Why We Return to Lebanon

There are places to which we return because the work is unfinished. There are others to which we return because relationships have made leaving them behind impossible.

Lebanon is both.

For many years, the relationships that became Abraham’s Bridge have connected us with Lebanese scholars, theologians, educators, religious leaders, and community leaders. Some of these friendships extend back decades. They have been built through conversations and conferences, visits to universities and schools, shared study, meals, travel, and the ordinary accumulation of time that turns professional acquaintance into friendship.

Over the past seven years alone, we have returned to Lebanon five times, most recently in May 2026.

Each visit has reinforced something fundamental to the work of Abraham’s Bridge: relationships cannot be sustained only when circumstances are favorable.

A country of encounter

Lebanon occupies a unique place in the Middle East.

Christians and Muslims of numerous traditions, along with Druze and other communities, share the same cities, institutions, universities, neighborhoods, and national life. Their histories are complicated, and coexistence has not always been peaceful. Religious plurality in Lebanon is nevertheless part of everyday life.

That makes Lebanon especially important for the kind of work Abraham’s Bridge pursues.

Universities and theological institutions can become places where these encounters are examined with seriousness and intellectual freedom. Scholars can study one another’s traditions, Christian and Muslim theologians can read texts together, and researchers can collaborate across institutions. Students and emerging leaders can encounter people whose religious inheritance differs from their own without reducing those differences to stereotypes.

The consequences can reach far beyond academic life.

In a society as religiously diverse as Lebanon, the relationships formed among educators, theologians, researchers, journalists, humanitarian leaders, and civic figures become part of the fabric of civil society itself. Strengthening those people and the institutions they serve is one way of strengthening the country.

Returning during uncertainty

That work has become more difficult, and more necessary.

Lebanon has endured years of economic crisis, political instability, institutional strain, emigration, and war. Schools, universities, humanitarian organizations, families, and communities have been asked to continue functioning under circumstances that would test the strongest institutions.

On a recent visit, Abraham’s Bridge President Kurt Richardson traveled through Tyre and Nabatiyeh in southern Lebanon. There were buildings damaged by bombing. A school connected with one of our Lebanese partners had been devastated. Overhead, the persistent sound of military drones was part of the landscape.

For those of us who visit, such things are unsettling precisely because they are unfamiliar, destructive, and undeserved. For people who live there, they have become part of ordinary life.

That distinction matters.

It is easy to speak about Lebanon from a distance as a crisis, a conflict, or a geopolitical problem. Sitting with people who continue teaching, researching, caring for children, leading institutions, serving their communities, and planning for the future while uncertainty hangs over daily life offers a very different perspective.

Their country is their home, not an abstraction. Friendship asks us to remember that.

Presence is a form of accompaniment

We do not imagine that visiting Lebanon solves its problems. Relationships alone cannot repair damaged institutions, restore an economy, rebuild a school, or end a war. Yet presence matters.

Returning affirms that a relationship has not become expendable because circumstances have become difficult. It means continuing the conversation when there is no immediate program to announce or success to report, and listening to what people actually need rather than deciding from elsewhere what should be done for them.

This is why Abraham’s Bridge increasingly thinks about its work in Lebanon in terms of accompaniment.

We begin with people already doing important work: educators, scholars, humanitarian leaders, researchers, journalists, theologians, and public servants. We seek to know them, learn from them, connect them with others, and strengthen the institutions through which they serve.

Some needs are immediate. Educational and humanitarian institutions require resources simply to continue their work. Other forms of investment unfold over years.

Academic partnerships must be cultivated. Emerging leaders need mentors. Research and publications take time. Conferences create conversations that may develop into collaborations long after participants have gone home. Relationships among universities, schools, humanitarian organizations, and international partners grow through repeated encounters.

In this sense, returning is itself part of the work.

Hope requires people who stay

In circumstances of prolonged uncertainty, hope acquires a practical dimension.

The people we have met in Lebanon do not need outsiders to manufacture hope, much less deliver them. Many have demonstrated extraordinary perseverance already. International partners can help ensure that they are not left to carry that work alone.

Our developing work in Lebanon therefore begins with a simple conviction: strengthen the people who strengthen Lebanon.

From there can come educational partnerships, theological exchange, humanitarian cooperation, research, leadership development, conferences, publications, and new relationships across institutions and communities. Over time, those relationships can contribute to something larger: a stronger civil society capable of carrying knowledge, memory, service, and friendship into another generation.

There is a theological conviction beneath this as well.

To love one’s neighbor cannot mean loving only when doing so is convenient. Friendship across religious and cultural difference must also endure periods of uncertainty and hardship. Difficulty reveals the substance of the relationships we have built.

Lebanon’s future belongs ultimately to the Lebanese people. Abraham’s Bridge cannot determine that future. We can continue to show up: to listen and learn, to connect people and institutions, and to help sustain work worth preserving.

And when circumstances make withdrawal easier than return, we can return.

Because our friends are still there.