On Eagles Wings Leadership Center
(Photo courtesy of Hutchcraft Ministries)

“One of the things that we are really passionate about is discipleship, but a holistic approach,” says Nick Liew. “Some of the things that we tend to see in the capital-C Church is a focus on some of the obvious things, like, ‘Hey, don’t drink and don’t smoke.’

“Those things are, yes, very much important,” he continues, “But there seems to be a neglect on taking care of your body — what you’re putting into it, being active.”

Liew serves as the coordinator for On Eagles’ Wings, a division of Hutchcraft Ministries serving Native communities. He says a young girl once asked a leader on the team why all the Christians she knew were out of shape. 

“That was a wild question to me, because I was like, ‘Would that same question be appropriate if it was, “Why do all Christians steal? Why do all Christians lie?”’” Liew says. God has bought our bodies with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19–20), and honoring God with our bodies also requires caring for our physical fitness.

On Eagles’ Wings recently finished construction on its new Leadership Training Center, which includes a gymnasium. Their year-long internship program for Native young people requires three days of personal fitness per week, in addition to discipleship, classroom training, mentorship and more. 

“For a lot of (the students), they had a misconception of ‘Why should I work out? Is it just to be around the outward appearance of looking good?’” Liew says. 

“It’s actually a command that we take care of our bodies, but it also has its spiritual implications.”

He explains that a person might know Jesus, know scripture and be sharing their faith and life with others. But physical limitations such as shortness of breath or injuries can prevent someone from being able to serve in long days of ministry. 

Photo of Nick Liew’s family courtesy of Hutchcraft Ministries

It points back to Jesus. “He didn’t walk this tightrope of ‘this is spiritual, and this is humanity.’ He existed in both,” Liew says. 

“We’re supposed to be the body of Christ, and there’s no separation in whether it be finances, relationships, business or going to church or small groups or whatever it may be. We’re supposed to involve all of that. Everything that we do has a spiritual component.” 

Pray for the students who will be involved in the Leadership Training Center starting this July. Pray that they would grow this upcoming year in fitness for serving God and bringing hope to their homelands. 

Learn more about the Leadership Training Center with On Eagles’ Wings here. 

Header photo is a representative stock image courtesy of Victor Freitas/Unsplash.

The nation of Iran is an unprecedented, exciting field for the gospel to advance. As young Iranians reject Islam, their awakening to who Jesus Christ is could change the entire Middle East. 

Let’s take a closer look at the young generation in Iran, the unique challenges of reaching them, and how you can be part of making history. 

CONTEXT: A YOUNG AND RESTLESS GEN-Z

Dr. Hormoz Shariat with Iran Alive says there are three subcultures within Iran. There is the Islamic Revolution generation (over 50), a middle generation (30 to 50), and the young generation (under 30).

Representative photo courtesy of Amir Hosseini via Unsplash.

Shariat calls these Milennials and Gen Z-ers “the generation of the fatherless and fearless.” They are the ones Iran Alive’s ministries especially focus on. 

“Fatherless means they have nobody over them who cares for them. Anybody older than them, they don’t care about them,” Shariat says. “They have (been) raised in a society that doesn’t care for them. There’s a unity among them. Nobody cares for them, but they care for each other.”

He calls them fearless because “they’re free from the spirit of Islam. (The) spirit of Islam is fear, control by fear. So they’re not afraid of government, they’re not afraid of Allah. They have no fear.”

Shariat continues, “They have lost everything. They have no hope for the future, so they don’t have even fear of death, many of them. They said, ‘We are dead anyway.’”

This fearless hopelessness is what Shariat says made so many young people willing to come out on the streets in protests in 2023, even when many of them were being killed or arrested. 

Although the protests were squelched and people went home, Shariat believes the people of Iran are active, especially the young generation. “Something is brewing and it will come out at the right time.” 

“But now they’re wise. They say, ‘Why should they give my life for nothing? I’m ready to give my life for something.’”

CHALLENGE: BURNED BY RELIGION

The young people in Iran may be searching for something to live for, but they are also wary. To them, clergy and religion are the problem. 

