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(Malawi) Jovita’s Story
Jovita lives in Malawi and is a mother of four children. She was widowed in 2004 when her husband was murdered. Some months after, she developed epilepsy. Once, this caused her to fall unconscious and lose many of her fingers in a fire. The home where she lived was in disepair and unsuitable for her and her family. When World Relief empowered local churches in the area with curriculum for addressing poverty, people became awakened to the needs of their community. Some neighbors realized they needed to serve Jovita, so they came together and built her a new home. How powerful is an empowered church in the lives of the most vulnerable!
(India) Pastor Daniel’s Story
This is Pastor Daniel Jayachandran, a local pastor in India. He is pictured with his wife, Amutha and their three children. In 2012, he attended World Relief’s Families for Life training and was so moved by the message of healthy marriages that he appointed a new pastor over his church and moved to an unreached area to plant new churches. He disciples other pastors and trains them using the Families for Life curriculum. These pastors often go on to reach thousands of congregation members and people living with HIV. We are proud to empower pastors like Daniel who go on to change their communities with the holistic Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Empowering the Local Church in Mozambique: Mrs. Cristina’s Story
The local Church is the best hope for transformation in Mozambique, where communities face deep spiritual and physical poverty. Life expectancy is 52.29 years because of the prevalence of diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. 52 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day. Environmental stressors like droughts and floods exacerbate these problems. After years of colonialism, war and socialism, the local Church in Mozambique is weak. Many church leaders lack training, sometimes combining Christianity with the worship of ancestors and other spirits. Pastors often share false information about diseases and extort congregation members, demanding payment in exchange for healing and forgiveness.
In Mozambique, World Relief seeks to restore the role of the local Church. Ten staff members are leading Spiritual Transformation groups in ten different villages, each group discipling 10-15 people, many of whom are local church leaders, once a week for three years. Scripture is taught through a pictorial Bible curriculum, as 54.9 percent of the population is illiterate. Currently, a total of 425 participants are being reached, but those who have “graduated” from the discipleship groups are also going on to form their own groups. The results are transformed families, congregations and communities.
Mrs. Cristina, a widow and 53 years of age, used to make a profit by preaching in her denomination, offering congregation members a distorted gospel that required sacrifices in exchange for healing. She and the other church leaders maintained an illusion about the cause of sickness and repayment for sins that led to their financial gain rather than spiritual transformation.
Through a discipleship group, Mrs. Cristina and the other church leaders realized they could not go on exploiting the congregation. They acknowledged that it is only by the blood of Christ and not by meaningless sacrifices of their own that people are saved. For Mrs. Cristina, accepting this truth meant she must take a huge risk. She was going against the beliefs of her denomination and finding a new source of income.
Now, this church is one of many positioned to be an agent of change in its community as the congregation is mobilized to meet the needs of the vulnerable, prevent poverty and address problems like disease and exploitation. This is a true example of how World Relief’s call to empower the local Church is vital for effectively serving the most vulnerable around the world.
Learn more about World Relief’s causes.
Find out how you can get involved with the work of World Relief.
Ending Poverty Means Ending Violence
“Without an end to the violence that plagues so many in slums, labor camps, brothels, villages, and neighborhoods, our work to end extreme poverty, stop senseless disease among children, and create sustainable economic solutions could erode and even altogether unravel.” –Stephan Bauman, President & CEO of World Relief
As World Relief empowers the local Church to serve the most vulnerable, we come face to face every day with the reality that poor people are extremely vulnerable to violence. Many of the countries in which we operate are war-torn and lack a just rule of law. Around the world, nearly 30 million children, women and men are held as forced labor slaves. One in 5 women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape – and sexual violence makes everyday activities like going to school, gathering water, using a communal restroom or taking public transport dangerous.
At World Relief, we see firsthand that those without protection often lack access to the opportunities, services and materials required to meet their most basic needs. In fact, four billion people – most of the world’s poorest people – live in places where their justice systems do not or cannot protect them from these crippling forms of violence. To advocate for the impoverished, we must also be advocates of peace and protection.
