Operation Christmas Child
Vladimir and the Toy Car
Vladimir and the Toy Car "How could something as small as a toy car teach me about God’s love?" When I was 9 years old I essentially lost my family. My mother died, and my father’s alcoholism made it difficult for him to raise me. In Ukraine it was tough to find enough work to…
Operation Christmas Child
Alina and the Princess Shoes
Alina and the Princess Shoes "The shoebox made me realize that Jesus hadn’t abandoned me. It was a representation of His love for me." Alina received a shoebox as a child in a Central Asian country. My family and I had what we needed, but gifts were a luxury we didn’t always get. So when…
Operation Christmas Child
Mariya and Her Art Supplies
Mariya and Her Art Supplies Mariya Snizhko dreamed of becoming an artist even as she grew up in a Christian home in Ukraine. Art was a way for her to express herself and escape the various challenges in her life, which included being bullied at school. Her parents couldn’t afford basic art supplies, so Mariya…
Operation Christmas Child
Elizabeth and a Stuffed Animal
Elizabeth and a Stuffed Animal An illustration of Jesus Christ with outstretched arms made a lasting impression on me. My two younger sisters and I were removed from our home in Latvia when I was 7. Someone at school had noticed that we weren’t being taken care of by our parents. It was because they…
Animals, Agriculture & Livelihoods
Meet the People of Guidan Gado
Auta’s skin is dark and taut with valleys of worry and determination etched into her forehead. She is 58, and her husband died three decades ago. She sits on a small rock outside her home in a village in Niger, West Africa, and holds a wiggly granddaughter as she speaks. Around her, she sees a…
Health & Medical Ministries
Mother, Daughter Receive Christ After Surgery
Khaliunaa didn’t just fear death, the thought of eternity filled her with dread. The Mongolian mother believed that no one could be good enough to go to Heaven and that eternal damnation was everyone’s fate. The prospect of her daughter, Tserendulam or “Dulma” for short, dying young from a heart defect diagnosed at birth sent…
Our Ministry
Journey to a New Heart
If you’d seen Francis play with his friends in the early days of his illness, he would have seemed like many other little boys living in Uganda. He loved airplanes, admired Spider-Man, and was known to be a little stubborn—a trait he got away with by making those around him laugh. But there was something…
Feeding Programs
Fleeing from Boko Haram
Editor’s Note: Names have been changed throughout this article to protect identities. In the Diffa region of southeastern Niger, there is little sound. Apart from the side-to-side rocking of the moving Land Cruiser and subtle shifting of sand in the wind, the sun beats down on a sparse landscape largely devoid of movement. Motorcycles are…
Children's Ministries
Healing in Christ Alone
Victor loved the metal walker that his father, Richard, had crafted for him. It gave the 18-month-old the freedom and mobility that he otherwise wouldn’t have had to explore his thatched roof home and the surroundings of his Ugandan village. Richard had used what was available to piece the walker together, including bottle caps as…
Animals, Agriculture & Livelihoods
Beekeeping Project Lifts Families in Kenya Out of Poverty
When Samaritan’s Purse staff met David, he was struggling to provide for his wife and two children in their poor village in Kenya. He worked hard as a farmer, but it wasn’t enough to keep the family out of poverty. “I had lost hope of educating my children,” David said, as he couldn’t afford their…
