“We are staying in Beirut, and we are going to serve”: Ben Soh of YWAM Beirut Impact on serving 2,000 hot meals daily as Lebanon war continues
Ben Soh // March 17, 2026, 11:58 am
In the early morning of March 2, our family was woken up at 3am by a series of powerful explosions. Immediately, we recognised these familiar sounds from the 2024 war, but were shocked that it was happening once again.
As I ran to the balcony of our 19th floor apartment, several large plumes of smoke were already rising from Dahye, the south Beirut Shia Muslim neighbourhood often targeted due to the presence of the paramilitary group Hezbollah. I could also hear the faint screams of people and gunfire sounding into the night sky as they tried to warn other residents that an airstrike was incoming.
Plumes of smoke from the first night’s airstrikes, just as the sun was rising.
While comforting our children back to sleep, we read on our phones that Hezbollah had launched several rockets into Israel at 1am in response to the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, and Israel had retaliated without warning at 3am, targeting Beirut and also 50 villages in south Lebanon.
We knew what this meant – that the country had now been dragged into a war the Lebanese government and its people desperately wanted to avoid, and immense displacement and suffering would once again be the grim reality of many Lebanese, in particular the Shia people.
Anger, disbelief and frustration filled my mind. Why?
To evacuate or to remain?
I stayed up for the next two hours on my phone, desperately analysing the news while reassuring our team of 25 YWAM volunteers that we were safe in Christian neighbourhoods. At 6am, we received a notice that our kids’ school would be closed for the next three days. For many members of our staff, this was their first experience of being in proximity to an airstrike, and I did my best to allay their fears.
By sunrise, it was reported that 31 had been killed and 149 injured in the night’s bombing, and that the entire population of south Beirut – half a million people – had all fled from their homes.
We called to check in with several friends who were forced to run, and found out that many of them slept in their cars by the downtown area and were desperately trying to secure temporary homes for their families.
We encouraged our staff to reach out and update their family and churches, but gave everyone the freedom to stay and serve, or to evacuate to a different country. Several short term volunteers secured flights out, but I was heartened that most of our long-term team decided to stay. One family, Drew and Sien, who have a nine-month-old baby, even decided to fly back into Beirut after already evacuating from the conflict in Erbil, North Iraq where they had spent a week teaching.
The YWAM Beirut Impact community which comprises people from Singapore, Malaysia, USA, Korea, Canada, Russia, Bangladesh, Syria, Costa Rica, Mexico, Germany, Norway, Australia, Brazil, Italy and Lebanon.
Within days, the number of people displaced had reportedly reached 1 million. That the war broke out in the midst of Ramadan further compounded their misery, as many Muslim families had no access to a kitchen to prepare for iftar, their sundown meal.
In the first few days, we did what we could and prepared around 40 packaged hot meals to give away in the evening. Many who received them immediately started eating as they have been fasting all day since daybreak.
While most people would take the food and leave, a girl, about 14, stayed to talk to us. She shared that her father was killed in the bombings in south Beirut three nights ago, and her eyes began to well up with tears. It was heartbreaking, and as she wiped away tears, our female members put our hands out to try and comfort her. She later brought us to her family shelter, composed of tarp and cardboard boxes, and introduced us to her siblings and extended family.
YWAM Beirut Impact, together with Mercy Chefs produces 2,000 meals for the displaced community daily and work with Lebanese NGOs Al Shabib Risala, Triumphant Mercy, Resurrection Church Beirut and Horizons to distribute meals.
Families left their homes when the airstrikes began, with some living out of their cars in the downtown area.
There is a group of displaced families that we have been meeting consistently and building a relationship with. One of the mothers is Noor*, a Christian who married a Shia and was disowned by her Christian family. She said she did not want to tell her parents that her family is living on the streets now. Her husband, Hadi,* tried to go home to south Beirut to shower and do some laundry the day before, but had to run for his life when the bombings abruptly started again.