(Stock photo by mentatdgt from Pexels)

Shariat says a growing number of young people in Iran have concluded, “I don’t want God. I don’t want any religion. Religions all are bad. They all have been used by human being to oppress other people. Christianity is the same as Islam.”

“It’s our job to tell them, ‘No, it’s not. It’s different!’” Shariat says. 

Once young people realize that the God of the Bible loves mankind and is forgiving and kind and so much more, the gospel resonates deeply within them, Shariat says. “The last six months has been an explosion of salvation of young people in our ministry.”

CALL: HOW THE GLOBAL CHURCH NEEDS TO RESPOND

Your prayers can make a difference in God’s movement in Iran. 

But instead of praying first for young people in Iran, Shariat asks that you would pray for yourself.

“Pray that the Church (in the West) will see this historical opportunity, that we can change the direction of a nation for eternity and once Iran is saved, the whole Middle East and even the whole world will be impacted,” he says.

Then, pray for Iran Alive’s faithful ministry in evangelism, Bible distribution and much more. Pray that they will make the most of every possible opportunity at this critical time to transform the nation. 

Header photo is a representative stock photo courtesy of Papaioannou Kostas/Unsplash.

Indonesian hospitals don’t provide the same kind of care many Western hospitals do. As a result, families are the ones tasked with providing food, changing bedding, and even picking up medication for patients admitted to the hospital. But then night falls and families are sent away from the hospital, and many are left with nowhere to go.

That’s where Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) steps in. Since June of 2013, MAF staff and families have been running a hospital house, or Rumah Singgah, for patients and their families in Kalimantan. Pilots and mechanics help provide medical evacuations and transport for individuals in the Indonesian interior, then their families help care for them at the hospital house.

Staff maintain five bedrooms and additional space for patients and their families. The house is within walking distance of the hospital so families have easy access to their loved ones. In the meantime, they can cook, bathe, and wash their clothes at the house.

And MAF staff do more than just provide space. Kathryn Boogaard, wife of a MAF pilot mechanic; Angie Johnson, wife of a MAF maintenance specialist; and Amy Eadie, wife of a MAF mechanic all work with the hospital house.

“We’ll go and visit the hospital house and we’ll visit with the families and pray for them, and some families just are content with that,” Johnson says. “But other families that do need extra care, you really build a relationship with them.”

For example, one farmer almost lost his hand in a chainsaw accident. Forced to undergo three months of physical therapy, he needed a place to stay with his family. MAF staff combined funds, shopped for the family’s groceries, gave them a safe and comfortable place to stay, and visited them on a regular basis to build a relationship with them.

(Photo courtesy of MAF)

Another guest ran into Johnson and her husband mid-hike long after his stay at the hospital house. His wife had given birth in the hospital, and while the new family stayed with MAF, the Johnsons and other staff members came and prayed with them. When he recognized them, he thanked them graciously.

“He went on to say, ‘Oh, this trail is very overgrown. You’re going to need probably a machete,’” Johnson recalls. “And he took the machete off of his belt, handed it to me, and [said], ‘Go for your hike and come back and this, give it back to me when you’re done.’”

MAF isn’t just building relationships with guests; they want to connect with the local church, too.

”I’ve attended a local Indonesian Bible study for about six years, and my Bible study has been quite involved,” Eadie says. She brings guests to her Bible study, children from the hospital house to a kids club, and members of her study to the hospital house for prayer and community.

“Once a month, our staff at… the MAF hangar here, both Indonesian staff and Western staff, go to Rumah Singgah and go and have a praise and worship and prayer time there to meet the families that are there at that time and to sing and pray with them, all in Indonesian,” Boogaard says. “It’s a way for our whole staff here to be involved with Rumah Singgah and see what’s going on.”

The MAF families are hoping they can continue to encourage local believers to invest in the hospital house.

“In this culture, it’s really important… to the people that we go and visit them in the hospital when they’re sick, or at [the hospital house] if we can,” Boogaard says. “And I know that each of us has had a chance to go to the hospital room and pray… and that’s been very meaningful to them.”

(Photo courtesy of MAF)

How meaningful? Enough that their impact has led MAF to start a similar program in Lesotho.

