Dear John

Greetings in Jesus name

Nice to know you. I have visited your mother sister

Mary lee few years ago in San Diego. I am Ghassan

Khalaf a Lebanese a Baptist. I have been told about

Najib Khalaf by his sister Athena who was a member at

the same church I go to in Beirut. I have met your

grandmother May when she visited Beirut in mid

seventies, your mother too visited Lebanon at that

time.

It happened that as Athena used to speak to me about

Najib; I was so impressed by his personality and

commitment to God and his country Lebanon. I started

to gather information about Najib from old magazines

and newspapers and lips of those who knew him. I have

collected enough material to compose his biography.

Najib was a Baptist minister and a famous lawyer. He

was a man of literature. A poet. He had written a

dictionary of the Arabic language that exceeds 30,000

pages, with an intruduction to the Arabic language

that exceeds 3,500 pages.

He also translated the New Testament with the help of

Bishop Boulos Abou Adal who was an expert in Greek.

They finished their work in 1923.

The manuscript of the translation is entrusted to the

Arab Baptist Theological Seminary. I am now the

president of ABTS and we are now processing it into

the computer in order to publish it later.

Your grandfather Najib died in 1944 and I was born in

1945. Since I am also a dictionary-concordance

compiler and New Testament translator and Baptist

pastor and a man of literature and a Khalaf and a

Lebanese, I feel because of these similarities that I

am called by God to care for publishing his books and

keep his legacy.

This is just an introduction. I am ready to answer any

questions you may have.

Greetings to sister Mary Lee

Cordially

Ghassan Khalaf