How the School of Hope impacted Hamze and his Family
Hamze is refugee from Idlib, Syria whose family fled the war for their lives and have now been surviving in Lebanon. After a long time of not getting any education and not having anywhere to play, his family found out about Horizons’ School of Hope and he started attending the school last year. Now he is in 2nd grade and so happy to be learning and to be hanging out with other kids in a safe haven in the middle of the slums of Beirut.
Last year a ministry gave each student at School of Hope a stuffed animal lion - and inside it had an audio Bible. A little while after that, Fatima, the lead School of Hope teacher, went to visit the home of one of her students, Hamze. When she met his father, he was so happy to see his son’s teacher because he had been so affected by what he learned from his son. With a big smile on his face he asked her, "Who is this Jesus that my son keeps talking about? And these audio stories…” he paused, clearly deeply moved, before continuing “They are the most beautiful stories! I told my son that he can't return this lion to the school. If we go back to Syria, I want to take it with us and share the stories with our community there!"
What happened was that Hamze brought home his lion and loved listening to the stories. As time went on and as Jesus worked in his heart, these stories became too important to keep to himself. He was so excited about what he was hearing that he brought it to his Dad's work - a vegetable stand. When he got there he found both his father and his uncle there working. Elated at the prospect of sharing his new found treasure, Hamze exclaimed "You have to listen to these stories!" Surprised by Hamze’s boldness and excitement his dad and uncle stopped working to listen to the stories and were deeply moved as well.
When Fatima came to visit them a few weeks later, they had been listening to the stories every day. Now Hamze and his family is very passionate about Jesus and Hamze especially is very bold in sharing his faith.