The lean season was once a season of despair for many families in Karofane, a village in rural Niger. Halima,* a mother of ten, would watch hopelessly as her children grew thin and weak. Their hair would turn brittle and bleached—common signs of malnutrition. “I would take them to the traditional healer, but still they…
God Is at Work in Benin’s Furthest Reaches
In the early morning the long wooden boats motored gently across Nokoue Lake, past the small craft propelled by colorful sails, past the fishermen tending and mending large traps, toward the water dwellings of Ganvie. Secured in the wooden craft were hundreds of Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts destined for an outreach event at a…
Biography: Edward Graham
Volunteers at Work in Central Texas; Disaster Relief Unit En Route to Battered Louisiana
UPDATED March 24 Samaritan’s Purse is responding in two locations following a severe storm system that swept across the south Monday and Tuesday, spawning deadly tornadoes. Hundreds of homes were damaged along the storm’s destructive path across Texas and Louisiana. In Chalmette, Louisiana, we have staff on the ground working with local officials, emergency management,…
A Father in Heaven
Claudia Molina has helped pack hundreds of shoebox gifts in her time as a project leader for Operation Christmas Child, and with each box, her prayer remains the same: that God would use each gift to touch a child’s heart, just as He did hers. As a little girl in the central neighborhood of San…
Shoebox Packers Go From Devastation to Celebration
She peered through a busted window into the church basement and saw that floodwaters from Hurricane Helene had left a muddy mess. The Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift items that First Baptist Church of Damascus, Virginia, had collected during the year were now wet and filthy. Jaz, age 11, saw something that gave her hope—a…