► Advent at 'Helping Hand' Society
With Christmas atmosphere and joyful spirit, 'Helping Hand' Society gathered together on Friday, 14th of December at 3:30 p.m. in Charles Saad Hall. The guest speaker was the director of Middle East Lutheran Ministry (MELM), Mr. Moris Jahshan.
Mr. Jahshan told us the beautiful story behind the famous Christmas hymn, Silent Night, which was originally written in German language. He called our attention to the richness of the Evangelical hymns which were handed to us.
At the meeting Miss Catherine Batrouni sang a wonderful Christmas song and Santa Claus visited the group. At the end, all enjoyed delicious Christmas cookies at the reception which was prepared by Ms Mouna Takla and the church ladies.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
A Friendly Meeting of SAT-7 at our Church
Chairman of the International Board Council of SAT-7, Rev. Habib Badr has invited the Evangelical churches in Beirut to meet at the National Evangelical Church in the morning of Saturday 15, December 2012.
Many Evangelical pastors and local religious workers in Beirut and its suburb regions came together to hear about the future vision of SAT-7 and to support the mission and the ministry of this TV channel. The hope for SAT-7 is, according to Rev. Badr, to be supported by local Evangelical churches and to share its burdens with the international partners, who are dedicated to run this channel.
Then, Mr. Naji Daoud, the Lebanese executive director of SAT-7, reviewed with the participants the vision and mission statement of SAT-7. SAT-7 has currently five channels: SAT-7 Arabic, SAT-7 Pars (Farsi programming), SAT-7 Plus, SAT-7 kids, and SAT-7 Turkey. The ministry and the aim of these channels are to show God’s love, give local churches a platform to educate and encourage their communities, correct the misconceptions about Christian faith in the region, work inter-denominationally, and foster bridges of understanding with non-Christian majority.
At the end, the friendly meeting was concluded with a breakfast and a blessings from Rev. Salim Sahyouni, the president of the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Churches in Syria and Lebanon.
Classical Music Concert at Our Church
Piacevole Trio presented on Tuesday 18th of December a wonderful collection of musical pieces. The concert was entitled: "A Journey Through Different Musical Eras" and performed by Eleonore Schulz (violin), Shushan Artinian (cello) and Lory Aintablian (piano).
The program included works by Haydn (Gypsy Trio No.39 in G Major), Beethoven (10 Variations on 'Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu' Op.121a), Schumann (Fantasiestüche op.88), Komitas ('My Red Handkerchief') and Khatchaturian ('The Dance of the Pink Maidens').
The 'Four Knights' at Our Church
The Four Knights, a famous Lebanese vocal group, presented at our church on Saturday the 22nd of December a concert of wonderful traditional Christmas songs. They also presented a beautiful collection of canticles from Eastern liturgy.
The four singers are: Simon Obeid, Nader Khoury, Elie Khayat and Ziad Imaz. As usual, they combined the Christmas songs with light humor.