”It’s rather outside the norm for Mission Aviation Fellowship,” says Brad Hoaglun, Director of Corporate Communications at MAF. “We don’t have ‘hospital house’ or anything like that in our name. We’re aviation, and we do a lot with pilots and mechanics. They’re engaged every day.

“But this allows all the staff to be involved and to… participate and to be helping another way and engage with people.”

Johnson calls this “a very, very neat opportunity that I’m very humbled to be a part of.” If you want to join them in that partnership, go to their website here for more information. In the meantime, pray for the continued success of this hospital house and for the other programs it inspires.

Header photo courtesy of MAF.

The coronavirus continues to spread in China and other Asian countries – there are over 20,000 cases worldwide. It is a time of fear for many people, but Denise Godwin of International Media Ministries (IMM) finds a parallel between the coronavirus and a plague that ravished Rome and the surrounding lands roughly AD 250-270.

(Photo courtesy of International Media Ministries)

She says IMM was shooting the story of Cyrprian, a bishop of Carthage. The plague was actually named after him because he rallied the Christians to care for the sick and even attend to burial for the dead. “But the thing that struck me the most [is] now as we see this modern day plague creeping into our newsfeed . . these Christians in the third and the fourth century, went and helped people who [were] being shut out in the streets by family members who were panicked because of the illness that they were seeing.”

Cyprian himself remarked the plague was so severe it seemed like the world was ending. The plague, combined with near-constant wars, left the Roman Empire depleted, and famines followed. While the exact nature of the disease is unknown, some experts point out similarities to Ebola.

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Godwin says, “I’m inspired by the believers in the third and fourth centuries who made a mark on their community by serving people who were harmed by the plague of their times.”

Certainly, the coronavirus is not as serious an illness as the Cyprian Plague.

Godwin says, “I don’t think we live in those kind of times where people are going to be shut in the streets and we as Christians are the only ones called to help them. But I think it does [cause us] to reflect and think. Who am I in a crisis, who am I when the plague hits? And what is Christ calling us to do to love our neighbors?”

Christians can help by not contributing to panic. The media in the US is filled with horror stories about the coronavirus; many are now using the word “pandemic.” China recently reprimanded the US government for adding to the fear by pulling citizens out of China and instituting travel bans.

The truth is the flu virus currently making its way through the United States has claimed many more lives than the coronavirus in China, and this has not been a bad flu season. 8,000 people have died in the United States from flu this year, compared to under 500 from coronavirus worldwide.

How can Christians in areas not affected by coronavirus live like those Christians during Cyprian’s plague?

(Image courtesy of International Media Ministries)

Godwin says believers can understand that the Gospel makes a difference in any time and circumstance. “Where is our hope? Where is our salvation? Where do we truly base our foundation? And of course in the times of crisis this is tested. And it’s time to say I can be compassionate to people around me and I can have hope. Despite what the news media says, despite what is going on in my community, I can be a person of hope, and [offer] the hope that is in Christ.”

Pray also for the protection of Asian Christians and mission workers there. Just as the world witnessed Christians caring for people in the plague of Cyprian, may they see Christians caring fearlessly for those afflicted with coronavirus.

The angel of death striking a door during the plague of Rome. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons)

Changing the Approach

The idea is simple; keep vulnerable kids with families not institutions. Those families can take the form of foster homes, adoptions, or reunification. Home-based solutions offer children a better chance at success and improved emotional well being.

(Photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook)

Bethany brought foster care expertise and a good reputation thanks to a successful Ethiopian program, says Naa Adjorkor Mohenu, Country Director of Bethany Ghana. The partnership begain in 2012. Now, the nonprofit is an integral part of policy change, providing needed technical support.

“We became very core in the government’s process with the care reform system… As we speak now, Bethany has been able to help the government launch, it’s foster care training model, which has all the steps in training perspective foster care,” Mohenu says.

What’s Wrong with Institutions/Orphanages?

The Bible asks believers to care for widows and orphans, but what is the best form care can take? While food, water, and shelter are necessities, so is emotional support, love, and a family.

