Pastor Soja knew that there were two words the Bara people group never wanted to hear: “Jesus” and “prayer.” Made up of more than a million people, this ethnic group inhabits southern Madagascar, the island nation off the east coast of Africa. Cattle rustlers by trade, they marked themselves by thievery, violence, and isolation. Fifteen…
Operation Christmas Child
Age Is No Obstacle for Shoebox Packing
Leila Mae Cummings’ favorite activity is to pack Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts. This 98-year-old resident of Greensboro, North Carolina, packed hundreds of them this year because she has a heart for children and hard work. “Growing up on the farm, I can’t ever remember a time when I didn’t have a job to do,”…
Operation Christmas Child
Reaching the Deaf Community in the Country of Georgia
Pastor Paata has a big goal: to reach every family that includes a deaf person in the country of Georgia with the Good News of Jesus Christ. And he’s found a great tool to start conversations with deaf children or a hearing child of deaf parents—Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts. Paata, who is deaf, said…
As Our Work Continues, a Fourth Airlift Carries Teams, Supplies to Caribbean
In our ongoing and expanding relief efforts in four Caribbean locations, multiple DC-8 airlifts to Carriacou and Jamaica have carried in relief and medical supplies and personnel. We praise God for how He continues to work through our staff and partner churches to bring hope to hurting communities and remind Caribbean islanders that they are…
Crisis & Disaster Response
An Orange Wave of Help Arrives for Swannanoa
Steve struggled to keep his pickup truck driving straight on a road he couldn’t see. When the evacuation alert had sounded just minutes earlier, he had woken his 15-year-old son Aiden, and the pair had dashed out of their house. Now they were fighting to find safety as the flooding caused by Hurricane Helene swallowed…
Operation Christmas Child
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…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Helping Homeowners After Flooding in Spain
Our Disaster Assistance Response Team is hard at work in eastern Spain after the region received over a foot of rain on October 29, causing the Magro and Turia river basins and the Poyo canal to overflow. The flash flooding claimed the lives of over 200 people and an unknown number are still missing. As…
Operation Christmas Child
Wheaton College Students Partner with Operation Christmas Child in Ecuador
Students from Wheaton College traveled to Ecuador in December with Operation Christmas Child, coming alongside the local church to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and joining in the joy as children pealed open their one-of-a-kind shoebox gifts. Samaritan’s Purse has long worked in Ecuador, first delivering gift-filled shoeboxes there in 1997 and in…
Love Overflows in Eastern Kentucky
The strewn debris and trash still hanging from the barren trees in Brandt Justice’s backyard stand as stark reminders of how high the waters rose when floods ravaged his small Kentucky community last week. In the early hours of Feb. 16, the small tributary behind his home suddenly swelled and climbed to the tips of…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Pack Animals Gifted to Carolina Organization Helping with Helene Relief
A February storm had softened the ground considerably and loosened the roots on an old poplar tree. Wind gusts finished it off. Mike and Michele Toberer were hours out of town when the timber fell and broke a large opening into a fence holding their mules. Three of them escaped into the highway. “That was…
