Freezing Temperature in JLSS Going Down to -5 Cº 
JLSS 16 January 2008

Our region is experiencing very strange weather. The temperature is very cold going down to -5 Cº. Water turns into ice in minutes even during the day. Some of the homes of our employees do not get running water before 2.00 PM as the water is frozen in the pipes. We had a few pipes bursting. The strange thing is that we did not have a drop of rain or any snow for over a month now. Schneller residents are very fortunate as most of our buildings are equipped with central heating. We have to economize on diesel consumption to compensate for the rise in prices, but the extremely cold weather is not helping us. People in our region are really suffering as most of them cannot afford to buy diesel oil to heat their homes. Some have resorted to using wood for heating and this is very sad as the wood is coming from trees that are being cut. This will cause enormous damage on the very few green areas left in Lebanon, especially after the very bad fires last Summer. Our students discovered a spectacular sight this morning in our Biblical Garden when a part of the garden was discovered to be totally covered with ice. The sight of the plants and the ice was of incredible beauty. Upon investigating this phenomenon we discovered that one of the water sprinklers was left running all night and the freezing temperature slowly worked a beautiful art sculpture during the night. We hope and pray that we will soon have rain and snow as this very dry winter may leave us with very serious consequences next summer.