For more than 30 years, Samaritan’s Purse has worked in close partnership with churches around the world. Whether we are responding to a devastating storm here in the United States or a war or famine in Africa, we have found there’s no better way to meet the urgent physical and spiritual needs than through the local church.

The closing words in our mission statement are the bottom line in everything we do: Samaritan’s Purse serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the best examples of church partnership is our Operation Christmas Child project. Right now, tens of thousands of churches in the United States and other Western countries are helping to pack and collect millions of shoe boxes with gifts for hurting children. In the weeks ahead, local churches in more than 100 countries around the world will hand out these gifts.

Not only will these gifts delight the kids—including many who have never received a Christmas present—but they also are ideal ways for churches to tell children and their families about God’s greatest gift, His Son, Jesus Christ.

Along with the shoe box gifts, Samaritan’s Purse provides Gospel storybooks in dozens of languages so that the children and their families can read about Jesus. Then we offer a Bible study program that churches have used to lead hundreds of thousands of children to faith in Christ.

Sometimes God even uses Operation Christmas Child to plant a church. One of them is in a Gypsy settlement in Macedonia, a small country bordering Greece not far from where the Apostle Paul introduced the Gospel to Europe in Acts 16.

The pastor is a man named Sokrat Apostolovski who was walking along a riverbank near the town of Saraj when he encountered a group of the Roma people, as the Gypsies are more properly called. These are the outcasts of Europe, many living in crowded and filthy shacks, begging for money, and scavenging food from trash dumps. The only religion they know is superstition.

Pastor Sokrat arranged to bring shoe box gifts for the Roma children. The families were so touched by this simple gesture of compassion that they begged him—like the man in Paul’s vision of Macedonia—to come back and teach them about Jesus. Now, dozens of them have become Christians, and they have set up a little house church where they gather every Sunday to sing, pray, and hear Pastor Sokrat preach from the Bible.

A Milestone in Sudan

No churches need or deserve our help more than the ones in southern Sudan, where Christians have endured decades of persecution. Under the fragile peace agreement, people returning from exile are struggling to rebuild their homes, farms, and villages, while Samaritan’s Purse has taken responsibility for reconstructing church sanctuaries that were destroyed by the government.

We reached a milestone last month when one of our crews completed the 200th church built by Samaritan’s Purse. Over 100 of those have opened in the last nine months. This Sunday, tens of thousands of people in southern Sudan will be worshiping in churches rebuilt by Samaritan’s Purse. We still have at least 150 churches that are awaiting our help.

“These churches are a sign of resurrection in our country,” said a church leader named Daniel Deng Bul. “We were completely destroyed. It touches the hearts of the people to see the church and know that we are back from zero.”

Building up the church involves much more than construction, of course. Samaritan’s Purse has reopened an old missionary school to train pastors to replace those who were martyred, and we’ve handed out a quarter of a million Bibles across southern Sudan.

“During the war, we didn’t have Bibles,” said a pastor named Samuel Lynn. “Now we are able to preach and teach God’s Word to our people.”

In Darfur and other parts of Sudan, where there are almost no churches, more than 100,000 people depend on Samaritan’s Purse for food, medical care, and other services. We help them unconditionally, praying that God will touch their hearts through our work. We want to earn a hearing for the Gospel and someday see churches planted among them.

No Time to Waste

When Samaritan’s Purse began organizing a Christian response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, our strategy was to work through the local church. In Africa and elsewhere, churches have the moral authority to shape behavior, the compassion to care for those who are sick or orphaned, and the promise of eternal life for those who are dying.

In eastern Africa, our Prescription for Hope program has been able to train 18,000 church leaders who have reached over 540,000 youth with Bible-based messages on how they can halt the spread of the deadly virus as they care for the sick and share the hope of the Gospel in their communities.

In Cambodia, a new Christian named Nou Nan organized a church in his village and asked Samaritan’s Purse for help dealing with the threat of AIDS in the community. In these situations, we teach Biblical principles such as faithfulness, forgiveness, and compassion before dealing with the details of the disease.

The lesson on forgiveness touched Nou’s heart, and as he forgave old grudges against his neighbors, God opened doors for him to share the Gospel. Now families are flocking to his church and dozens have been saved.

“Samaritan’s Purse set a very good example for me and my church, and I thank the Lord for their efforts,” he said.

These are troubled times, millions of people desperately need to hear the Gospel, and church networks are usually the fastest and most effective way to reach them. We don’t have time to waste.

As Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4, NIV).

In this season of thanksgiving, all of us at Samaritan’s Purse—not to mention our church partners in places like Macedonia, Sudan and Cambodia—are especially grateful for your faithful prayers and generous support. May God richly bless you.

Sincerely,

President
Samaritan's Purse

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