October 18, 2026
BEIRUT (BP) – Marvin was only 9 months old when his mother Rosette Mansour, pregnant again, held him tightly to her breast as armed Syrian soldiers ordered the young family out of the car and against a wall.
Just as quickly, an explosion marked what she thought would be her last breath. On that final day of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War in October 1990, a Lebanese tank came to her family’s rescue, firing a shell at the Syrian soldiers and killing them. It was only after the shelling that the Lebanese saw Rosette and her family against the wall.
Rosette suffered trauma. A Baptist, she had learned to rely on God since her pre-teen years, having moved with her parents perhaps 20 times between 1975 and 1990.
“I don’t recall I’ve ever experienced a time of peace in Lebanon,” Rosette said.
The Lebanese Civil War, a complicated battle among several foes, first pitted the Maronite Christian-aligned Kataeb Party against a coalition of leftists comprising the Lebanese National Movement. Syria first entered the war as a friend of the Kataeb Party but changed sides.
Syrians lingered in Lebanon after the war. Rosette struggled for years to love Syrians with an agape love.
“After that incident, being pregnant and being terrified and having the trauma, I couldn’t befriend them,” she said. “I couldn’t tolerate their accent. I thought it was a season or a short period of time and then I’d be healed, because I was traumatized.
“But it did not go. That feeling did not go,” she told Baptist Press decades later. “So I started fasting and praying. I started praying and fasting every Friday. God help me to forgive and forget.”
She made progress, it seemed. She could tolerate the Syrian accent. She began to befriend Syrians. She was able to sleep at night. Her trauma was gone. Then came the Syrian War spanning 2011-2024, with thousands of Syrians seeking refuge in Lebanon. Rosette discovered her love for Syrians was limited. She had served Syrian students while employed at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, a ministry of the Thimar-Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development, but struggled to love Syrians seeking refuge during the Syrian War.
She tried to “outsmart God,” she said, committing to pray for the Syrian refugees.
“I was honestly praying for them, because I’ve been in their shoes. I lived through war for 15 years, and I know what it means to see (war) at the age when you’re not supposed to see these things, or to experience life in shelters, or to be displaced,” she said. “I totally understand this feeling, so I was always praying for them.”
But her son Marvin, now married with children of his own, was doing more. As Rosette’s extended family gathered for Sunday meals, Marvin had wonderful stories and even miracles to share. When he and his wife, then members of Faith Baptist Church, distributed to Syrian refugees food vouchers from Middle East Revive and Thrive, Thimar-LSESD’s humanitarian arm, the two heard stories of God’s miraculous power.
Marvin told of his impromptu visit to a Syrian home after the family he intended to visit unexpectedly returned to Syria. He had a voucher that was soon to expire, and he wanted to distribute it to a family in need. A 10-year-old Sunni Muslim boy greeted Marvin at the door, the entire local Sunni family awaiting Marvin’s arrival.
The family’s refrigerator was empty, and the little boy had gone to bed hungry the previous night.
“I was wondering if I am going to die from hunger,” the boy said, “wondering if I escaped from Syria to come and die of hunger in Lebanon.”
While sleeping, the boy dreamed of a man walking on water.
“His face was shining like the sun, and he was dressed in a white robe,” said the boy, who had never before heard the story of Jesus walking on water to reach the disciples. The boy was frightened, but the man in the dream – identifying himself as Jesus – told the boy not to be afraid.
“Tomorrow a man will come, and he will share with you about love, hope and peace. And he repeated this three times,” the boy said of his dream. Awakening, he told his mother, who believed his report. She invited the entire family to await the arrival of the man whose visit was foretold.
“My son said it’s true. I mean, the one whom you saw in your dreams was Jesus, and I wasn’t supposed to come here. Jesus brought me here. It was a miracle that I came here,” Rosette relayed the story to Baptist Press. “Marvin started sharing with them about Jesus, and he gave them the food vouchers.”
The boy and his mother began attending the Discovery Bible Study, a small-group study Marvin hosted at his home.
Hearing such miracles, Rosette herself wanted to experience stories of Syrians coming to faith.
“I was jealous,” she told Baptist Press. “Hearing the miracles is something; witnessing them with your own eyes and living them is something else. So I was so jealous and I decided to be involved in ministry. I started visiting.”
Through her own benevolence, she experienced true healing.
“So this is a journey of healing. That’s why I’m sharing all this,” she said. “It’s a journey of healing. I started visiting.”
She began visiting a Syrian widow who lived with her children and mother. But during her first visit, the widow’s brother and his friends were also there.
“Why do you care for us? Why do you love us?” the widow’s brother had asked Rosette. “We went to the mosque and they closed the door. And here you are Christians, you’re coming here and you’re helping us.”
Rosette was encouraged.
“But every morning I would wake up and the verse, ‘Love your enemies,’ echoing in my mind. And I would argue with God,” Rosette said of her struggle. “Isn’t it enough I’m giving them my time? Isn’t it enough I’m serving them? But the verse says, ‘Love your enemies.’
Six months into her journey of ministering to Syrian refugees in Beirut, the verse no longer greeted her each morning. She knew she’d had a breakthrough. It had been 21 years since Syrians almost killed her in the Lebanese war.
“It was a lesson for me to learn that it is after obeying God, the healing comes. I shouldn’t wait to be healed and then serve,” she said. “I should be serving, and in the process, God healed me. It was a long journey of healing. It was first, you know, forgiving a little bit, then being involved in ministering and then loving them.”
Syrians number about 1.5 million in Lebanon today, home to about 2 million refugees that total a fifth of the population, the International Fund for Agricultural Development reports.
She encourages those struggling to love their enemies to begin by serving them.
“Go, serve, and then the healing will come along,” she said. “By serving my enemies, there are no more enemies. By serving and learning about their stories, by knowing them, there are no more our enemies. Minister to them and then the healing comes. It’s not, I wait until I love them and then I serve them. It’s vice versa.”
Rosette has relocated to the U.S. to be closer to her children and grandchildren, who preceded her in the move. She transferred in 2025 from her position as senior partner relations officer of Thimar-LSESD, and began as manager of partnerships and development programs of Middle East Bible Outreach, Thimar-LSESD’s fiscal sponsor in Brookline, Mass.
Leaving the full life she led in Lebanon was difficult, she said, but her children encouraged her to come to the U.S. to avoid the violence between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I don’t regret coming here, although it is challenging,” she said, “but I never regret it because I believe that God had opened the door. I know how difficult it is. I got my green card. I got a job that I love. And I’m still connecting to my country. So I feel like this is a blessing.”
___
This article appeared in Baptist Press.
Share with others
