27 August 2026

‘Embrace’ describes itself as ‘The Christian development charity tackling poverty and injustice in the Middle East’. Their catalogue of Christmas cards and carol sheets came in this week. In addition, there was an update on what has been happening in the charity.

One of their stories relates to a church in Rahbeh in Northern Lebanon. Members travelled three hours to attend a small ‘Sustainable Agriculture Training Course’ run by Thimar which is working in partnership with Embrace.

The members of the church wanted to start up a farming project to bring employment and support to low-income families in their community. With support from Thimar, a mixed farm of crops and a dairy herd was established with nine cows. The milk was sold to fund the farm.

As time passed, the church realised that it would be more profitable to turn the milk into cheese. In addition, it would provide more employment. They began producing cheese in the church hall but soon required bigger premises.

With support from Embrace, they  moved to a disused purpose-built dairy and renovated it. Now they have three dozen cows and produce 500 litres of milk every day! They ran a training course for local women and employed three of them to help with the production.

When hundreds of thousands of people were displaced in the recent Israel-Hezbollah war, they began sending dairy products to shelters and host communities. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed,’ says Jesus. ‘It is the smallest of all the seeds but when it is grown …’