I have been looking forward to telling you about my friend Rihab.
This is going to sound pretty fantastical – it does to me too – but is anything too hard for the Lord?
I got to know Rihab three years ago and she is just one of those people you can’t forget – even before you know her testimony. Back then I saw her once or twice a week when she joined our van load to travel over the mountains to visit the refugee camps close to the Syrian border.
She is a nice looking Lebanese woman with a slightly different, almost ethereal sense about her. She can give you a steady look in the eye that feels like she’s peering right into your soul. She’s kind of quiet, but at the same time she is fun and can really laugh. And definitely no one would doubt that she belongs to the Lord Jesus.
“RIHAB” is the Arabic name for the biblical “RAHAB”.
Like her namesake, Rihab has a past. I don’t know a lot about it, but I’ve heard her story starting when she was living in a mental hospital.
She was broken, angry, mentally ill and on eight medications. One day a man came into the hospital and walked around, talking to the patients about Jesus and the freedom and salvation He offered. He infuriated Rihab and she wanted to throw something at him. But after he left she couldn’t quit thinking about what he said. Finally, almost defiantly, she said out loud, “All right, Jesus. If you’re really God then heal me.”
Rihab told me, “Right then Jesus came into my heart. I knew He did. And I could tell He healed me. I got up and walked out of the hospital. I was well. I never took any of the medicines ever again.”
If you had been me and heard that testimony, maybe you would have been as startled and uncomfortable as I was. I thought “Yikes. Every insane person ever would think that same thing and just get up and leave and stop taking the medicines they desperately needed because ‘God healed them’. And what about withdrawal from all those strong drugs?? Danger! Danger!”
But thank God…in this case, it WAS the Lord. He did something far greater than my natural, very limited mind could imagine. (I saw a lot of that there). He healed Rihab and He gave her a new healthy mind and life.
Rihab started serving Him with joy and hasn’t stopped.
She loved reading the Bible. She knew about Rahab and learned that Rahab was related to Ruth. She started telling everyone, “I am asking God to give me a Boaz.”
A mutual friend told me that when Rihab would talk about her prayer for “Boaz”, her friends would smile with her but didn’t say much. It was a lovely thought but she was a young believer and she just seemed so…vulnerable.
Time continued on. Rihab grew in Christ. She just kept on keeping on, serving God with needy people. She was beloved by Horizons International, and her testimony was pretty widely known.
That is how Hassan entered the picture.
Hassan is a well-educated man who was employed by the UN, traveling the world, mapping HIV data. He was radically changed, however, when he, a Muslim, became a believer in Jesus Christ. From that time he became dissatisfied with his job; he wanted to use his skills and experience for God’s Kingdom. He eventually quit his UN job and offered his services to Voice of the Martyrs, an organization whose mission is to defend the human rights of persecuted Christians.
After spending years abroad, VOM assigned him to Lebanon, his home country, and he returned as a Christian! He is now a field worker in Syria and Lebanon, gathering information for Voice of the Martyrs.
One of his assignments was to interview Rihab because Voice of the Martyrs had heard about her. So Hassan met with her, loved her story and thought he needed another appointment to hear more. After the second meeting Hassan told his boss, “You need to assign someone else to her case because I may have a conflict of interest. I really like her.”
They started dating. In six months they got engaged.
She and Hassan are newlyweds now. I went to visit them while I was in Beirut. They are a really lovely couple. Rihab told me, “After eight years, the Lord gave me my Boaz.”
I saw pictures of the wedding. It was beautiful – outdoors, overflowing with flowers. They had 300 guests including many from Horizons.
I heard about the wedding from several people who were there.
Hassan stood in front and gave his testimony to everyone. When he finished, Rihab was escorted down the aisle to him, but instead of music, she walked with a recording of the book of Ruth being spoken over her.
Do you have tears in your eyes yet?
I had a great visit with them and I got to know Hassan a bit. I sure like him. They want to serve the Lord together as much as they can. They have a cheery, decent-sized apartment (rare in Beirut these days). They have already begun using their extra room to bless traveling missionaries. They were bustling around before I left, gathering up the food Rihab had prepared to take to an impoverished elderly home in the city. Hassan shook my hand goodbye, and asked me to please remember to pray for them.
Gladly.
Will you also pray for their lives together? They have a beautiful story and it’s a glory to God. May He bless and protect them through all that life brings the two of them.
I have recently learned that the name “Rihab” is the Arabic word for “a spacious land”. That seems so fitting.
He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.
Psalm 18:19
