PERU: Gifts Make Eternal Impact

When she was nine years old, Zandra Fausto was invited to a church where she lived in one of the poorest districts in Peru to receive a neatly wrapped shoe box from Operation Christmas Child. Inside she found notebooks, candy, a toothbrush, and a calculator - which she still has over a decade later.

There's another thing she still holds onto from that day - her relationship with Jesus Christ. "They told me we received the gifts because of Jesus," she said. "As a child, I thought, ‘How could Jesus do that?' It was because of wonderful people who serve Jesus."

Zandra is now a university student, the music minister at her church in Lima, Peru, and a Sunday school teacher. She also serves as a translator for our Operation Christmas Child teams in Peru and can often be seen talking to children as they open their boxes, helping them read through the Christian literature offered with each box and telling them about the greatest gift of all - Jesus.

INDIA: Forgiveness from the Heart of an Abused Boy

Suraj, 7, and his brother Sanjay, 9, wound up in the streets of Shillong, India, after their father died of alcohol-related causes and their mother became abusive. When Suraj went to the hospital with a large gash on his head, police suspected he had been beaten by his own mother.

A local pediatrician named Dr. Mang who had once taught the boys in Sunday school rushed to the hospital and brought the brothers to Iingsara Shi, a children's home supported through our Samaritan Children's Fund. Rescued from the streets and surrounded by people who care for them, the boys returned to Dr. Mang's class, where they accepted Jesus as their Savior.

Four months later, Suraj returned to the hospital - this time to visit his mother, who was dying of tuberculosis. Though she had hurt him in so many ways, he wanted to share with her the love he'd found in Christ.

His mother was so frail that she did not stir when her sons entered the room. Dr. Mang watched as the brothers went to her bedside and prayed for God to forgive their mother. "After they prayed, she opened her eyes," Dr. Mang said. "God gave her a chance to speak to them. She asked for forgiveness from the children and asked forgiveness from God."

She died early the next morning, but her sons are convinced that she found peace with God and is now in heaven.

MONGOLIA: Mended Hearts

Through our Children's Heart Project, Samaritan's Purse has been able to bring over 450 children to North America for life-giving heart surgery that is not available in their home countries. Among them are Bajka and Choijka, 16-year-old boys from Mongolia, a remote country between China and Russia. The Children's Heart Project covered the cost of airfare for the boys, their mothers, and a translator to fly halfway around the world to San Antonio for surgery at Methodist Children's Hospital.


Read more about Bajka and Choijka in our story, ‘The Language of Our Hearts Is the Same'.

Staying with a local Christian family while they prepared for surgery, the boys were fascinated by Bible stories told by their translator. Two days before surgery, even though they were up past midnight, the boys insisted on hearing a Scripture passage before they went to bed.

The translator read the third chapter of John and explained the story of Nicodemus' late-night visit to Jesus. "You can do the same thing Jesus asked Nicodemus to do - to be born again. You can ask Jesus to live in your heart," she said.

"Is it that simple?" asked Bajka. "Do you think He will come?" The translator smiled. "Yes," she said, "it is that simple, and He will come." She shared her personal testimony of asking Jesus into her heart.

The boys and their mothers said they wanted to know Jesus, too. They knelt in prayer and received Christ as their Savior. After successful surgeries, Bajka and Choijka were baptized on Palm Sunday before they returned to Mongolia.

JORDAN: ‘Let the Little Children Come to Me'

For over 50 years, Aileen Coleman has been ministering to the Bedouin tribes in the kingdom of Jordan. She runs a tuberculosis hospital that is a beacon for the Gospel in the spiritual darkness of the Middle East.



At an age when most of us would be ready to retire, she felt God calling her to open a home for babies who needed special care. Even before she had facilities or staff, the Lord brought her children.

First she was asked to care for a five-pound newborn boy named Omer whose mother nearly died in childbirth. Then she received a call from a panicked father whose wife had left him and their baby daughter, Miriam. In both cases, the children have thrived under her loving care, and Aileen has been able to show God's love to their families.

"Maybe without knowing it, these families heard the call in Luke 18:16: ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these,'" Aileen said. "May His kingdom come in these desert lands through the hands that serve Him in this new baby home."

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