The UN says two-thirds of Sudan’s population will need help to survive another year. Children are disproportionately affected, with 55 percent of displaced people being under the age of 18.

Hope remains for Sudan, but not because the government says that 2026 will be a “year of peace.” Instead, a different source offers a more optimistic outlook.

“God is at work in our fallen world,” says a Gospel worker we’ll call John.

“He is not silent, not powerless. He is bringing people to Himself in the worst of times.”

Help for the hopeless

Sudanese church planters and medical teams bring donated medicines to displacement camps in Sudan and South Sudan. More about that here.

“The last bit of medicine that we had in this second shipment went to an orphanage outside of Juba,” John says.

Sudan refugees
(Representative AI photo created by ChatGPT)

More than 900 children call the facility home, and “this orphanage encapsulates what’s happening everywhere we go,” John says.

“About 15 percent of the children are suffering from what they call night blindness, and it is caused most times by an extreme deficiency of vitamin A,” he continues.

“The children were covered with sores and lesions from malnutrition and poor hygiene.”

“Critical edge of death”

Famine is widespread in Sudan as a result of the war. Children at the orphanage only get “one meal a day, and it is a small thing of beans and cornmeal. Because they’re not getting iron, there is a large, large percentage with anemia,” John says.

You can help by supporting Sudanese church planters through John’s organization.

“We’ve decided to do a four-month effort and then see what God does. So, we’re going to provide meat for those 907 children every week, and multiple vitamins for each one of them,” John says.

“We’re purchasing some of the protein meals that the UN uses to get these children under five away from that critical edge of death.”

As the children received medical care through the latest outreach, they heard about a God who loves them. Pray that these Gospel seeds will take root.

“Anyone who gets involved with the suffering of displaced people in the world is up for a great blessing,” John says.

Header and story images are representative AI photos generated by ChatGPT. 

Millions of people are homeless and cannot meet basic needs like food, water, or shelter. Rape and theft are common, doubling the trauma endured by survivors.

John, a Gospel worker focused on Sudan, says the spiritual side effects are overwhelming.

“That’s what the enemy does. He brings loss upon loss upon loss, and then fear of greater loss, deep, debilitating grief over loss, trying to bring the individual to the point where they believe all is lost,” John says.

Believers are meeting the medical needs of displaced Sudanese in refugee camps. More about that here. “It’s a shipment of medicine; we have distributed so far, 7000 pounds,” John says.

“We’re provided only with medicines, and then we, by faith, take it from there.”

A gift of any amount helps John’s organization – unnamed for security purposes – meet more needs.

Hope and help go hand-in-hand. “We do an open presentation of the Gospel, and it talks about the love of God,” John says.

“It talks about the evil in the world. It talks about what the Bible says God offers to the individual, regardless of the circumstances, and that’s the power.”

Pray for transformation as believers follow up with people in the camps.

“The clinic comes, and then it goes. But the evangelism and church planting team stays there because they are displaced.”

Ask the Lord to strengthen believers and medical teams. They expect to receive a third round of donated medicine in the coming days.

Header image is a representative photo courtesy of unfoldingWord. 

Two years of civil war have left close to 80 percent of Sudan’s health facilities useless. So-called “citizen-led clinics” are filling the void.

Sudanese church planters recently partnered with Christian doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from South Sudan to hold several citizen-led clinics in displacement camps. “They went to 12 pop-up clinics and 10 camps in four locations,” a Gospel worker we’ll call John says.

“In total, we did 104 days of clinics, and we were able to see 7,000 people. The majority of this last medical outreach was with pediatric medicines, and we’ve been able to see about 3,500 children.”

Pop-up clinics offer lifeline

It’s the latest edition of a coalition formed earlier this year between Sudanese church planters, U.S. suppliers who provide donated medications, and medical professionals from South Sudan.

(Photo courtesy Joko_Narimo/Pixabay)

Including earlier dispersals, “We distributed 7,000 pounds” of donated medications, John says. “We don’t get to choose all of the medications. We get a list of what’s available, and we say, ‘Yes, we can use these things,’” he continues.

“They arrive, then they’re divided up, taken to the locations where refugees are. Working with the South Sudan Council of Churches, we were able to get the medications duty-free.”

In an email to MNN about the medical ministry, John adds:

Medical ministry among Sudanese refugees is one of the most powerful ways God’s love is made visible. In refugee camps on South Sudan’s border with Sudan, access to even basic healthcare is often limited or nonexistent. Through our partnership in Movement of Medicine, we are blessed to step into these gaps, offering not just physical healing but also dignity, comfort, and the hope of the Gospel.

