{"id":35812,"date":"2020-09-09T10:41:11","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T10:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=35812"},"modified":"2020-09-09T10:41:11","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T10:41:11","slug":"lebanon-in-crisis-we-need-a-miracle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2020\/09\/09\/lebanon-in-crisis-we-need-a-miracle\/","title":{"rendered":"LEBANON IN CRISIS: \u201cWe need a miracle\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Quietly and politely they form a line in the hot sun outside the Socio-Medical Intercommunity Dispensary in the poor Beirut neighborhood of Nabaa.\u00a0 Some are elderly and live alone.\u00a0 Others have families to feed.\u00a0 All have put aside any embarrassment in accepting a handout, in order to eat.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The dispensary has been run by the Assembly of Female Religious Congregations since 1973. It was originally founded in 1968 by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Mary to serve those in need.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As Lebanon\u2019s economy worsened, the dispensary expanded its medical and social mission to the needy to include distribution of hot meals in 2017, serving 250 portions per day.\u00a0 Now, as Lebanon teeters near economic collapse, the program has reached 1,200 portions a day.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe\u2019ve come to a situation in Lebanon where the middle class have become poor and the poor have gotten poorer,\u201d says Sister Marie Justine el Osta, from the Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family, who serves as director of the dispensary.\u00a0 This is a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Despite the increasing misery she encounters, the petite, energetic 72-year-old sister continues to offer a warm, encouraging smile to all those she serves.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cMy strength comes from God, only,\u201d Sister Marie Justine says. \u201cOur mission is to stand by the people, to lift them up and give them a dosage of positivity and hope. To tell them that God is with us, that better days are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">However, Sister Marie Justine admits, \u201cWhat is really very painful for me is when you see people asking for the least of their rights \u2013 asking for food.\u00a0 They feel they have lost their dignity.\u00a0 It hurts me to see this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Maguy, a mother of four children, ranging from 7-16 years old, began coming to the dispensary for the hot meal program a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIt\u2019s something I never thought I would do,\u201d she said of being on the receiving end for food assistance.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBut I got to the point that I didn\u2019t want to see my children starving.\u00a0 I will do anything for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe sisters and everyone here make me feel so welcome. God bless them for all they are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Hot meals are prepared off-site and beneficiaries bring their own containers, in order to eat at home.\u00a0 Due to coronavirus precautionary measures, distribution takes place outdoors at the entrance to the dispensary.\u00a0 Thus, the meal program was not disrupted by Beirut\u2019s catastrophic blast that rocked the capital city August 4, which killed almost 200 people, injured another 6,000, and displaced more than 300,000 people.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Although it is located 2.5 miles from the blast site, the dispensary still suffered considerable damage, totaling nearly $40,000 in repairs. Sister is thankful that no one was injured at the dispensary, as it was closed at the time of the early evening blast.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIn this country, we live day by day.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know what will happen tomorrow.\u00a0 We can\u2019t see the light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d says Sister Marie Justine.\u00a0 \u201cI always say that God always helps us.\u00a0 Thank God, He sends us helpers,\u201d she said, such as Aid to the Church in Need.\u00a0 \u201cWe are so grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yet the needs keep increasing, she points out. The possibility of a famine in Lebanon is very real. \u201cWe are getting closer (to famine), because goods are getting very expensive and people will not have enough money to buy anything from the supermarket,\u201d Sister Marie Justine warned.\u00a0 \u201cWe need a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A recent United Nations report shows that more than 55 percent of Lebanon\u2019s population is now in poverty and struggling to meet their basic needs for bare necessities, nearly double the percentage from a year ago.\u00a0 The Lebanese currency has lost more than 80 percent of its value in less than a year and prices of food staples have doubled, tripled and even quadrupled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Aid to the Church in Need has funded a program that is about to distribute food parcels more than 5,800 needy families affected by the Aug. 4 explosion. Sister Marie Justine will oversee part of the distribution.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/donate\/\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35565 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-300x44.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"44\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-300x44.jpg 300w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-580x85.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button-600x88.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Support-button.jpg 627w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quietly and politely they form a line in the hot sun outside the Socio-Medical Intercommunity Dispensary in the poor Beirut neighborhood of Nabaa.\u00a0 Some are elderly and live alone.\u00a0 Others have families to feed.\u00a0 All have put aside any embarrassment in accepting a handout, in order to eat. The dispensary has been run by the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>LEBANON IN CRISIS: \u201cWe need a miracle\u201d - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2020\/09\/09\/lebanon-in-crisis-we-need-a-miracle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LEBANON IN CRISIS: \u201cWe need a miracle\u201d - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Quietly and politely they form a line in the hot sun outside the Socio-Medical Intercommunity Dispensary in the poor Beirut neighborhood of Nabaa.\u00a0 Some are elderly and live alone.\u00a0 Others have families to feed.\u00a0 All have put aside any embarrassment in accepting a handout, in order to eat. 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