Lebanese Baptists have reason to be proud. This month, two senior members of their community, Mona Khauli and Nabil Costa, were recognized for their faith-based work on behalf of their nation.
Mona Khauli, the 85-year-old executive director of the national Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), was honored by the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) for her human rights work.
“Honor comes from God,” she said. “Having been in his service all these years, I do not need any from people.” She did, however, note her acceptance may be useful to inspire others.
Costa, general secretary of the Association of Evangelical Schools in Lebanon (AESL), was locally recognized with the inaugural Créel award as one of the top luminaries hailing from his nation’s southern region for pioneering leadership in special needs education.
“As a son of Maghdoucheh, I am pleased to be honored here,” he said of his Greek Catholic agricultural village, located five miles southeast of Sidon, which hosted the ceremony. “But our victory comes only from the Lord.”
Khauli experienced such triumph firsthand amid constant loss due to the civil war.
Assuming her role in 1977 following many years of volunteering, Khauli was immediately plunged into the reality of ongoing bombardment in Muslim-dominated West Beirut. So she turned the YWCA headquarters into a women’s hostel, receiving displaced Lebanese of all religious confessions.
The Syrian general occupying their neighborhood assigned his men to mount a missile launcher on YWCA’s strategically-placed rooftop. Khauli rushed to confront him. We have women here, she told him. Would you accept men running through the quarters of your mother and sister?
Anxious the whole time, she had to think on her feet when the general mentioned the Muslims among them. Change the name of your organization, he said. How can Christians oversee Muslims?
Khauli refused, setting a pattern of fidelity to the YWCA’s faith foundations, later repeated in peacetime.
“You are under the authority of your president, who trusts you because you serve Syria,” she told the general. “We are under the authority of Christ, and therefore we serve everyone in his name.” Before the war, Khauli’s predecessor had helped establish Lebanon’s Young Women’s Muslim Association, under Islamic leadership. The Christian version developed a reputation for…
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The BWA also welcomed new partners from Niger and the Palestinian territories, and established new membership categories in aid work, missions, and education. And the first organization recognized in the aid category is the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development (LSESD), with AESL’s Costa as CEO.
“Inclusive education is restoring the value of evangelicals in Lebanon,” said Costa, “just as the missionaries did a century ago.”
In the 19th century, Western Protestants came to Beirut in the then-Ottoman Empire province of Syria, and focused on education—including the groundbreaking formal instruction of girls. The American University of Beirut was founded in 1866, and the first Baptist church was planted in 1895. Today, though evangelicals represent only one percent of the population, the AESL serves 20,000 multifaith students in 35 affiliated school.
In 1998, American Baptist missionaries handed over Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Beirut Baptist School, and Baptist Publications to local leadership, who formed LSESD as its umbrella entity. Under Costa’s leadership, LSESD later added a youth ministry wing that now focuses on outreach, as well as Middle East Revive and Thrive (MERATH) for disaster relief and community development.
In September, LSESD will celebrate its 25th anniversary.
But it was the SKILD Center (Smart Kids with Individual Learning Differences), founded in 2011, that won him the Créel award—created to inspire hope by highlighting the regional and often small-town origins of nationally influential leaders. Costa believes that special needs education—as a voice for the voiceless—is helping evangelicals move out from the fringes of society.
“Individuals who actively work towards the betterment of marginalized groups are truly rare,” said Joelle Bou Younes, founder of Créel, a media and event planning company. “They should be appreciated for their selflessness and dedication.”
Under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Tourism, the Maghdoucheh presentation followed a similar event in Tripoli that honored Lebanese from the north. Regional celebrations are also planned for Mount Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Other southern recipients included the former director of general security, business and media leaders, an internationally celebrated violinist, and the mayor of Sidon, who was educated in an AESL-affiliated evangelical school.
Costa received his award from the minister of social affairs, and honored in testimony by the president of Notre Dame University–Louaize (NDU). In partnership with SKILD, in 2019 it became the first Lebanese collage to offer a study program for those with special needs. Prior to this in 2013, Costa coordinated with the Ministry of Education and the British Council to launch Lebanon’s National Day for Students with Learning Difficulties. The same year, SKILD partnered with the Sunni Makassid school system to establish its special needs department. Today the country has…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on July 28, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.
Jayson Casper 