We are joining hands with our friends at International Justice Mission to address the violence directly contributing to poverty around the world. Today, IJM President Gary Haugan and co-author Victor Boutros are releasing their new book, The Locust Effect, to explain why the end of poverty requires the end of violence.
Learn more about The Locust Effect and ways to get involved with the fight for peace. Don’t miss IJM’s unforgettable new video showing what the world is up against as we work together to help the most vulnerable.
Empowering Vulnerable Farmers in Turkana, Kenya
World Relief’s mission, “empowering the local church to serve the most vulnerable,” is multi-faceted because Jesus instructs his disciples to share the good news of the Kingdom and meet people’s physical needs (Matthew 10:7-8). For the most vulnerable in Kenya, there is great physical and spiritual poverty, and World Relief is responding.According to the USAID, Kenya’s “relatively high per capita income level hides the fact that 50 percent of the population is living in poverty” (2013). Seventy-five percent of Kenya’s workforce contributes to agricultural production (USAID, 2013). Kenya’s natural resources and high-potential growing areas give it the capacity for much greater productivity and higher farmer income; however, many farmers have limited access to water, practicing subsistence and rain-fed agriculture on small plots of land in poor soil. This makes their households vulnerable to poverty and hunger (USAID, 2013).
Turkana County is especially vulnerable. Located in the harsh arid region of northern Kenya, the Turkana people face extreme hunger and malnourishment as frequent drought brings crippling food shortages. Turkana has a population of 800 thousand, 60 percent of whom are nomadic pastoralists. Twenty percent are agro pastoralists, 12 percent are fishermen and the remaining 8 percent live in urban areas. World Relief is committed to investing in the long-term resilience of the people of Turkana by training farmers and providing the necessary seeds and tools for self-sufficiency.
In 2011, Turkana faced one of the worst food crises, the East African Food Crisis, when draught destroyed agricultural production and livestock. World Relief, partnering with several US churches, responded by providing monthly food rations for 2,500 beneficiaries over eight months and creating irrigation systems to supply water. Because World Relief believes the Gospel of Jesus Christ is Integral to these humanitarian efforts, it partnered with a local pastors’ fellowship that serves as a pillar in the community. Since then, U.S. church partners have helped train these local pastors to build ministry capacity and ultimately share the Gospel with unreached people.
In April 2012, these efforts transitioned from disaster response to a long-term agricultural program, designed to train the local community in proper growing techniques using irrigation systems and post-harvest marketing skills. The pastors’ fellowship, based in Lokitaung, leads the program by practicing the agricultural skills in their own farms and encouraging community members to do the same. Pastor Ewaton (back row, second from the left) and his wife, Elizabeth (back row, middle) have seen successful harvests since the start of the program, using their profits to pay their children’s school fees, buy food and invest in capital that will improve productivity in future harvests.
In Naoros, a man named Mr. Ekuwom began growing melons through the program. When his first yield was profitable, the rest of the community joined. At first, the farmers received seeds from World Relief, but now they recycle seeds from harvested melons and are encouraged to invest their income in higher quality seeds from local sellers.
In Karebur, Turkana, farmers have successfully planted cowpeas improved household nutrition. World Relief connects these farmers to market vendors so proceeds are readily available for their work, preventing households from dependency on relief food during draught.
World Relief hopes to see a transformed community in Turkana, one that is no longer marked by hunger, vulnerable to natural disaster or reliant on aid to achieve household food security. World Relief envisions a community that is empowered through its local Church to “live life to the full” (John 10:10) and provide for its most vulnerable members using sustainable, successful farming techniques.
Empowering Family Farmers in Haiti
Derivaux Lesson is a young entrepreneur from Gressier, Haiti. He has a wife and a seven year-old son. Before the tragic earthquake of January 2010, he used to provide public transportation as a source of income, which allowed him to buy his own car and build houses for his family. But when he lost everything in the earthquake, Derivaux was left with great debt, despair and pain. “I was worried about my honor, integrity and respect in the community. I saw no future for myself and my family,” he said.
