Newsletter January 2026
From Hard Questions to Eternal Hope
On the day of Adeni’s birth, his mother, Ropani, was shocked to see the splayed lip on her newborn son. The technology for detecting such malformations before birth was not available in the maternal child clinic in her small village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In many rural Congolese communities, a child born…
Children in the Pacific Take The Greatest Journey of Their Lives
If Vanua Levu isn’t the end of the Earth, it’s close. Rugged and isolated, the slender island is located 1,100 nautical miles northeast of New Zealand in the South Pacific, just east of the Coral Sea. It’s one of the 330 specks on the map that make up the Fiji archipelago. Ignored by most of…
A Tribute to the DC-8
My name is Joe Proffitt and I have had the honor and privilege to be a flight engineer aboard this beautiful aircraft, the Mighty DC-8, for the past five and a half years. McDonnell Douglas produced 554 DC-8s. Samaritan’s Purse was blessed to operate the last one registered in the United States. In 2014, during…
Official Statement on Mansa, Zambia
A blog that was published in 2017 has recirculated stating that in a province in Zambia, pastors were charged money for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. We promptly investigated and were disappointed to find that this incident was true. We have made changes in our global national training program to emphasize that this cannot happen. Shoebox…
Year-round Volunteer: Encouraging Students to Serve Children Around the World
Operation Christmas Child Latino Night
Families Learn About Jesus Together in Mexico
As children around the world receive Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts and are invited to learn more about Jesus Christ through The Greatest Journey discipleship program, many parents are curious to find out what their children are learning. This is especially true if the adults themselves know little about Him. Soon, whole families are studying…





!["The Mighty DC-8 has been [God's] instrument taking the Gospel message of Jesus Christ throughout the world," writes Joe Proffitt, a flight engineer with Samaritan's Purse, as the legendary plane is decommissioned.](https://spweb-uploads.s3.theark.cloud/2025/11/HS-1-320x273.jpg)





