As Father’s Day is marked on different dates across the world this month, SAT-7’s CEO Rita El-Mounayer reflects on her childhood during Lebanon’s civil war and the long-lasting impact of her own father on who – and where – she is today.
Rita shared her story with Liz Wright’s Live Your Best Life podcast, which you can watch in full HERE.
Following the loss of her mother to illness when Rita was only seven, her father played an especially important role in her life and that of her younger sister. While the young girls received care from other family members, it was their dad’s love that left a lasting impression.
“My dad was a great example in the lives of my sister and me,” Rita said. “In the middle of all the killing and shells and bombs… there was a lot of shattered glass falling on us. He wanted to protect us, so he would come and shelter us with his body, trying to protect us from harm. And this gave me a beautiful picture of God the Father, that He’s always there to protect; He’s always there to give me security.”
Television and Education
Rita’s dad was also instrumental in shaping her future work and ministry: firstly, in giving her a love for television; and secondly, through the sacrifices he made for her education.
“When the bombs were really loud outside, he would come to our bunker or the safest place in the house and bring the television set,” Rita said. “We didn’t have electricity, so he would hook it up to a car, and this is how we grew to love television, because it was a kind of refuge for us through all these years of war.”
Rita would go on to become one of the very first presenters on SAT-7, hosting the short children’s slot in the early two-hour weekly broadcasts.
But before then, the education she received equipped her for one day becoming the CEO of an international ministry. “We were a very poor family: sometimes I would go to school with a hole in my shoe,” Rita recalled. “My dad was borrowing money to give us a good education, telling us that education for girls is a weapon for them in the future… Where I am today is because of the education I had.”
Love for Children
In the podcast, Rita also shared about her early days as a children’s presenter with SAT-7 and how the Lord gave her a powerful vision, which enabled her to overcome the doubts she had about her suitability for the role.
“I started praying, and I said, ‘Lord, why are you putting me in a situation like this? I don’t know how to reach children in other parts of the Arab world; I don’t know these children, and how will I serve them?’” Rita said.
“While I was closing my eyes and praying, God talked to my heart and told me, ‘I will let you see them,’ and I started seeing pictures of children running barefoot in the street eating ice cream and dropping it on their clothes… I felt that God had given me a love that hurts. He said, ‘Rita, this love that I’m going to give you for these children, it’s not your love for them – human love is limited; it will change tomorrow – but this love I’m going to give you is My love for them.’”
And that love for the children of the Middle East and North Africa continues to this day, although Rita now serves SAT-7 in a different capacity. She explained, “I don’t have children, but each time somebody asks me if I have children, I say, ‘Yes, I have around 150 million children!’”