After some time, Derivaux learned about World Relief’s work through local affiliate DANRE in developing value chains for farmers to help restore their livelihoods, generate revenue and establish economic sustainability. Through this program, World Relief provides farmers technique training, technical assistance and loans and improves their access to inputs and markets. Derivaux took out a loan from DANRE’s poultry program to start a small-scale business. Starting with only 100 chicks, Derivaux has since grown his business into a large barn that houses about 1,500 chickens.
“I am happy and proud for the support I received from DANRE,” said Derivaux, who has also just purchased two plots of land for vegetable production. “My economic situation is much better now than before.”
In 2012, Derivaux was able to go back to school. He aims to receive his high school diploma so he can attend college and become an agronomist while continuing to grow his own business.
Investing in agriculture has proven to increase the income of the poor in Haiti by 2.5 to 3 times. Agriculture growth in places like Haiti is the primary source of poverty reduction because it builds local capacity for transformational, lasting development (IFPRI, 2012). For World Relief, agriculture development is a vital aspect of empowering the local Church to serve the most vulnerable. We are excited to celebrate stories like that of Derivaux as we enter 2014, the International Year of Family Farming.
Philippines: Whatever Happens, We Will Praise You, O Lord!
Five days had passed since super typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines. Pastor Erly of Harvest Church in Ormoc City decided to hold Sunday service despite the fact that his own home was destroyed. The congregation gathered to worship in what remained of their church structure, which had been completely damaged. Only the stage remained, serving as a temporary campsite for five families who had fled their homes. The houses surrounding the church were destroyed.
The congregation is made up of about 38 sugarcane farmer households. Ormoc City belongs to one of the major sugarcane producing provinces in the Philippines and it was one of the worst hit by typhoon Haiyan. Already, sugar plantation workers are some of the poorest families in the Philippines. Poverty, illiteracy and malnutrition make them vulnerable to exploitation. Research by NSFW reveals that a member of a sugar worker family of 6 lives on PhP 2.35 ($USD 0.05) per meal. Even a mild typhoon, much worse a level 5 typhoon like Haiyan, can press these families further into pre-existing poverty (Deduro, 2005).
And yet, these families chose to worship, even in their devastation. In the midst of destruction, the congregation sang, in their Visayan language, “Whatever happens, we will still praise you.”
The PCEC/PhilRADS has listed this church and its community as one of the most vulnerable and has provided enough initial cash assistance to the pastor so he can feed these 38 families for one day. Church members were also administered trauma first aid. Pastor Erly and five of his church members received disaster response training and were prepared to help with rapid assessments, food aid distribution and emergency shelter construction.
Bishop Efraim Tendero, Executive Director for the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches and National Director for PhilRADS, says they must support pastors first, even
with small amounts of resources. He says, “They will be our field coordinators for proving food and shelter aid to their communities, in addition to providing pastoral care to their communities.”
This community of 1,007 families received emergency shelter kits because 97 percent of homes were totally destroyed. The larger community of Alta Vista also received food aid kits and emergency shelter kits, funded by Integral Alliance members World Relief, Cedarfund, and Tearfund Belgium. World Relief also provided technical assistance to the PCEC/PhilRADS and the growing network called the Philippine Evangelical Disaster Response Network (PEDRN).
World Relief believes that the best approach in the most extreme disasters is one that empowers local churches, like Harvest church, to serve the most vulnerable.
Learn more about our disaster response involvement with partners on the ground in the Philippines.
Donate to our Rapid Response Fund for the Philippines.
Give the gift of Disaster Response this Christmas through our Catalog of Hope.
Hope for Syrian Refugees | Refugee Crisis
According to the UNHCR, the Syrian Refugee Crisis is now one of the largest exoduses in human history, and it is only projected to escalate. As of September 2013, the UNHCR reports that the country’s unabated conflict has displaced over 2.2 million refugees. By the end of 2013, half of the Syrian population, including 3.45 million refugees and 6.8 million internally displaced people, will need humanitarian assistance.
Women and children comprise three-quarters of the refugee population and they are a particularly vulnerable group with unique needs. Women and girls have limited access to social protection and services and are at risk for various prevalent forms of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV). UNICEF reports that children make up 46 percent of the refugee population. Many are unaccompanied and in need of services that will reconcile them with family members. The conflict is also robbing children of education. One pastor (45) at a Baptist Church, asks for prayer for the youth in the MiddleEast. He says, “Over 60 percent of the population is 25 years and younger, and it’s not clear what the job opportunities will be for them.”
