Rita Elmounayer; A Rare Gem In The Middle East

I met Rita at the 2015 Forvandling (Transformation) women conference in Copenhagen two weekends ago with a theme title; Imperfectly Perfect. It was an amazing conference with great speakers Like Jen DeWeerdt, Merete Tangstad, Mildred Osias, Karin Kuhl, Abs Niblock, Marianne Riis and Jørn Hyldgaard. And a special guest who entertained us with some music; Martin Smith. It was the best conference I have ever attended...,all because it was about us "women".., it was about embracing our imperfections to be perfect. It was about women who are perfect in their imperfections.

We had different sessions that were taking part at the same time in different rooms, and I decided to attend the one Rita Elmounayer was going to be holding. I followed her simply because she was described in the brochure as, " an inspirational and strong woman who works with Christian television in the Middle East". That alone, caught my eyes and I got interested in what this woman was going to talk about..,I mean, we are all aware with what has been going on in the Middle East for many years. Being born and later grow up in this part of the world cant be easy, I can only imagine how hard it is facing the unknown of tomorrow. But there is HOPE.

Lets meet Rita Elmounayer, a woman who was born in this part of the world.., She was born in Lebanon and she lived through the violence of the Lebanese Civil war. As a young girl, with her sister, she found refuge in television cartoons, she hoped one day to get involved in media to bring joy to children just as cartoons had done for her..,while broadcasting hope in Christ. She grew up with a fear for tomorrow..,wondering whether her dad would come back home after seeing him off to war. I would only imagine how terrifying it must have been for her, but God had a plan for her. From a young age, she decided that she wanted to give hope to the children and the people in the Middle East through media. In 1992, She began her media career as a radio host and producer with Eastern Broadcasting Associates and later joined SAT-7 in 1995.

SAT-7 is a Christian satellite television network broadcasting in Arabic, Persian and Turkish across 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, along with about 50 countries in Europe. SAT-7 was founded in 1995 as a non-profit organisation with support from a majority of Middle Eastern Churches.

Rita Elmounayer joined SAT-7 in the very year they started, it had a single program at a time. When the channel was launched, Rita hosted and produced its first program, Ears Of Wheat, this program ran for 12 years and became one of the channel's most successful programs. In 2004, she became the programming director for all children's programs on SAT-7 and she also became the programming director for all Arabic programs. In 2007, Rita's dream of launching the first independent, Arabic Christian channel for children became a reality. And in 2008, Rita Elmounayer was named the executive director for SAT-7 Arabic and SAT-7 Kids, followed by SAT-7 Plus in 2010.

At the conference, she showed us the following video that has gone viral on the Internet and made most of us tear up at the conference. Indeed, there is HOPE in the Middle East. It all starts with one person, one dream and hope.. And leave the rest to God. Lets continue praying for peace in the Middle East and continue praying for women like Rita. We need more women like her to step up and let God use them as the vessel to bring peace and love in our world. YES! There is still HOPE!

 CONTINUE WITH THE GOOD WORK RITA. MAY GOD ALWAYS BE WITH YOU. 

Below is a picture of me and Rita Elmounayer at the 2015 Forvandling "Transformation" women conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. I must admit, its not the best picture of me., but Rita looked stunning!

With Rita Elmounayer at the past "Transformation" women Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.