Ben Soh 
They have been sleeping in a small car as a family for almost two weeks now. Noor said as a mother of three, she is afraid to bring the kids home to shower because they cannot just pick up and run with her if airstrikes happen. Her husband was very grateful for the kindness of Christians and NGOs serving the displaced. He also asked if we could bring a soccer ball for the kids next time, as he felt the kids needed something to play with or else they would get sad and depressed.
In a time of war, play is all the more necessary for children to keep them from becoming mentally affected.
The displaced brave freezing conditions.
We quickly realised the humanitarian needs of the displaced were immense. Tens of thousands people were hungry and freezing without proper shelter in the cold weather, and the war showed no signs of deescalation. We were overwhelmed by helplessness.
It was then that one of our leaders, Ryan Mackle, remembered he knew someone from Mercy Chefs, a US-based NGO whose vision is to provide hot meals in disaster zones. He quickly reached out to them, they were keen to come, and from there our discussions moved quickly. It was as though the Spirit lit a fire in all our hearts for this vision, because in less than a week we were picking up the Mercy Chefs team at Beirut International Airport.
I whispered to my wife that these guys are about as crazy as we are, flying into an active war zone. I jokingly told them they were now honorary members of the “flying into Beirut while everyone else is flying out” club.
The US MercyChefs team knocked down the walls of the old kitchen (left) to make room for a new kitchen (right) that could produce meals by the thousands.
While the MercyChef team got busy knocking down walls and expanding our base kitchen, we teamed up with four large Lebanese NGOs Al Shabib Risala, Triumphant Mercy, Resurrection Church Beirut and Horizons, all who are currently serving communities of displaced people.
The author Ben Soh, base leader of YWAM Beirut Impact prepping ingredients for meals.
The MercyChefs team at work.
Within a week, Mercy Chefs had sent a team to Beirut to cook for the displaced.
Mercy Chefs is a non-profit that provides professionally prepared, restaurant-quality meals to victims, volunteers, and first responders in natural disasters and emergencies.
We had our plan: YWAM Beirut Impact would serve as a hub making hot meals, and our partners would pick up and distribute the prepared food to displaced people all around Beirut. And, of course, our own YWAM team would also be able to increase their capacity for distribution after partnering with Mercy Chefs.
After successfully making 500 meals the first day, we were able to ramp up to making up to 2,000 hot meals each day, serving around 12 shelters for the displaced.
Three kids, three wars
After almost two weeks of the war, our family has adapted to the sights and sounds of conflict.
As parents, we put on a sound machine for our kids at night to drown out the airstrikes, and let our kids play for long hours with their friends outdoors – we quickly learned that play was crucial to their mental health.
Ben’s and Shannon’s children watching an airstrike in South Beirut. “They weren’t fearful,” said Ben.
Phoebe drew this prophetic painting over Lebanon during prayer time.
We do not hide the truth from them that we are in the midst of a war, though we reassure them we are safe in Christian neighbourhoods. This is, after all, their third experience of war since 2023, and they have learned to recognise an airstrike. There is also not much we can hide living on the 19th floor with our balcony looking out towards south Beirut.
Outside of the (occasionally louder than normal) airstrikes, our kids are largely not fearful. Since all schools in Lebanon have been shut since the outbreak of the war, our kids have been happily enjoying serving together with Mom and Dad in the kitchen.
The Soh kids working alongside the adults to pack meals for the displaced in Beirut.
Their favourite job is helping to plate the food and to put lids on boxes of prepared meals. Their daily record is now 600 completed boxes. Our staffers love their enthusiasm, and our kids love serving so much we often have to drag them home when the kitchen closes.
During a prayer time on base, our kids made encouragement cards and asked if we could give them out along with the food boxes. Their messages were simple and profound: “Never give up hope”, “I hope you find a home” and “Eat up and enjoy!” As a father, I get emotional and cannot describe how immensely proud I am of their courage, joy and co-ownership of our missional call as a family.
