Israel/Palestine: Ongoing prayer for peace

This week marked three years since the 7 October attacks in Israel. As we consider the lives lost on that day and in the three years since and the ongoing suffering in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, we pray for comfort for all who have suffered and for peace to come. Would you please join us in praying for God to have mercy on the people in this volatile region of the world.

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Europe, Middle East and North Africa: CMS conference

Please pray for a gathering of staff and people in mission working across the Europe, Middle East and North Africa region that is taking place this week. Pray that their time together would be a chance for refreshment, encouragement and strengthening relationships.

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Earlier this year, as airstrikes and escalating violence turned lives upside down across southern Lebanon, our local partners were thrust into navigating personal grief alongside widespread destruction. 

Yet, as Jad,* a Church Mission Society (CMS) team member from Beirut, shared during the height of the crisis: “As Christians in Lebanon, we feel we must respond – and we are responding.”

Because of your extraordinary generosity and faithful prayers during our summer appeal, local leaders did not have to respond alone.

We are deeply grateful to share that together, we have reached our goal of raising enough money to provide life-saving relief and trauma support to 1,000 displaced families.

More than food

Your gifts have directly supplied urgent practical relief, including emergency food parcels, blankets, essential medicines and hygiene supplies. But as our partners on the ground frequently remind us, physical supplies are only part of the story:

“We don’t just need food – we need peace inside.”

Beyond emergency provisions, adults and children are receiving ongoing emotional care, spiritual comfort and trauma support. Through these personal encounters, displaced families are experiencing the peace and hope of Jesus. Here are three stories that illustrate the impact of your partnership:

Nour’s story: “our lives still mattered”

When relentless shelling hit her neighborhood, Nour* and her family crowded onto a single motorbike in the middle of the night to escape. In the chaos, they were struck by a car – a collision they miraculously survived – before taking shelter in a makeshift tent.

When our local team visited them, they brought they brought practical supplies, yet it was their presence that the biggest impact on Nour:

“Before the food parcel reached our hands, their care reached our hearts. The assistance met an urgent need, but their presence restored something war had tried to take from us: the assurance that our lives still mattered and that we were not alone.”

Easing a family’s fear

Fleeing the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight as bombs fell nearby, another family left behind everything they owned, quickly running out of basic supplies and food. In the midst of uncertainty, local partners stepped in – and stayed with them:

“The team did more than deliver food parcels and leave; they stood beside us and reminded us that we had not been forgotten. The assistance eased our hunger, but their presence also eased the fear and loneliness of displacement.”

Rania’s story: hope rising from rubble

For Rania,* the reality of war struck without warning. As her family gathered inside their home to hastily pack a few belongings, an airstrike destroyed the house, burying everyone beneath the rubble. Rania shielded her two-month-old granddaughter in her arms. Though Rania was eventually pulled alive from the collapse, her hand was badly crushed – and tragically, her granddaughter did not survive.

Multiple surgeries reconstructed Abeer’s hand, but she carried deep emotional and spiritual wounds. In the months that followed, our partners connected with Rania for prayer and trauma support helped her process her profound grief. Through spiritual care and devotional literature provided by our partners, a message reached her wounded heart: “We can trust God with the unknown.”

“The rubble was still part of my story – but it was no longer the end of my story.”

Today, Rania says she feels an inner renewal. While her pain is not forgotten, despair has given way to genuine peace and restored hope.

Standing together between gratitude and grief

Living between deep gratitude for survival and grief over immense loss, local Christians in Lebanon continue to serve on the front lines as a vital lifeline to their communities. 

Your kindness has sent a clear signal to our Lebanese brothers and sisters: the global body of Christ stands firmly by their side.

On behalf of our regional team, our courageously faithful partners and the families whose lives you are touching: thank you for showing God’s love in Lebanon.

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Spain: upcoming hiking retreat

CMS partners Miranda and Tim Heathcote are preparing for a hiking retreat for eight people next month starting at their ministry house, Place of Springs, near Málaga.

Miranda and Tim support mission workers, particularly those working in more challenging locations, through leadership development, debriefing, spiritual direction and retreats such as this one.

Please pray that this hiking retreat will be a deeply restorative time of connection for each of the eight participants – with themselves and with God – so they can continue to thrive in their ministries.

