Street fighting in Beirut at the end of last week forced the closing on Thursday of the Beirut Baptist School, led to the postponement of a public lecture today at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary and enveloped a BMS World Mission staff member. Associated Press referred on Sunday to the past five days as the “worst sectarian violence since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.” AP reported that 38 people had been killed. Calling the situation “the country’s worst internal fighting since its bitter 15-year civil war,” BBC News reported that 7,000 had fled from the city of Tripoli.
The Arab Baptist Theological Seminary has sent around a flyer today updating the situation. If you are the praying sort, pray for those folk. There isn’t a very pronounced Baptist presence in the entire middle East and the seminary there trains pastors from all across the region- when they can get there!
