L e b anon
Home, a World Away T
he crew of music enthusiasts ambles onstage, picks up instruments and microphones, and begins a sort of Adventist karaoke session. It’s Friday evening after vespers, and I’m listening from the back of the auditorium at Middle East University, where I serve as a missionary volunteer. There’s a man from Russia on the piano with his Latvian wife next to him holding a microphone, a Hungarian woman playing the cello, an Armenian teenager playing the guitar, a Turkish man sharing a microphone with the new couple
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from Argentina, and a Lebanese man tapping softly on the drums while an American picks up the bass to join in. They play and sing “I Can Only Imagine,” and as the music begins to echo through the auditorium, I realize that I’ve started whispering the words along with them. All around me I feel this wave of vibrant beauty at the incredible diversity playing out before me. Yes, the words of the song say, “I can only imagine . . .” but in a sense, I feel that I’ve already begun to see. For here on this
