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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!

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.

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.

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.