Orphanages aren’t always able to support these pillars of development, and the resulting damage is often permanent. Research shows caregivers are often detached, overworked and not consistent. This results in children with stunted physical and emotional growth, issues that persist into adulthood. Read a summary of these findings here.

Of particular concern to the government of Ghana was that many of these children in orphanages were not actually orphans.

“They did a survey and realize that most of the children…either have one parent, a living parent or even have both parents alive, but were rather taking these children into the orphanages because to them the orphanage looked like they had the best physical facilities to provide for their children,” Mohenu says.

For families in poverty, orphanages looked like a way to give their children the best chance at life. Realizing what was happening, Ghana determined major changes would need to be made to reform the childcare system before the problem got out of hand.

Enter Bethany and their ideas to promote family based care.

What Bethany Brings to the Equation

Thanks to decades of foster care experience, Bethany designed a formalized foster care system. This includes family assessments for foster families and child assessments. Both receive background checks and Bethany provides perspective foster families with 40 hours of training. Bethany works to match a child’s background and needs with what a family can provide, Mohenu says.

(Photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook)

Some children remain in orphanages, but measures are being taken to improve their care.

“We are looking at the best practices of orphanages, the few ones that are left to ensure that even if a child stays there for one night, the child gets the best. We train them with topics like attachment, bonding, and trauma and all those things to look out for when a vulnerable child comes into their care,” Mohenu says

Bethany encourages these orphanages to make the child’s stay as short as possible and place them with a family.

How Can I Help?

Most donors to organizations like orphanages and adoption services come from Western countries, Mohenu says. Donors often want to see something tangible, such as a child they are supporting or sponsoring. This can lead them to well-meaning support for institutions and orphanages. However, this often isn’t what’s best for the child or community. Instead, Mohenu would like to see more holistic support that keeps children in families and protects their psychological development.

“They can still help a child within their biological family on alternative family and still see the impact,” she says. Rather than rejecting donations, they want to use give those funds more impact by investing in family based solutions and care.

One such program uses $30 per month to support a child and their family, providing food, shelter, and medication. Learn more here.

How Can I Pray?

Mohenu asks believers to pray for this family-based initiative. Changes of government and changes of partner leadership can bring progress to a standstill if these new leaders don’t share the same vision. These obstacles are a consistent threat. Pray initiatives promoting family-based solutions will continue to be supported by those with influence.

Pray more churches will become involved in these programs, as churches are Bethany’s primary partner for advocacy and recruitment. Church support keeps programs like this one running.

Header photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook.

Their foster-to-adopt program began in 2010 and has already placed nearly 400 children into local homes.

Foster-to-Adopt in Ethiopia

“We basically believe that every child should be raised in a family and they need a family to belong to. The idea of taking care of children in childcare institutions has been there for a long time. It was one of the widely practiced form[s] of care for many years,” Bethany’s Sebilu Bodja says.

According to UNICEF, there are about 4.6 million orphaned or half-orphaned children in the nation. Children are often abandoned by their parents because they can’t afford to raise them. Other times, parents have passed away from diseases or the children have run away from home. Because of this, orphanages are packed and children receive little attention.

(Photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook)

Before introducing Bethany’s foster-to-adopt program, it was unheard of in Ethiopia to take care of an unrelated child.

However, their program has raised awareness of the need. Through its satellite program, Bethany has worked to recruit families.

“It impacted the lives of children in such a way that now they have a family to call their own,” Bodja says.

“We have seen significant change in their development — whether that’s physical, spiritual, emotional, psychological — and we’ve seen children thriving in their new families. For the foster parents, what we keep hearing from many families is they have been able to see what God has called them to be as a family to a child.”

The individual care that children have received from families helps kids grow and develop. It helps them process previous trauma they have experienced and deal with their grief.

Change in Communities

Entire communities are also changing as foster care grows in their neighborhoods and they begin to understand the program more fully.

“Previously, there was an attitude among the community that caring for the children is more of a business of the Western; it’s a business of NGO[s],” Bethany’s Dawit Fekadu says.

Fekadu says communities’ attitudes have started to change. They are now becoming part of the solution and putting kids into safe foster homes.