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Yemen: displacement due to conflict

Fighting in Yemen has caused 125,000 people to abandon their homes and seek shelter in overcrowded refugee camps in recent weeks. Please lift up all those who have fled their homes, particularly those who are still looking for shelter or who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Pray for people to have the food, medical care and other basic necessities they need, and to turn to Jesus during this desperate time.

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Middle East: wars and conflicts

Lift up people across the war-weary countries of the Middle East. Pray for leaders’ and decision-makers’ hearts to be turned to reconciliation and for peace to break out across the region. Pray for God’s healing for individuals, for communities and for whole nations.

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Lebanon: sharing God’s love

We are currently running an appeal for Christians in Lebanon who are responding to people in crisis. Our partners are supporting people in need with emergency food packs, blankets, medicine and more, as well as providing trauma support and investing in long-term discipleship. Pray for people to turn to Jesus during this time and to find comfort in him. For more fuel for prayer, please download and use our prayer resource and use this link (or turn to page 6 of CMS Magazine to find out more).

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Lebanon focus

We are currently running an appeal for Christians in Lebanon who are responding to people in crisis all around them. Our partners are supporting people in need with emergency food packs, blankets, medicine and more, as well as providing trauma support and investing in long-term discipleship. Pray for people to turn to Jesus during this time and find comfort in him. For more fuel for prayer, please download and use our prayer resource and use this link (or turn to page 6 of CMS Magazine to find out more).

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Middle East: preparing to return

Mission partners J and R are currently on home leave in the UK, visiting churches and spending time with family. Pray for a restful time, and for them to be able to return to the Middle East as scheduled towards the end of October.

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Lebanon focus

We recently launched an appeal for brothers and sisters responding to an ongoing crisis in Lebanon. But we know that prayer is crucial to this work, as it is to all CMS’s work. Lift up our partners in Beirut who are responding to immediate needs for basic provisions as well as investing in long-term discipleship and trauma support. Please download and use our prayer resource and use this link (or turn to page 6 of CMS Magazine to find out more.

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Lebanon crisis

Our appeal is underway to support sisters and brothers responding to an ongoing crisis in Lebanon.

We don’t want to just ask for donations without praying together about the situation. Please do pray for our partners there, doing ongoing long-term work in discipleship and training effective leaders, but also responding to the vast levels of need around them, as whole neighbourhoods have been destroyed and a fifth of the population is on the move. They are catering for spiritual and physical hunger.

We have a prayer resource to download and the cover story of the new CMS Magazine takes you deeper into their vital mission.

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In a devastated Lebanon, our partners are reaching out to people who have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

In a school courtyard in Beirut, now serving as a temporary shelter, a staff member with Church Mission Society’s local partner, Together Network, was distributing freshly prepared meals to families who had recently arrived with nothing. Samia noticed an older woman sitting quietly with her children, having fled the heavy bombardments in the south of Lebanon just days earlier. When Samia handed her a simple sandwich, the woman’s face broke into an expression of such intense, tearful relief that it stayed with the team long after the crowds had thinned.

Reflecting on that encounter, Samia said: “I never expected to see someone so excited to receive a sandwich.”

That moment illustrates the daily reality across Lebanon today, where the basic certainties of human dignity – a safe room, a hot meal, a moment of security – have become rare treasures. Yet, in the middle of widespread devastation, local Christians are putting their faith into action. Though many have suffered great losses themselves, they are choosing to stand on the frontlines of relief, offering practical comfort and a steady, reassuring presence. Their efforts are leading many people to curiosity about Jesus.

Crisis upon crisis

The violence that erupted between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah in late February 2026 has shattered what little stability remained in the country. Intense airstrikes and sudden military operations have forced more than 1.4 million people – over a fifth of Lebanon’s population – to run for relative safety. Families are seeking shelter wherever space can be found: in overcrowded classrooms, church basements, temporary community centres; some have even been sleeping under highway bridges.

To understand the true weight of this moment, it is necessary to realise that this conflict did not hit a stable society. It collided with a nation already exhausted by a severe, ongoing economic collapse that began in 2019, which had already wiped out life savings, destroyed local livelihoods and left public infrastructure threadbare. Combined with the lingering trauma of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, ordinary families possessed little safety net left when the first bombs fell this spring.

