Doug Chester and his family in Granite Falls, North Carolina, bring Christmas joy to their community each year through a festive light show on their property. When people started to give money to help with the display, Doug decided that he wanted the donations to go to Operation Christmas Child. So, he created a cheerful,…
Operation Christmas Child
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…
Operation Christmas Child
The Power of a Shoebox Packed with Love and Prayer
Ivanna Ramos was looking for a miracle. Ivanna, 12, lives with her single mother and three siblings down a dusty dirt road on the island of Roatán, Honduras. Her father left the family years ago, after lots of “arguments and fighting,” she said. “We always had problems for no reason.” The conflicts and her dad’s…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Thanking God for a New Home at Christmas
It’s almost unbelievable that Earnestine Reese survived the EF4 tornado that barreled through Lee County, Alabama, on March 3, 2019—killing 23 people, leveling neighborhoods, and displacing families. As the storm hit, she huddled in her bathroom with her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, praying for God’s protection. The twister tore directly over their house, ripping off…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Helping in the Wake of the Derecho
There’s often a whirlwind inside Jaime Richardson’s home where she and her husband, Chris, care for their 15 adopted children in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Most days are a swirl of activity with that many kids around, several having special needs including cerebral palsy, autism, seizure disorders, and one confined to a bed for most of…
Health & Medical Ministries
Ava’s March for Hearts
Ava Evans knows that not every child around the world has the chances at life that she’s had. She was diagnosed with a ventricular septal defect, a hole in her heart, when she was born. It was corrected through surgery. “God gave me an opportunity to be here and be alive and live for Him,”…
Operation Christmas Child
Angola
Located on the western coast of Africa, Angola is known for its natural resource of oil as well as its recent recovery from decades of civil war. Operation Christmas Child began delivering gift-filled shoeboxes to children in this nation in 1997 and many have participated in our follow-up discipleship program, The Greatest Journey, since we…
Bringing Relief to Fleeing Ukrainians
An elderly couple wearily recounted the story of fleeing their home, feeling that they had just escaped with their lives. “We ran from the bombs. The first bombs came on our buildings,” the wife recounted. “We just decided to flee to anywhere else that was safe. Anywhere our eyes could see. Our region was bombed…
A Lifeline for the Conflict-Weary in Ukraine
As bombs continue to rain down over cities across Ukraine, Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief specialists on the ground remain committed to meeting the rapidly growing physical and spiritual needs of families in crisis. We have five medical facilities operating throughout the country, and a robust non-medical relief response as well. Our teams are laboring around…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Packed with Prayer and Hope for Kids in Ukraine
Samaritan’s Purse is delivering backpacks filled with special gifts to displaced children in Ukraine. These backpacks are filled with carefully selected items such as winter caps, simple toys, sketchpads/notebooks, crayons, and small teddy bears stenciled with a message of God’s love written in Ukrainian. These supplies are accompanied by booklets translated into Ukrainian—one containing encouraging…
