Ten billion dollars in estimated losses, one third of the country's infrastructure reported completely destroyed, hundreds of casualties, 750,000 displaced Lebanese, hundreds of families without refuge sleeping in open air areas. This is but a brief description of the situation in Lebanon after 14 days of fierce bombing, which has destroyed what reconstructed after the end of civil war 15 years ago. Unfortunately, we are now seeing our dream of a beautiful Lebanon fading away, with little chance that it will ever come true.

Naturally this situation has affected our operation in the SAT-7 Lebanon Bureau. SAT-7 is the ten-year-old Christian satellite television station broadcasting throughout the Middle East. Due to the fighting, our staff morale is very low. In spite of all of this, most of our staff are still coming regularly to the office, even if they carry worried thoughts and distracted minds.

Because of the danger, children, and many other guests can no longer come to our studio to record programs. We are unable to deliver tapes for broadcast regularly. In the past it only took about two days for SAT-7 to ship programs from Beirut to the SAT-7 broadcast center in Cyprus. That is no longer possible because the airport has been bombed, the port is closed, and many roads are destroyed. It is possible to send some programs directly from Lebanon to Cyprus via a rented satellite uplink, but the direct transmission service is often sold out and is simply too expensive to allow SAT-7 to send all of its Lebanese-made programs to Cyprus in that manner.

Still, our team decided to continue to create programs. We have produced special programs about the condition in the country by covering the humanitarian efforts. Our cameramen and ...