On February 28, Grace woke up happy. After months of searching, she had finally found a steady job with a cleaning company. It was Saturday, but Grace, a migrant domestic worker, didn’t care. She had come to Lebanon three years ago to work and provide for her daughter back in Kenya.
That morning, the company took her to a home in Beirut. As she cleaned, she heard people discussing the US and Israel’s joint attack on Iran. Grace continued her work. She was accustomed to war—since arriving in Lebanon in October 2023, war had become a constant fixture of her life. (CT agreed to only use Grace’s first name as she is currently undocumented in Lebanon because of an unscrupulous ex-employer.)
The following Monday, she woke up early, excited to begin her second day of work. But as she arrived at the office, her employers told her they were laying her off. In the early hours of morning, Hezbollah had attacked Israel, entangling Lebanon in the Middle East war. With bombs falling on Beirut and tens of thousands of people fleeing their homes, the company let go of all their new hires.
“Only one day I worked,” Grace lamented. For 8 hours of deep cleaning, the company paid her $15.
Since the start of the Hezbollah and Israel war on March 2, migrant workers across Lebanon have found themselves caught in the middle of the conflict. Due to widespread bombings and evacuation orders, many lost their jobs and an estimated third of them ended up displaced or living in high-risk areas, according to the International Organization for Migration. In total, the war has displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon.
Migrant workers, largely from African and South and Southeast Asian countries, are marginalized by Lebanese society and overlooked by the government and often their own embassies. With little outside help, the migrant community is helping one another in wartime with the support of local nonprofits. Christian migrants see this as an opportunity to provide food, shelter, and the hope of the gospel to those in need.
An estimated 164,000 migrant workers live in Lebanon, playing a critical role in the country as domestic and service workers. Yet they are employed through the kafala system, which ties the migrant’s residency and employment status to an individual employer, and are excluded from Lebanon’s labor laws. This leaves them vulnerable to abuses including not getting paid, being forced to work excessive hours, and having their identification documents taken away. Some face physical and sexual abuse.
Grace had faced these issues firsthand. She first heard about the opportunity to work in Lebanon in August 2023 while she still lived in Kenya. A friend who was working there told Grace about an opportunity to make up to $700 a month as a caregiver in a home north of Beirut. Gathering nearly all the money she and her family had saved, Grace paid a recruiting agency in Kenya to prepare the documents she needed to work in Lebanon.
She arrived in Lebanon in October 2023. Though treated well by her employer, Grace was overworked. She sought a new employer and ultimately found one in the southern coastal city of Tyre. There her life took a turn for the worse. As conflict escalated between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon, Grace regularly heard the terrifying sound of airstrikes and explosions.
“I was not even sleeping,” she said. “Every time, I was crying, because in my country I never heard a sound like this.”
War wasn’t the only challenge she faced. Grace said that she also faced abuse and threats from the siblings of her employer. Fearing for her life, Grace decided to run away. Using $90 of the $110 she had on hand, Grace paid a taxi to drive her to Beirut.
With $20, she started over in Lebanon’s capital.
Two years on, her circumstances remain challenging. Grace’s former employer still has her passport, leaving her at risk of arrest and deportation. After initially refusing to return it, the employer eventually agreed—on the condition that Grace pay $2,000, an amount that she can’t afford.
Lebanon’s latest war has only exacerbated the situation for her and other migrants. After losing her cleaning job, Grace returned home upset. Lying in bed, she started to cry, asking God why he had allowed this to happen, she recalled.
She called her friend Njoki, a fellow Kenyan she met at a local evangelical church in Beirut, and shared her woes. Njoki—who prefers to go by her Christian name Mercy—invited Grace to her home to chat. CT agreed to use only her first name due to her legal status in the country.
“Don’t worry,” Mercy told her. “Everything that happens, good or bad, God knows the reason.”
As a migrant community leader, Mercy had heard many stories like Grace’s. Since moving to Lebanon in November 2012, she has experienced her own share of abuse, exploitation, and discrimination. For the past several years, she has used these experiences to support other migrants working in the country.
As war erupted in March, Mercy assessed the needs of the people who had ended up on the streets. Along Beirut’s waterfront, she found people displaced from across the country due to the fighting. Among them were migrants whom employers had abandoned as they fled to safer parts of Lebanon or left the country all together.
With government-organized displacement shelters prioritizing Lebanese citizens, many migrants had nowhere to go. Mercy opened her home to eight female migrants, all of them undocumented as their employers had kept hold of their passports to ensure they would resume working once the employers eventually returned or settled in a new place. She connected other migrants with local organizations and community groups providing shelter and assistance.