Due to the success of the program, there are requests from the federal and regional governments to start programs in different communities. Bethany is also partnering with a state-run orphanage in Addis Ababa to help place children.

(Photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook)

Bodja says both the orphanage and the government are relying on the program to give children a good family and home.

“The need is huge,” Fekadu says. “There is a greater need in every region of the country.”

With the Ethiopian government’s decision to end international adoption in 2018, this has increased the need for native families to rise up and become home to the ever-growing number of children in orphanages.

“We foresee that there is a huge potential for this program to grow in the future,” Fekadu says.

As Bethany expands their work — placing more children and expanding to more cities — they would love for you to partner with them!

It takes $1,000 to place a child in a loving, Christian family in Ethiopia. This will forever change the lives of children, families, and entire communities. Start supporting Bethany’s work in Ethiopia here.

Meanwhile, please pray for foster kids in Ethiopia to know their Heavenly Father. Ask God to reveal Himself to these children through their Christian foster parents. Finally, pray for more Ethiopian believers to rise up and be the love of Jesus through foster care.

Header photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services.

The Compassionate Care team with Audio Scripture Ministries stands in the gap for Mozambicans who need hospice or palliative care. They recently celebrated their 100th patient — a sobering milestone showing how necessary their care has been.

Joshua Harrison with ASM explains, “Our Compassionate Care team helps distribute God’s Word in audio to their patients, and they deliver basic hygiene products and medicine. They offer compassionate care being the hands and feet of Jesus to people who receive very little hospital care, palliative care, [or] pain medication.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

The Compassionate Care ministry was started in 2015 by ASM missionary Dara Vanden Bosch in Mozambique. “She saw a young girl suffer with uncontrolled pain and die. As a trained nurse, Dara wanted to help reach out to that need in the community.”

Since then, Harrison says, “She has been training a team of three Mozambican women who now make regular visits to patients.”

There are currently 24 patients being served by ASM’s Compassionate Care team. The weekly journey to see each patient is difficult, and the team has to go “deep into the bush over pretty wild roads, sometimes bringing the supplies, bringing the care, talking with the patients, taking care of basic medical needs, and praying with them as well as seeing what they are listening to on their audio Bible and answering questions.”

The audio Bible distribution is just as critical as the medical care, if not more so. While the Compassionate Care team meets temporal, physical needs, they also address spiritual needs.

ASM records and distributes audio Bibles around the world, and making these resources available to patients in Mozambique prepares them for eternity.

“As people are lying there, many times unable to move from their sick beds and their families maybe don’t even know how to take care of them, we come, we pray with them, we give them some basic medicine, [and] we see how God brings physical comfort as they are listening to the audio Bible and amazing spiritual peace to those who are turning to Him.”

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

Last month, ASM also celebrated World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. The theme was, “Because I matter.”

Harrison says, “This resonates with our vision for the Mozambican Compassionate Care team because everything that we’re doing there is because each person is precious to God.

“As believers, we know everyone matters to God. ‘For God so loved the world.’ It’s a basic, underlying principle of why God is doing what He is doing and why He is calling us to reach out and to love people and to bring them into His Kingdom to proclaim the Gospel.”

Knowing this truth — that each person is precious in the eyes of our Heavenly Father — how does that drive us to action?

One thing you can do is come alongside ASM and their Compassionate Care team as they provide palliative and hospice care to beloved men, women, and children in Mozambique.

“We ask you to pray for our team as they make these visits. The travel is often precarious. The situations are often difficult. Many times since many of these patients come when they are at death’s doorstep, a lot of times the team doesn’t have long with these patients. So pray for open hearts to receive the Gospel,” asks Harrison.

(Photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries)

“Pray for strength for the team as they meet with and pray for these patients and help their families cope with loss, that God would strengthen our team and also that He would do great things in people’s lives.”

To learn more about partnering with ASM, click here!

Header photo courtesy of Audio Scripture Ministries.

Margaret Njuguna, founder of En-Gedi, believes that it’s the Church’s responsibility to look out for the downtrodden. In Africa, there are very few resources for people with disabilities. In fact, there are a lot of cultural beliefs that stand in the way of them being accepted as valued members of society.

Many people believe that disabilities mean someone is cursed.

