2 Timothy 4;7-8 ESV
“7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”
On May 18 (2022), my brother in Christ and partner in God’s mission suffered from a heart attack while driving and rammed into a tree near Tyre, Lebanon. He passed away on the spot. That was the official report, and we will never know the truth in that banana republic, Lebanon.
Mohammad was persecuted, tortured, and jailed. But he remained steadfast in the faith until his death!
Mohammad, a former Sunni Muslim, was born in 1966 in Beirut, during the civil war to a mother who belonged to one of the largest Sunni families in Beirut. Her uncle was the head of the Islamic courts in the Lebanese capital. Also, many of Mohammed’s uncles were imams and muazzins in Beirut mosques too.
Mohammed was called to faith in Christ through the Sunday school ministry of the Evangelical Bible Church in our neighborhood, in Beirut, Lebanon. I was there the day he was baptized. He was 13 years old. I thought to myself: “What a lunatic!”
His parents kicked him out (after he was baptized), and since that early age, he lived under the guardianship of his Heavenly Father.
Twice, Mohammed was threatened with death by Muslim Fundamentalists. Another time, my late brother’s militia (al-Mourabitoun) detained him for three days in a dungeon and beat him up. But he refused to revoke his new faith. One time he had to hide for six months in a Christian village in North Lebanon.
With the help of his pastor, the late Rev. Dr. Victor Sadaka, Mohammed went to the U.S. in 1986 for four years and earned a BS in Accounting, then returned to Lebanon.
At the age of 25, he had half a million dollars in his bank account, owned his house, and his business. He got married. All was going great, and Mohammed was going up the ladder.
For many years Mohammed was running away from serving in the church; but whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and indeed He did.
In no time, his heavenly Father stripped him naked. Mohammed lost everything and was jailed for bankruptcy (that is the law in Lebanon). Then, he had only his family. Yet, he was hard-headed, so when he came out of prison, he went again into business, made money and had four retail stores.
In 2008, Mohammed realized that his hands are too short to box with God. He surrendered to the Lord’s will and liquidated all his business at a loss. Then, he started street evangelism, as well as ministering in an orphanage near Beirut.
By 2009, God led him and his family, to plant a church in the city of Tyre, South-Lebanon; in the middle of Hizbollah-land, close to the border with Israel.
He had five children: Laya, Selina, Lynn, Peter, and Sarah. God had blessed the Yamout family. Yamout had distributed thousands of copies of the New Testament, and tracts of spiritual literature, many of them from the Lutheran Hour Ministry office, Beirut, Lebanon. They helped hundreds of people in different ways, and we saw God at work in saving souls.
Yamout founded a church, a farm, a school, a clinic, and was working on building a hospital and an orphanage. Yamout had 13 locations for evangelism in the Middle East, and founded the non-profit organization, 1000 Lighthouses (https://1000lighthouses.org/) in Colorado, USA, in order to raise funds for his projects. His ministry touched thousands of people and hundreds of churches throughout the world.
All of this has not been without persecution; for Yamout was in the Devil’s Den. The church property was vandalized, Yamout’s assistant was stabbed, and a month before Yamout passed away, the Lebanese authorities confiscated his passport at Beirut’s airport and jailed him for three days. The corrupt government authorities tried to coerce him into giving up his projects.
Mohammed Yamout is now in the arms of Jesus. God has wiped every tear in his eyes, and he is living in eternal bliss.
We ask for your constant and continual prayers, for the Yamout family, and his widow in particular.
May God Bless you and keep you in perfect peace.
In Christ,
Hesham Shehab
