The bike ride through the path of deep sand to Kitomondo takes Pastor Marco Kayumbo more than two hours to negotiate. He prays and sings to pass the time. Kitomondo is a rural community outside Tanzania’s largest city of Dar es Salaam, and it’s where Pastor Marco started a church almost two years ago. It…
A Hope That Endures
Bat-Ulzii had lost the will to live. After passing out during a school track and field practice in Mongolia at age 13, he was diagnosed with holes in his heart that would prohibit him from running or even walking without difficulty. He was angry and ashamed about his physical weakness, not having enough energy to…
Nine Children Take Special Flight Home to Mongolia After Life-Saving Heart Surgeries
Nine mothers, along with their nine children, boarded the Samaritan’s Purse DC-8 aircraft this morning in Greensboro, North Carolina, happy to be heading home to Mongolia after spending the last several months in North America. They came as part of our Children’s Heart Project to correct congenital heart defects in their little ones. Most came…
Motorcyclists Support Veterans at 10th Annual Warrior Ride
The 10th annual High Country Warrior Ride, held May 15, raised significant financial support for Operation Heal Our Patriots, the Samaritan’s Purse ministry to military couples with a spouse wounded in combat operations after 9/11. “We want these warriors to know that God loves them. And that’s the message that Samaritan’s Purse is all about.…
Strengthening Military Marriages
Military Families Continue to Give Back
When Marine Staff Sergeant Curtis Fowler walked on his own for the first time in two years his family praised God for a healing that once seemed impossible. Curtis had been unable to walk normally after something went wrong during a procedure to repair a decade-old back injury suffered in Iraq. Curtis went into the…
Operation Heal Our Patriots Encourages Both Spouse and Injured Warrior
Varalin never anticipated that the impact of her husband’s wartime brain injuries could be so devastating—that expressing any kind of emotion would become nearly impossible for him. “After 13 years of marriage, he still struggles to tell me how he’s feeling,” Varalin said. “He has to choose every day to feign emotion. He doesn’t laugh…
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…
Shoebox Letter Prompts Girl in Mexico to Receive Christ
Jazmin had been longing for a doll of her own. When she received one at age 6 in an Operation Christmas Child shoebox, she thanked God for the gift. “It was very exciting,” Jazmin, now 17, recalled. “It wasn’t only a doll, it was a princess doll. I didn’t have anything like it. I thought…
Young Central Asian Shepherds Receive Shoebox Gifts
A simple drive through the countryside can become something special. Yusif*, a volunteer leader in Central Asia with Operation Christmas Child, was traveling with several team members to a ministry meeting when he spotted two shepherd boys tending their flock near the highway. Remembering that he had some gift-filled shoeboxes as well as copies of…






