(Image courtesy of En-Gedi)

En-Gedi is working to change that among parents, but it’s likely that much of the superstition and stigma will remain in older generations. But recently, Njuguna came up with a plan to make sure that the future of Kenya harbors fewer people who look at disability as a curse.

“Some of those beliefs would take probably generations to change when parents and older people believe in that,” she says.

“And one of the things that I’ve started is to work with children. The churches that are around our town, including my own child, we have been having Sunday school children, who are between the ages of seven to 11 years, come to us on Sunday mornings, once in a while, for their Sunday school class, to come to En-Gedi and to have the children service with us.”

“They’re not sick.”

This aspect of the ministry started because of one young boy who kept calling En-Gedi to check on his brother. Njuguna says this boy would call in frequently, asking if his brother was well. Finally, she asked him why he was so concerned with his brother’s health.

“He told me, ‘My brother John has a very bad illness and we were told not to talk to him. And he lived out there in the bush and we could just go and quickly give him some little milk and then dash back because he has a very bad disease.’

“So, that lie is the one that a lot of parents give to the siblings so that the disabled child is isolated. And I thought I can change the attitudes of children. I cannot change the attitudes and the belief system of the adults.

“And it has worked so well. Children would come, and they would ask me all these questions. ‘When will these children be healed?’ And it’s like, they’re not sick. God made them this way. And it’s alright to work with them. They build blocks on the floor. Some of them are still afraid, but within the short visit, they are all on the floor doing things with them.”

(Photo courtesy of En-Gedi)

This occasional Sunday school meeting has helped change attitudes in a big way. In fact, Njuguna gets calls from parents telling her that their children pray every day for the children at En-Gedi.

Supporting this “Place of Refuge”

God is using this ministry to form people’s hearts to be more like His. Do you want to help? Start with prayer.

First, ask God to send more people to En-Gedi who have the same passion as its founder. Currently, along with Njuguna, En-Gedi has four full-time caregivers, two trained reserves, part-time therapists, and a nun who help out.

“God used me to start En-Gedi and be the carrier of His ministry at the beginning. But it’s not my ministry. And I am praying that God will give me other people who can come out and work with me as partners, equal partners serving God together. I’m also looking for volunteers who can come short-term, long-term.”

(Logo courtesy En-Gedi Children’s Home)

She’s also hoping that God will open the doors to start a program with Christian colleges to do interim classes at En-Gedi focusing on special education, early childhood development, and things like physical therapy.

If you feel like you could be of use in any of these ways, contact En-Gedi here.

Also, pray for hearts to continue to be impacted by this ministry:

“Keep praying with us that people will embrace disabilities as a, you know, as a way of life. It’s different. But we all belong to God.”

There are also some facility needs as well. They have a building that will be available to rent out for extra income. However, they cannot make this a commercial offer until they get a backup generator. They also need to have some facility updates that accommodate children who cannot sit in a wheelchair or fit in a bathtub.

Furthermore, their therapy room, which will be open to the public eventually, does not have any equipment.

If you would like to walk alongside En-Gedi financially, click here for more information.

For Haiti With Love’s Eva Dehart says that “Without electricity, they’re using candles and lanterns, and they’re using charcoal for cooking. There are a lot of open flames when you don’t have electricity available to you.”

Photo courtesy of For Haiti With Love

Because of all that fire, burns are a regular problem for many Haitians. If left unchecked, burns also have a tendency to get infected thanks to poor sanitary conditions in many parts of Haiti. However, because of how long burns take to heal, quality burn care is slow and expensive.

That is, unless you visit For Haiti With Love’s burn clinic.

“We will see an average of 130 to 150 burn patients a month, and that’s all ages for all different kinds of reasons,” Dehart says. Since patients have to return for bandage changes and new medication on an almost daily basis, that actually means more than 700 individual treatments every month.

“Sometimes people are there on the day of the burn, and sometimes it takes them two or three days to get there. We are treating basically the entire country for burns, and that’s quite a responsibility on our part, but it’s also a really good feeling to be doing that much good.”

The clinic has three exam tables, and at any time there is usually a patient at each table. Space isn’t a problem.