Seeing that the displaced—both migrants and locals—had little or nothing to cook with, Mercy decided to make and distribute meals with members of her organization, Women of Purpose, and volunteers.
“We didn’t have a choice,” Mercy said. “We needed to respond. The streets were overwhelmed.”
To pay for ingredients and transportation, the women pooled money from other migrants. People donated what they could: $3 here, $5 there. They raised enough to cook 50 meals per day. As support came in from other migrants and local nonprofits, the African-inspired meals increased to 100 or more, depending on needs.
“We cannot do much,” Mercy said, “but we do the little we can.”
Mercy’s response stemmed from multiple convictions. One was her faith. As a Christian, she felt it was her duty to help those in need and considered her work a form of evangelism. Through serving meals and distributing aid, she sought to not only talk about Jesus to the people she met but to reflect him too.
“This is a moment to tell people that God is love, God is great, and God is not done with you,” she said.
In addition to her faith, Mercy said she is also driven to support migrants and fight for reform of the kafala system. By helping local Lebanese in their time of need, she hoped to leave a lasting positive impression regarding migrants. She believes this could lead to legal reform of the system and give more rights and protections to migrants.
“When things get back to normal, when they get back on their feet, they will be the driving force for the kafala to change,” Mercy said.
Along with food, Women of Purpose has also distributed hygiene kits, feminine pads, and adult diapers provided by Insaaf , an evangelical organization that supports migrants. Since the start of the war, Insaaf has come alongside community leaders like Mercy to respond to needs that exceed its ability to meet.
Insaaf has also continued Christian outreach programs that form a core part of its mission, providing spiritual support to migrants as they face fear, stress, and anxiety.
On the first day of the cease-fire in mid-April, Insaaf hosted a Bible study after a two-week hiatus for Easter holidays. That morning, around 10 women from the Philippines and African countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and Ethiopia gathered at the organization’s office in Beirut. Seated in rows of chairs, they listened to worship music. Then Insaaf director Melanie Baggao, a Filipino American, stood up and led the Bible study. She began by asking the women how they were doing.
“We survived the war,” one Filipina woman replied.
Throughout the meeting, the war was a recurring theme. During one of the discussion breaks, two women spoke about airstrikes that hit near their homes. One mentioned how her trust in God grew stronger in the past years. “It’s not that I got used to the war, but now my faith has become deeper,” she told the group.
According to Baggao, the dangers posed by the war, which comes on the heels of dire political and economic crises in Lebanon in recent years, emphasize the importance of Insaaf’s spiritual programs.
“I cannot imagine going through any one of these crises, including this one, without that spiritual aspect,” Baggao said. “I do feel very strongly that it is one of the strongest parts of our ministry that really holds us together.”
As ongoing clashes between Hezbollah and Israel undermine the US-brokered cease-fire agreement, more than 1 million people remain displaced in Lebanon. So Mercy and her companions continue to cook.
On a weekday morning in late April, Grace sat in Mercy’s living room, peeling and cutting potatoes for another meal distribution. Since losing her job, Grace has used her free time to volunteer with Mercy.
Mattresses, boxes, and other items lined the walls, leaving little space to move. The eight women that Mercy took in at the start of the war still lived with her in the apartment, sharing her two rooms and one bathroom. That morning, the women were away, working temporary cleaning jobs made available by the cease-fire’s relative stability.
Over the course of the morning and afternoon, Grace and Mercy worked diligently, speaking together in Swahili as they prepared 100 meals of rice and chicken stew. Note cards filled with Scripture, essential parts of Mercy’s prayer life, hung around the house.
Late that afternoon, they took the meals by taxi to a public beach in Beirut where displaced families have stayed since the start of the war. They noticed less people in the area, as some had returned home while others had found housing through friends or relatives. But for those who remained, the needs were still just as dire.
As Mercy, Grace, and two other migrant women arrived, children ran up to them, followed by their parents. Mercy had supported some of them since the start of the war, including Asem Al-Ali, a Syrian displaced from southern Lebanon. Mercy had previously given him a tarp that he used to cover the back of his pickup truck where he, his pregnant wife, and their two children slept. With their home destroyed, Ali had nowhere else to take his family. After receiving food from Mercy, Ali told CT, “Sometimes, we rely only on this meal she gets us.”
Mercy sees this kind of work as her calling. “I found my purpose,” she said. No matter the challenges, she remains committed to sharing the hope of Christ, supporting migrant workers, and fighting against the kafala system.
“As long as there are people on the streets, we’re going to do the cooking,” she said. “And as long as we have the resources, we’re going to do the cooking.”
The post The Christian Migrants Feeding the Displaced in Lebanon appeared first on Christianity Today.
