ACCTS-AWT 2020-04 | The Arab Center for Consulting & Training Services (ACCTS)

“If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man. For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face." Psalm 11: 3, 4, 7

Dear friends and partners,

We continue to remain under quarantine, but slowly and surely, the restrictions are beginning to lift. This quarantine time has been shaking the nest for the people of God; still, the Lord is spreading his wings underneath us so that we will not hit the ground. He teaches us to watch, pray, and be strong and courageous. It has also been shaking the world of unbelievers so that they would turn to the Lord in days in which man depended only on his abilities and excluded God from his accounts.

Ramadan, the month of fasting, began on April 24. It’s normally a time marked by nightly prayer at the mosque and meals with family and friends. This year, with mosques closed and gatherings forbidden, Ramadan will look drastically different for over 9 million Muslims living here. We feel there is a potential for great spiritual openness this year, prompted by the hardship and anxiety that so many are experiencing.

I, Nabeeh, preached several times online and reached thousands with encouraging Easter messages. I spoke on Sat-7 station in cooperation with Maranatha Jordan to the entire world addressing the issue of building a healthy family during this quarantine time and the message reached millions.

Find safety under his wings,

Nabeeh and Ruba Abbassi

Donation

This exceptional time requires exceptional grace. We need your exceptional gifts, and we rely on your generosity, especially that we experienced a withdrawal of two significant donors.

Give #fromtheHEART Today GivingTuesday, the groundbreaking global generosity movement, announced #GivingTuesdayNow, a #globaldayofgivingandunity, set to take place on #May5, 2020 as an emergency response to the unprecedented need caused by COVID-19.

We trust that the Lord is our provider, yet he makes the whole body fit together perfectly to build itself up in love. We encourage you to contemplate where God would have you to invest in the work he is doing. We also invite you to consider how your giving can make a kingdom impact. By God's grace and your generosity, we can continue serving.

Serving our community with practical love

On the first day of Easter, we distributed through our center in Huson food packages to 300 Jordanian and Syrian families. How wonderful it is to demonstrate love and care and put them into action! Our people shared, “We cannot imagine how you left your homes and families on the first day of Easter. Your thoughts are different from ours. You thought of us and provided a unique greeting with great love!”

AWT active and innovative during the quarantine

Our work with our beloved women does not depend on one-on-one meetings. We thank God for technology because we can utilize it to continue serving him even through hardships. Therefore, during the lockdown, we were able to follow-up, communicate, and train our women. We had our first online meeting and conducted an inspirational workshop on zoom to the first group of women from seven Arab countries. In the coming weeks, we intend to continue with these meetings even when life gets back to normal. Women loved meeting their colleagues and expressed their desire to contact each other privately outside the online platform. They shared their joys, struggles, and needs, besides ideas on how we can support them in such a time of crisis and be flexible in the way we serve them. They expressed how meeting with us gave them a booster dose of encouragement and conveyed messages of hope.

Basma Gammoh, AWT

During the Holy week before Easter, AWT published a spiritual topic on Women in the Window platform and it reached many followers in the Middle East and North Africa. We also prepared and published seven video clips presenting seven women of the Bible on our Social Media page. We discussed how they could have possibly behaved if they had lived in this Corona time, and what we can learn from them. Participants interacted and shared with friends.

We received comments like, “The story of Rahab influenced me, I have always spoken to the Lord saying, ‘without you I cannot continue my journey because I am weak, but I find my strength in you alone.’”

A woman commented on the character of Abigail and said, “The Lord of the universe is the truth and the light. I am waiting upon the mercy of my Lord.”

We received another comment on the character of Lydia, “I would like to thank you with all my heart because you are a wonderful, distinguished team and every work you do makes a huge difference in my life. God bless your work and labor of love.”

SHUKRAN Campaign

ACCTS launched a campaign inviting Arab women to say 1000 times, all in one voice, “Thank you” or “Shukran” in Arabic, to all those working in the field to serve and protect us during this difficult time, risking their lives. We allowed the women to express their thanks through comments, voice messages, emoji, and videos. Later, we gathered their responses and produced a special video that we published on our social media platforms.

Maria, Network conference 2019

A door of hope amid crisis

Hearing what the Lord is doing in the lives of women we serve fills us with gratitude and motivates us to keep going.

A networker from Aleppo, Syria has been praying and sharing her heart with us. She expressed her gratitude to the Lord through our social media platform:
“I am a cancer survivor. Hearing the Lord’s voice helped me. During my sickness, while I was taking chemotherapy, God’s promises gave me hope and power in this mysterious stage of the unknown. I am now helping women who are undergoing the same treatment. We are 12 women who gather to pray and talk to strengthen and encourage each other. We named our group 'The door of hope.'"

A precious woman, whom we supported start a home business, shared, “It happened almost 2 years ago when I first began to learn to work with brass, and I continued in this domain. I give all thanks and appreciation to this respectful page; it lifted my Spirit and I was delighted with it, and it has been a great privilege for me to know you. You believed in my talent and me. Thank you for guiding me on how to share my work. You may think you supported me with a single release that you published about my work, but it has been enough for me. Your support had a positive impact. I want to share with you that I started to generate good money; however, I try to depend on myself and not workshops. I am grateful!”