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06372 July 21, 2006
Presbyterian couple arrive safely in Jordan
Long cab ride to safety from Lebanon costs pair $800
by Evan Silverstein
LOUISVILLE * A Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.) national staff member and his wife arrived safely late Thursday in Amman, Jordan, after fleeing war-torn Lebanon by taxi.
Elias and Elian Sahiouny * members of Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church here * departed Beirut on Thursday morning (July 20) by cab for a tense 13-hour ride through Syria and on to Amman.
"It was an all-day trip and we were nervous all the way until we crossed the Syrian border," Elias (pronounced Lee-Ace) Sahiouny said in a telephone interview from Amman on Friday (July 21). "Once we made it across the Syrian border we knew that we were safe."
Sahiouny, 43, is the financial services manager in the Mission Support Services office of the PC(USA). Elian, 40, is working on certification to be a nurse. They have been married for a year.
The couple paid $800 for their cab ride to safety * a bargain considering the going rate has been well over $1,000, according to news reports. The fare included the driver's tip, Sahiouny said.
"That road was pretty OK that day," Sahiouny said. "It wasn't bombed or anything like that. Nobody knows because things happen. Things change from day-to-day. Nobody knows what roads will be bombed. We had to watch to see what areas were being bombed and just make that decision and to see which road to take."
With the flight reservations they were able to find, the Sahiounys are scheduled to depart Amman on Sunday morning, but will have to spend three days in Paris, France, according to Sahiouny, who was born in southern Lebanon.
Although Sahiouny is now a U.S. citizen, his wife only has a green card. That could mean the couple may have to remain inside Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris the entire time they are in France.
On July 26 the two are to fly from Paris to Chicago, IL, where they will stay with family before returning to Louisville around July 28.
Sahiouny said he and his wife decided against the evacuation mounted by the American government because priority was being given to U.S. passport holders.
"At least they had a way out and many other people, Lebanese-American, are being evacuated," said the Rev. Victor Makari, coordinator of the PC(USA)'s office for the Middle East. "Yet our hearts are aching for all the people of Lebanon and people in northern Israel who have been victimized by this insane war."
Makari said that that all PC(USA)-related personnel serving in the region are unharmed.
Sahiouny and his wife went to Lebanon on June 24 on behalf of the PC(USA) and to visit family. His father, the Rev. Salim Sahiouny, is a high-ranking official with the Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon * a PC(USA) partner church in the region. Sahiouny's father and other family members are scattered in different parts of Lebanon, including the heavily damaged south, but all are safe.
The Sahiounys have been in the Hamra section of Beirut, near where Israeli jets have bombed.
"You cannot find words to describe the amount of destruction," Sahiouny said. "It's just horrible and the human suffering as well. People losing their homes. Especially in the southern part of Lebanon, many villages were just totally destroyed. Definitely lots of casualties. And the sad part is the children affected by this."
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