A doctor dressing wounds or treating a fever may also be the one who listens, prays, and brings emotional healing to a war-torn heart. In such settings, the power of medical ministry is not merely in the medicine, but in the message that every life is valued by God. As prayers are answered through healing hands and compassionate presence, the Gospel is preached not only in words but in action.

Donate to John’s organization, unnamed for security purposes, to help cover the costs associated with outreach.

“We’re provided only with medicines. And then we, by faith, take it from there,” John says. “At times, we had to find other funding for things like bandages.”

Help and hope

As medical teams meet desperate needs with donated medicine, the church planters address spiritual needs. “Every time we have a clinic, we have an open-air presentation of the Gospel,” John says.

“We’re hearing, as a result of the clinics, about some pretty powerful (spiritual) harvests. These are all Muslims, primarily – 1,750 asked for individual trauma counseling, approximately 1,200 people put faith in Christ.”

Ask the Lord to strengthen believers and medical teams. They’ll receive a third round of donated medicine in the coming days. “Our teams have said, ‘We’re not going to take Christmas break, and we’ll be continuing,’” John says.

“‘Sudanese people need the Gospel, but they also need the encouragement that, somewhere in the world, Christians recognize what they’re suffering.’”

Header image is a representative stock photo courtesy Nappy/Unsplash.

Nearly a million people from the region were displaced at the end of last year, and around 90,000 people still cannot access their homes today.

“If you don’t provide the proper infrastructure – food, electricity, sewage, telecommunication, roads – it’s going to be very difficult for the citizens of southern Lebanon to return to their villages and towns,” Camille Melki with Heart for Lebanon says.

Those who have returned home are dealing with destruction and trauma. “People are still suffering silently. You have emotional scars, traumatized children [and] people who feel left alone because our government… is still not living up to the needs of many families who have suffered,” Melki says.

(Photo courtesy of Heart for Lebanon)

Help from Heart for Lebanon makes it a little easier to meet daily needs. “When the ceasefire agreement was made, everybody thought this was the end of humanitarian aid,” Melki says.

“Heart For Lebanon is coming alongside many families and individuals to support and walk with them on this journey.”

Help for today, hope for tomorrow

Heart for Lebanon’s consistent and reliable presence speaks volumes during uncertain times, especially to those who don’t know Jesus.

“People of all faiths have been affected by this war that Hezbollah drew us into with Israel,” Melki says.

“For them to know that Heart for Lebanon is willing to stand by them is very puzzling because most humanitarian agencies and other aid groups have already quit providing aid and support.”

Questions lead to Gospel opportunities as people ask why Heart for Lebanon’s approach differs from most aid groups.

“We don’t provide aid because we have more resources than others, but we want to [show] in our actions, presence, and love that God cares. The love and care you are receiving is God’s love given to you through us,” Melki says.

“It gives us so much credibility by being present, serious, and purposeful in our humanitarian aid, which leads us to beautiful Jesus conversations.”

You can support Heart for Lebanon’s efforts here. Most importantly, pray. “Pray that we stay purposeful and resilient, focusing on what God has called us to do,” Melki requests.

“First and foremost, centered at everything we do, is looking at every opportunity to share the Gospel and make disciples, as Christ has commissioned us to do.”

Ask the Lord to strengthen staff and volunteers affected by violence. Out of 80-plus believers at Heart for Lebanon, “30 of our staff members have been directly affected by this war. You are serving and helping people who are hurting while you are hurting as well,” Melki says.

“Prayer for the team and the recipients is very important. Focus your prayer on resilience and obedience.”

Header and story images courtesy of Heart for Lebanon.

A ceasefire provides temporary stability, Heart for Lebanon’s Camille Melki explains, but its conditions are a source of contention.

“On one hand, Lebanon entered a ceasefire with Israel after months of severe fighting between Hezbollah and Israel. There is a level of stability that we enjoy,” Melki says.

“On the other hand, this ceasefire is very harsh and very fragile.”

Recent Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon despite a ceasefire signed by both sides in November. The truce calls for Hezbollah to lay down its arms and for Lebanon’s army to control the borders.

“Hezbollah, though weakened, has not yet been completely disarmed. This is a very sticky point,” Melki says.

“Unless it’s resolved, I believe the tension between Hezbollah and Israel and the fear of renewed violence will continue to be very high.”

Food aid distribution
(Photo courtesy of Heart for Lebanon)

The Lebanese government says the war displaced at least 1.2 million people. Heart for Lebanon is helping the most vulnerable, but resources are running low.

