"In this Christmas season, adopt a family in your prayer. Pray for a family so that a father and a mother who cannot afford food at the table, who cannot afford medicine for their children or for themselves, they cannot afford the livelihood of paying rent, pray for their concrete livelihood," Fr. Mahanna urged.
With a $50 donation, one can "Adopt a Family" of refugees, which in turn also helps ease the burden on Lebanon's infrastructure and helps "support the Lebanese people until the political situation and that human crisis of the refugees is settled," Mahanna explained.
Lebanon is facing a critical moment in which it risks becoming a failed state, Mahanna said. Anti-government protests forced the former prime minister Saad Hariri to resign six weeks ago, and the government remains billions of dollars in debt.
"The crisis has now drained the entire banking system, private investors cannot withdraw their money. If I have money in the bank, you cannot find the actual dollar currency in any of the Lebanese territories. The ATM machines are not giving money out to people, and you cannot go even to your own account and withdraw money more than let's say $1,000 per month in some places $400 per month in other places," the priest said.
"We need the help of the international community to maintain the stability, some economic foundation in Lebanon so that we protect the private investors, we protect the Lebanese citizens … in such a way that the government will not fall," he said.
"If the government falls, you are going to have two fanatic groups, unfortunately just like what happened in Syria, just like what happened in Iraq, they will be on the rise and kill each other. As a collateral damage, Christians always pay the cost," he explained.