middle Eastern food spread
upon six long buffet tables and two dessert bars. Though it
was obvious by dessert time that no one had any stomach for
"serious" talking , I felt obligated to ask Yamout one
more question . " Tell me, Yamout , " I said,
"what's your personal challenge in life ? "
" To live in purity, " he replied. " To not defile myself,
to not let sin creep into my soul. I face that challenge
daily. "
"I think we all face that challenge," Pastor Rick said…..
And
Now, in July, 2020, Yamout entered his church …
Maybe a dozen people were sitting in pews. The only
light came from a few lit candles on the
altar. Yamout walked down the center aisle and knelt at the
altar and began praying. Surely
his was tormented by a decision-making buzz of thoughts about his family facing what might be the inevitable collapse of
normal life in Tyre. Was it not true , he likely asked himself, that his mission work, no matter how dedicated, could not
really improve things in Tyre? Was the solution perhaps to escape to another country, perhaps beyond the Middle East ? Leaving Lebanon would be no more a sin that a
Jew leaving Germany in 1939. Right ?
 |
| Worship with music on the streets of Tyre |
His thoughts suddenly took on a
positive nature. Yes, the Covid-19 had come to Tyre but so far had killed no
one. As for the famine threat, that farm which his missionary efforts had
brought to fruition, it now employed 80
refugees and was grazing 200 sheep, 31
cows, and 20 goats. And, yes, Yamout, did you not tell us of that new summer
camp for 45 children, a daycare facility , a music school now teaching 90 students,
and a workshop for widows learning how to weave !
It was a very good and promising
start—was it not, Yamout !
This
missionary's mind rested— peacefully . He rose from
the altar and marched out
of the church to keep an
appointment with a makeshift television studio which had been squeezed into
the rear
of a grocery store that sold many of the vegetables grown on that farm
of the laboring refugees. Inside the
store he was greeted with hugs by three men who would in a few minutes be Zooming
a " chat conference"
with Yamout telling all about his mission work. Participating simultaneously from other
countries would be 16 Yamout supporters. Eventually , recorded zooms of
today's 40-minute conference would have an audience of an estimated five
million viewers.
Now
speaking into the Zoom camera microphone
even before being cued, Yamout casually mentioned , " I can hear the iman down the street calling his
Islamic brothers into the Mosque. "
 |
| "God has built a lighthouse here and we are going to keep it shinning." |
[ To send a support check,
please direct it to:
1000 Lighthouses
3161 Wyandotte Street
Kansas City, MO 64111 ]
I
I Missionary Carol Lee Halter and I , thanks to Zoom Video Communications, recently got
re-acquainted—virtually, that is, after first meeting in Hong Kong nearly 35
years ago. Now a deaconess in the Hong
King Synod of the Lutheran Church, Carol Lee spent her chat- allotted 40 minutes talking
about her mission to 16 chat participants now seeing her n other countries . An estimated world-wide audience of five million would eventually
view this zoomed 40 minutes. Carol Lee's message was clear: " The only
thing I live for is to tell people about
Jesus. "
The
missionary "seeds" which Carol Lee has planted for the past 39 years
in this country of 7.5 million mission people
have helped sprout six primary schools, six high schools ( all with a total of 18,000 students ) , and a special
education school for senior citizens.
" When kids come into the primary schools, they have never heard of
Jesus, " she told her zoom audience, "When they leave, many of them now
do believe in Him. "
There are 43 Christian churches in Hong Kong; 12 per cent of the
country's population is reported to be
Christian. To help the estimated 2,000 residents who are forced to sleep on streets, Carol Lee is
heavily involved in organizing her mission's Chinese New Year's party which serves a "big" lunch and gives out "blessing bags" of food and candy.
Carol, described by a colleague
and others as a "bundle of energy "
and as "the apostle lady
with the dress ", has written a book in Chinese entitled "Practical
Evangelism" and is currently translating it into
English. She speaks fluent Cantonese. She graduated in 1965 from Valparaiso
University as a Lutheran Deaconess and
received her master of divinity degree in 1984 from Hong Kong Concordia Theological Seminary .
"She has a heart for the Chinese and a passion for people, and
is very patient with them ," her friend Janice Lau told me . Mrs. Lau is a
Sunday School teacher at the Church of the Holy Spirit in San Francisco, which is Carol Lee's church in America. " When
my husband and I occasionally
visit her in Hong Kong, and an ambulance passes us on the street, Carol immediately says a short
prayer for whoever might be inside
it." Janice also related that when they finish a meal in a restaurant there and her husband lays the
bill money on the waiter's tray, Carol Lee places a religious tract alongside
the payment.
Except for an occasional trip to her home base in San
Francisco , she
has lived in Hong Kong for more than three decades.
Today Carol Lee works in the midst of the coronavirus
epidemic in Hong Kong ; so far, she reported, there have been only 1,115
infections and 4 deaths there. She emailed me several photographs of synod
volunteers helping on the streets to combat the virus. Because of
the coronavirus restrictions , she had to recently postpone a visit
to America.
 |
| Carol Lee Halter in Hong Kong circa 1998 teaching about God's Love |
When asked what prompted
her interest in missionary work , she recalled hearing at age 14 that people in Africa worshiped false gods.
"I thought everybody in the world
was a Christian. I knew then that I
wanted to tell people about Christ.
"
The End
comments welcome
at
rrschwarz71@comcast.net
©
2020 Robert R. Schwarz
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