Refugees need health care to treat disease, infections, parasites and viruses that are prevalent in crowded refugee camps with poor sanitation. Refugees fleeing violence in Syria also need protection as they enter host countries and throughout their stay so that trauma and humiliation does not lead to violence, despair and conflict. Refugees need livelihood opportunities so that they do not resort to negative coping mechanisms like child labor, survival sex and child marriage to make up for a lack of earnings. They need adequate and dignified living arrangements, especially as the winter threatens those living in informal, makeshift shelters.
Current international aid for Syrian refugees is vastly insufficient compared to the need that exists. It is the largest appeal for humanitarian aid in history. World Relief knows that short-term, material provision will not in and of itself restore the brokenness that exists. The needs of Syrian Refugees are physical, psychological, relational, spiritual and long-lasting, and they must be addressed as such.
Based on a recent assessment and through coordination with partners already working on the ground, we have entered into the process of discovering our role in responding to this complex disaster. We aim to empower local and US churches to take action as we assess and address through word and deed the integral needs of Syrian refugees. We acknowledge that as followers of Christ, we share much in common with foreigners who live as aliens in a place they do not belong. According to Matthew 2:13-15, Jesus Himself was a refugee whose family sought political asylum in Egypt to avoid the infanticide ordered by King Herod. We believe in the promise of John 10:10, that Jesus has come to bring life to the full, which is manifested in peace, restoration and wholeness that is physical, spiritual and relational.
Programs would include training for Christian counselors from local Church communities to provide trauma counseling for victims of the Syrian War; support for children and youth that have been separated from their families during the crisis and are in danger of being trafficked; and partnership with local organizations and churches to provide non-food items like hygiene kits, cooking utensils, bedding/blankets, etc. to displaced Syrian refugees and their host families. The need is urgent and we believe the Church is the best hope for lasting transformation.
Learn more about our christian response and how you can pray for Syrian refugees.
Donate to disaster response for Syrian refugees
Learn how you can give the gift of restoration to the devastated this Christmas.
Thankful for Refugee Resettlement Volunteers
With the arrival of Thanksgiving, World Relief is excited to celebrate in thankfulness the thousands of volunteers and hundreds of churches volunteering time and resources to assist with refugee resettlement in the United States. Over the past 35 years, World Relief’s U.S. offices have resettled over 250,000 refugees from more than 80 nations. For every office, volunteers play an invaluable role in serving newly arrived refugees by providing mentorship, friendship and general assistance with transportation and navigating life in their new communities.
Welcoming refugees in the United States
The following testimonials are taken from volunteers at World Relief’s Sacramento office, which has been resettling refugees since 1982. While powerful, these are just a few of many stories about the mutual transformation occurring in Refugee Resettlement across the country.
Apartment Setup Volunteer – What can I say about the rewarding experience of working with World Relief and the refugee program? It started with nothing more than volunteering to deliver a meal to whomever the church said needed one. It has since grown into collecting and sorting donated household items and buying, as wisely as possible, whatever else is needed, along with setting up apartments and bringing the incoming families to these apartments. Although the above actions are exciting and enjoyable for me, the area of volunteering I look forward to the most is ongoing relationships with the new families. This Includes taking them to appointments, grocery shopping and doing anything I can to make them feel welcomed and loved in their new home. I have made several mistakes in all of these opportunities and yet the graciousness and thankfulness of the families keeps me motivated to continue serving them. What an easy way for us to share God’s love and follow His command to go and make disciples. We don’t have to go to the ‘outermost regions’ as some are called to do. Instead God has brought them to us. Thank you World Relief for your ministry.
“Road Runner” (Driver) Volunteer – With World Relief, I have been pleased to have the opportunity to assist refugees with some of their initial needs upon their arrival in Sacramento. The experience with World Relief has impressed upon me the vulnerability of these newcomers and the importance to them of volunteers and others that help them. From the comments of several of the refugees I’ve met, transportation is one of the challenges they face in Sacramento, as they don’t initially have their own cars and find public transportation, including school buses, to be limited.”