Now, those who have been displaced face total uncertainty. Even during fragile, temporary ceasefires, the relief has been short-lived; many who attempt to return to check on their villages find only fields of rubble where their neighbourhoods used to be. The sense of loss is consuming, leaving people to live day by day. “We have no idea what tomorrow will bring,” people have said to CMS partners.

Between gratitude and grief

“We are living between gratitude and grief,” shared a member of the Together Network team, describing the collective psychological landscape. “Grateful to be alive, but grief because of the deep loss all around us.”

The psychological pressure on ordinary citizens has been relentless. The constant, ominous buzz of surveillance drones and the sudden wail of sirens have kept families in a state of perpetual anxiety. Ceasefires have at times reduced some of the immediate outward danger, but done little to ease the deep trauma carried inside.

Many of the Together Network team in Lebanon – who are believers from Muslim backgrounds and refugees who fled Syria – have lost their homes or loved ones too.

Yet, rather than paralysing their efforts, this heartbreak has focused the team’s sense of mission. They are working with an acute awareness of the uncertainty of tomorrow.

Knowing that any conversation could be their last opportunity to offer comfort, team members have become entirely dedicated to sharing the full message of God’s love and hope with those around them, refusing to let fear silence their witness.

This faithfulness was vivid in an account shared by team member Alia. She recently spent time sitting with a woman who had survived what locals call “Black Wednesday” – an intense Israeli airstrike that killed 20 of her immediate neighbours in a single instant.

The trauma and guilt of being the one left alive was a crushing weight. Instead of offering easy, superficial platitudes, Alia listened to her grief and gently shared the love and hope of Jesus.

A radical presence in a divided land

In Lebanon, though Christians are technically a minority (making up roughly 32–35 per cent of the population), Christianity is not a hidden faith. It is an integral part of the nation’s history, culture and infrastructure: Lebanon is home to numerous visible churches, schools and universities. Christians’ steady, loving witness is manifesting in remarkable ways across a complex and fractured social landscape.

The volume of displaced people has strained Lebanon’s delicate sectarian lines. In some areas, local communities and hotels have felt compelled to restrict who can enter temporary shelters, driven by security concerns that hosting certain groups might make civilian buildings a military target. At the same time, vulnerable populations, such as Syrian refugees, frequently face prejudice and isolation as they look for safety.

In stark contrast to these divisions, the local Christian community has modelled a deliberate choice to serve all people, regardless of their background, with radical compassion. Local churches and Christian institutions have opened their doors to host dozens of displaced families, providing warm rooms, safety and hot meals every day.

Pastor S, a local partner working with Syrian refugees, described how this crisis has deepened their ministry focus: “This kind of crisis pushed us to depend on God, to go out to the streets and share with the people, eye to eye.”

Long-term lifelines

To sustain this critical work, CMS has launched a Summer Appeal. The immediate goal is to provide vital practical relief to 1,000 displaced families, approximately 4,000 to 5,000 vulnerable individuals who have lost their homes or loved ones. This will take the form of:

• Food assistance parcels: essential staples such as rice, sugar, beans, pasta, cooking oil and milk, ensuring a displaced family has enough to eat for an entire month.
• Hygiene kits: daily necessities, blankets, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste and essential sanitary items to help maintain health and dignity in crowded environments.
• Children’s support boxes: designed for the youngest victims of the conflict, these boxes contain nutritious snacks, crayons, colouring books, simple educational materials and small toys to provide a small patch of joy and normality, which is hugely important in times like this.
• Trauma and emotional support: supporting trained local volunteers and church teams as they organise children’s activities, parental support groups and trauma conversations, offering spiritual encouragement to families contending with deep emotional scars.

Sharing in prayer

As local believers navigate this fragile reality, they are anchoring themselves in Scripture. Churches and discipleship groups across the country are finding comfort in Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

The road to recovery and rebuilding in Lebanon will be long and difficult. Lebanese brothers and sisters are asking the body of Christ to pray for peace, justice and for more people to trust in Jesus amid destruction and devastation.

“The things people once trusted in have proved to be so fragile,” said one local partner. “But Jesus never leaves us. This is the message we want to share in word and action right now.”

Give today

People in Lebanon are looking to Christians like CMS partners for hope and comfort amid devastation and despair. Your gift to our Summer Appeal provides vital food, hygiene and trauma care, enabling local followers of Jesus to share the full message of God’s love with families in crisis.

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