Last month we reported the beginning of a Cathedral campaign to focus our overseas mission on The Lebanon. If you wish to review last month's article, you can find it here.

We feel called to play our part in bringing the power of God’s healing to that country in three ways:

1. Through financial giving to alleviate physical needs for shelter, food and medical care after the explosion in the already desperate city of Beirut. If this is your main interest then please donate either direct to Embrace the Middle East or via the Cathedral making a reference to ‘Cedars of Lebanon’ in your giving.

2. Through building awareness and focussing prayer

If you have ten minutes to spare then watch the video ‘Anger in Lebanon’ below.

It gives a clear explanation of why the country is in the state it is in. When I watched this for the first time this week, all I could think was “Only God can change this”. I believe that God wants to change things and bring peace to Lebanon – and through Lebanon to the whole Middle East – but that we need to bring our little loaves and fishes of prayer and yearning so that He can multiply them beyond anything imaginable. 

Have a look at the video and listen to what God might be prompting you to pray for. Find other information that interests you and please share it with canon.missioner@peterborough-cathedral.org.uk so that it can be shared further.

3. Through the ‘Peterborough Cedars’ project

We have now given away our first 19 cedar seedlings as signs of hope, new growth and the restoration of the beauty and peace in the soul of Lebanon. Clearly this is a step of faith because to give the cedars away, we have to buy them (they take up to two years to germinate from seed, so the 25 seeds planted in a fit of enthusiasm in August may remain dormant until 2022!). Some recipients make donations which go straight to Embrace the Middle East but the donation is not the point. The calling is to give them away to those who will be blessed by them without expectation of payment. That is challenging and I was starting to doubt my personal ability to afford sufficient numbers of cedar trees. I was also having to buy them in ones and twos and finding a supply looked tricky.

Last Saturday my doubts were allayed by a gift from a stranger, delivered into my hand in a brown envelope with the message that God had told him to give it to me – not to give it to a charity but to seed an unusual project that would yield more than was obvious. The envelope contained £300! Enough for 60 seedlings and their postage to Peterborough. Now all that was lacking was a supplier. I had bought three of the original eight seedlings from the slightly unlikely sounding Waltham Herbs via Ebay, and these had been in much the best condition on arrival of any of the others, so I rang to see if they had any more. They had.

“How many have you got?”

“I’ll count them and come back to you.”

Well now. Any guesses? Yup. “We have 60 that are ready now.”

So this project is on, thanks be to God and a faithful donor.

If you would like a Cedar of Lebanon seedling to care for and pray with, or if you simply see tree planting as an ecologically sound thing to do, please be in touch. Any donations you might choose to give will go to Embrace via the Cathedral. Again, please label any gifts “Cedars of Lebanon”.

NB: Cedars will eventually become large trees but they take several decades to do so. If you only have a window box you will eventually need to rehome your tree!

Why are the Cedars important?

Here is a link to the information and prayer we are giving away with the cedarlings. But if you have another 11 minutes to spare and want to know more about the significance of these great trees, then you will enjoy and be moved by this video.

Although we did not know it when we started, it seems that we are joining in something that has already begun. Perhaps our Cathedral contribution is to make the explicit links between the trees and the health and peace of Lebanon. We don’t know but it certainly makes some kind of sense ecologically, biblically and also spiritually.

Let’s see what happens next. Will you join us? We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas and know that you are praying for Lebanon.