Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Beirut - Day 7

Another tourist day. Today we visited the Cedars of Lebanon. Then we visited with an extended family that owns an apple orchard in the area and had lunch with them at their harvest house (the house the entire family stays at during harvest season). Pastor Kelly and the rest if the team gave the youth and adults some training in Bible study and prayed for their needs while Katie, Larry, Luis and myself did a Bible study / play time with the kids.

One the way back to the Life Center, a car flagged us down and asked us if we would take 2 American students back to Beirut. They had missed the last bus back, and would have to take a bus to Tripoli and from there take another bus back to Beirut if we couldn't take them back with us. Obviously we took them with us. Both were studying Arabic, one at the American University here in Beirut and the other at a university in Egypt. They were on a mini-vacation, first there at the Cedars (where they hiked to the top of the mountain there, apparently the highest point in the middle east) and then to Istanbul tomorrow. Part of the reason for the trip to Istanbul was to renew the travel visa to Beirut. It's nearly impossible to get a work visa in Beirut, so many Americans (including most of the staff of the English language newspapers) get travel visas and then have to leave the country and reapply for their travel visa every 2 months.

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