However, the clinic is an ongoing effort to feed a need and save lives, and as with any ongoing project, For Haiti With Love has to find the materials they need. Burn cream, pain medication, and bandages aren’t too difficult to find, but they still need donors to help support the clinic.

The clinic might be a practical solution to a practical problem, but it also provides spiritual healing to the people of Haiti.

(Photo courtesy of For Haiti With Love)

“The nurses are constantly reminding the patients that the clinic is there by the grace of God, that the supplies are provided by God’s people, and that this is God’s assistance for their problem,” Dehart says.

The nurses have the full, undivided attention and gratitude of the patients. In other words, patients listen. Many patients also have burns from voodoo rituals, which Dehart says gives nurses an opportunity to say, “God loves you, and He would never demand you do this kind of thing to your body to prove your love for Him.” In the context of a burn clinic, even voodoo priests listen to that message.

Remember to pray for the nurses as they deal with the physical and emotional trauma of being surrounded by suffering all of the time. “I don’t think you ever get calloused to trying to help someone through that kind of pain,” Dehart says.

However, seeing the desperate situation of these children, Bethany Christian Services is helping to change their lives through their Refugee Foster Care Program.

Refugee Foster Care Program

(Photo and header photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook)

“Bethany Christian Services has a program that we actually help refugees from all over the world,” Bethany’s Ana Jose says.

“We have kiddos coming in from Central America. We have kids from Ethiopia, the Republic of the Congo. We have kiddos from Afghanistan in our program. Right now, we have a huge need for foster families to be able to open their home, their hearts to give our kids an opportunity to be part of their family.”

After refugee children have fled their home country and end up in refugee camps, Bethany receives their referrals and helps to get them processed, then brings them to the United States to live with a loving foster family.

Jose says there are millions and millions of refugee children who are in need of foster care. Bethany receives up to 60 referrals every week.

Placing Kids with Families

“Once we receive the referral, then we have to make sure that we find placements for those kiddos and that’s the biggest challenge that we have with the kids and the families to make sure that we are able to find families to take care of our youth.”

Jose says Bethany is trying to create awareness within the Church, and with the help of the Church, that refugee children are in desperate need of homes where they will be loved and cared for.

Many of the foster families come from the Church because they feel God calling them to serve.

“There’s kids out here that want to be a part of a family, a good family, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

When Bethany first starts searching for a family for kids, they look for any family members children may have in the United States.

“That’s our main goal,” Jose says. “We don’t want to separate kids from their family and we work diligently to ensure that we find family members and make sure that they actually qualify and can take care of the kiddo because, a lot of time[s], they might have a cousin, an aunt.”

However, sometimes even if a child does have a relative in the United States, they may not be in a position to take care of them. And many do not have any family in the country at all. When it comes down to this, Bethany searches for unrelated foster families who are willing to take a child in.

Foster Family Process

For foster families, the process is a lot of work. To start, they begin with an orientation with Bethany which covers the responsibilities of parents, the agency, and policies, and procedures.

“We want to make sure that family have a clear understanding of what it will take to become a foster parent,” Jose says.

“After that, the family can actually move forward to the next step, which will be to attend one of our [trainings], which consists of 10 consecutive weeks of training. The training is a little bit intense and one of the reasons why we offer that training is because we want to make sure that we provide foster families with the necessary tools in order for them to be successful in having a youth in their home.”

Changing Lives

Though the process to foster children is a lot of work, Jose says it’s truly rewarding because foster families are literally changing lives.

“A lot of [children], for the first time, when they come to the United States is when they know what it is to be in a home setting. That’s when they know what it is to have a mother figure, a father figure, even a grandparent, sometimes even a sister or a brother in their home. So, it means the world to them.”

(Photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services via Facebook)

For some children, it will be the first time they attend school or are taken care of when they’re sick.

Jose says once the children’s parents are found or are back on their feet, Bethany will help to reunite families in the United States and set them up for a successful future.

May is National Foster Care Month. Celebrate that with Bethany by fostering refugee children. Open your home and your heart to serve and minister to kids who’ve lost almost everything.

Visit Bethany’s website to take the next step.