ESL Instructor – When a beginning ESL student first walks into my classroom, they can usually tell me their name, but not spell it. Beyond that, their English may consist of some common nouns and verbs strung together with no connector words to give grammatical sense to the sentence. As the teacher, that first day of Beginning ESL is a challenge. I don’t know anything about my students. They don’t know anything about me. The only way to get there, save for Google Translate, is by learning English. One of the most exciting moments in my classroom was a few weeks into our semester when I looked at the board and saw, not words or pictures, but twenty sentences that the students wrote themselves with their peers. As they wrote, they debated over the grammar and spelling and content of what they wanted to say and broke into fits of laughter when someone made a funny comment or mistake. I was overwhelmed when I realized that in only a few short weeks, we had moved from only communicating in smiles and hand gestures and being isolated from one another to talking to each other about our families, hobbies, clothes, likes and dislikes, and home countries. The students had built relationships with people from other cultures who didn’t speak their languages and had taught me about their own cultures and lives. Seeing this transformation helped to underscore the reason I teach them English. It is not about correct grammar or spelling, though those are important. It is about building relationships.
World Relief is thankful and proud to work alongside the empowered Body of Christ and thousands of volunteers across the United States as we join hands to serve vulnerable, newly-arrived refugees!
“We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3
Volunteer with Refugees in the U.S
World Relief in Burundi: Maternal & Child Health
In Burundi, approximately 58 percent of children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition. Malnutrition is associated with serious medical issues later in life as well as lower education attainment, lower earnings and more prevalent violence. It is a result of poor nutritional practices, limited access to food, minimal dietary diversity and chronic illness. Because 80 percent of Burundians live on less than $1.25 per day and have limited access to the most basic financial services, poverty compounds these vulnerabilities and contributes to a cycle of malnutrition in households.
World Relief is empowering the local church to serve the most vulnerable in Burundi and meet the holistic physical, spiritual and relational needs that exist. World Relief provides long-term training and supervision of staff and government officials, who in turn train Health Workers and mothers to promote better health practices in the community through behavioral transformation. Concurrently, World Relief works with the Ministry of Agriculture to train Community Health Workers on the operation and development of small gardens for women to grow food and improve household nutrition and dietary diversity. World Relief also works in partnership with church network Dutabarane to provide crucial financial instruments to the poor through Village Savings and Loans
Associations.
Marasmus is a form of severe malnutrition caused by a deficiency in calories and energy.Félicité Havyarimana, a young woman from the central province of Gitega, had witnessed the effects of the disease in the life of her son, Alfred, ever since he was one year old. She said, “I was sad and desperate, not knowing what to do. In my despair, I turned to traditional healers, convinced that someone had cast a curse on my child.”
When a volunteer from World Relief’s Child Survival Program visited Félicité and examined her son, she explained that Alfred was suffering from malnutrition and that it could be cured. “I didn’t believe her, of course,” said Félicité. “Nevertheless, since nothing had worked so far, I started to follow her advice on health and nutrition, even if I wasn’t really convinced”.
A month later, Alfred began gaining weight and his health began improving. Encouraged, Félicité began participating in World Relief’s cooking workshops, where she learned about the components and preparation of well-balanced meals. “The lessons were really helpful to my children, especially to Alfred who was totally cured and went back to his normal weight,” said Félicité.
Almost three years old, Alfred is now a healthy child who, like many of his peers in the province, has benefited from World Relief’s Maternal & Child Health program. Félicité said that the program opened her eyes to the mistakes she did not know she was making when it came to the nutrition and health of her children. “Now,” she said, “I try as much as possible to keep them on a healthy and well-balanced diet, and I take them to the hospital to see a doctor at the first sign of illness, instead of seeking advice from traditional healers.”
At the root of the program is the long-term goal of Integral transformation of not only behavior, but beliefs, values and attitudes that bring Burundians to a place where they can experience the kind of life Jesus came to bring – life to the full (John 10:10).