Phoebe, 9, with her encouragement card for the displaced.
A food-covered cheer-up card by Levi, 11.
Daphne, 7, capturing the sentiments of all the displaced.
“What is it that you would have us do, Lord?”
There is no right or wrong answer in these situations. In the past, we evacuated and faced disappointment and criticism from local partners. This time we are staying… and facing disapproval and criticism from those looking at us from the outside.
We have learned not to make our decisions based on fearing death, or fearing man, but rather by fearing the Lord.
When we first heard those strikes at 3am and realised what was happening, we also knew deep in our spirit that the Lord had prepared us for this. We grieved, we lamented, we cried and screamed – then we quieted ourselves and asked: “What is it that you would have us do, Lord?” It was not so much a direct instruction as it was a deep peace and determination of spirit that took hold of us. I looked at my wife and we both agreed: We are staying in Beirut, and we are going to serve.
Now, two weeks into the war we could not be more proud of our YWAM community. There have been quiet days, and there have been scary days, but we see how God’s grace is allowing us to ride the waves of uncertainty and not be drowned by them.
The risk of further strikes is almost absolute at this point, but there is also talk of negotiations and peace. We are constantly in prayer for government leaders, leaders of influence here in Lebanon, for the Body of Christ as we respond to the crisis, and for the many hundreds of thousands of people who are suffering, physically and emotionally, most of whom do not yet know the spiritual comfort of Christ.
3 promises to cling on to
In all of this, we remember three promises from Scripture: “His mercies are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23), “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11), and “His grace is sufficient for us, for His power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
His grace gives us strength that does not rely on human capacity or circumstance. His grace not only surrounds us, but is protecting us; He raises up a barrier to protect us from the attacks of our spiritual enemy, and also from the physical terrors happening around us.
The word “sufficient” in Greek is arkeo, and it means three things:
• To be enough, to be content, to be supplied with an ample amount
• To be possessed of unfailing strength
• To ward off danger, to protect (by raising up a barrier)
Shannon (in front of window) reading a children’s book about courage and faith during a staff meeting. “We are mom and dad to the team in some ways,” said Ben. “Most of our team are in their early 20s and we’re in our early 40s.”
Indeed, God’s grace has been sufficient for us:
– We are sleeping well and waking up refreshed, which is no small miracle in times like this.
– Our fear levels are much lower compared to the last war. Though the waves do come, we are able by God’s grace to move through them and find our anchor in Him.
– During the large evacuation of Southern Beirut, a member of our staff had brought a short-term worker to the airport and got stuck in immense traffic. We supposed she might be stuck there for hours or even overnight, but as we continued to trust God and pray, about an hour later we looked at the online map and the route was completely green! She had a miraculous window to drive home to safety.
– We started our food distribution with what we had – our small loaves and fish – and within a week a professional chef team had arrived and remodelled our kitchen and started providing thousands of meals a week for the displaced.
We are here to proclaim that God’s grace is more than enough for us. His Spirit continues to encourage and empower his Church in the Middle East, and His redemptive hope for the region and its people will never fail.
How to help, how to pray
We are currently fundraising to keep hot meal production going. We also have a team that gives out hygiene products, milk, hot drinks and blankets. With enough funds, we hope to keep this going for at least the next month, by which time we hope a ceasefire will have been reached.
While we are heartened by our capacity to provide some respite for the displaced Shias, we continue to be heartbroken by the suffering of this community, many of whom do not support the actions of Hezbollah but are paying the price.
When the war ends, we hope to set up a community centre on the outskirts of south Beirut where we can holistically share the redemptive love and healing power of Christ to a people long ravaged by revenge and suffering.
We encourage and invite you to join in prayer and support with our relief efforts and witness to this community.
If you would like to support YWAM Beirut Impact’s work, email Ben Soh at [email protected].
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