Help Heart for Lebanon continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

“Heart for Lebanon is stretched very thin. Since this conflict began, we added more than 1,800 families to our monthly care package distribution,” Melki says.

“We hoped that those 1,800 families, now six months since the ceasefire, would have returned to their places of residency, but that has not happened.”

Heart for Lebanon’s long-term commitment to helping the most vulnerable move from despair to hope gives believers multiple opportunities to share the Good News.

“We’re not like any other humanitarian agency that moves on from one crisis to the next,” Melki says.

“This gives us the credibility and the invitation to share the Gospel boldly, clearly, and without any hesitation.”

Header image generated by AI using NightCafe.

Most of the people fleeing gang violence are escaping the capital city, Port-au-Prince, for more rural areas.

(Photo courtesy of Christian World Outreach)

Greg Yoder, President of Christian World Outreach (CWO), says some of their own local staff in Haiti have been affected.

“The staff there, some of them, the gangs have come in and taken over their neighborhoods,” Yoder explains. “So they’ve pretty much just taken off without any of their belongings, and they’ve had to find another place to live. So that’s what’s been causing this displacement from people to go outside of Port-au-Prince.”

CWO’s ministry is supporting Haitians with relief funds and Gospel encouragement.

Yoder says, “They’re seeing a lot more people in areas that were not very heavily populated. One place where our Feminine Training Center is [located] is a pretty small village, and they’ve seen a huge influx [of IDPs].”

Please continue to pray over this crisis in Haiti.

Specifically, Yoder asks, “Pray that the resources [are] there to continue to help people, and that they (Christians) will be able to continue to share the Gospel even during these real difficult times.

“It sounds odd to call this an opportunity, but with these people being displaced, it’s an opportunity to share the Gospel with people and to help them in physical ways.”

Header photo of child in Haiti. (Photo courtesy of Topsphere Media/Unsplash)

Pierre Houssney with Horizons International says many Lebanese ages 34 to 50 are reliving the country’s civil war (which lasted from 1975 to 1990). Young adults and kids are grappling with this trauma for the first time. Sometimes it’s catching.

People on the streets of Lebanon. (Photo courtesy of Horizons International via Facebook)

“I grew up outside of Lebanon during the civil war, so I don’t tremble when I hear the airstrikes. My kids are not afraid of the airstrikes, because they see how I’m comfortable, I’m relaxed, I know what’s going on, I know where the strikes are happening,” Houssney says. 

“But other people of my generation, they actually start to physically tremble, and that gets passed on to their kids as well.”

The UN says 1.2 million people have been internally displaced in Lebanon in the past three weeks, 400,000 of them children. Their education has obviously been put on hold, which is one more reason officials are concerned for the future of Lebanon. The nation has endured so many crises already in recent decades.

“We have over 1.2 million internally displaced people, and this is a country [where] the “nationals” — the indigenous people, Lebanese — are maybe 4, 4.5 million total. Plus we have over half a million Palestinian refugees who have been temporarily here since 1948. We also have upwards of 2 million Syrian refugees,” Houssney says.

“The whole country is in chaos right now. There’s a lot of fear, and we’re really now in a wartime mode. It’s been quite intense.”

Ministering in “wartime mode”

Horizons’ School of Hope is not open. Instead, the classrooms as well as the building where a Kurdish church once met are shelters now for hundreds of internally displaced people. Their staff have dropped their original job descriptions to cook for, pray with and minister to the displaced.

The Horizons’ medical team distributed vital supplies and provided care to individuals sheltering at the School of Hope. (Photo courtesy of Horizons International via Facebook)

The situation Horizons staff are seeing on the ground is urgent. Houssney asks that we focus our prayers with them on the spiritual battle.

“These crises that happen in the worldly realms, they always represent open doors for the spiritual impact of people,” he explains.

“We get to know them, and we see that they’re open. We do not spare any opportunity to share the gospel in a way that shows genuine love so that they can understand we [are] helping them in the humanitarian [means]  because we truly love them with the love of Christ.”

Learn more about Horizons International and support their response to the crisis in Lebanon here.

Header image courtesy of Horizons International.

The government’s response to recent protests on these issues has not been encouraging. In August, hundreds of protesters were arrested and at least 20 were shot and killed. More recently on Nigeria’s Independence Day (October 1), protesters were again arrested. That same day, seven people were killed by Fulani herdsmen in a village in central Nigeria’s Benue State — in an area that had already seen three attacks in the previous month.

Benue State highlighted in red. (Image courtesy of Himalayan Explorer via Wikimedia Commons, based on work by Uwe Dedering CC BY-SA 3.0)

Gideon Para-Mallam is a Nigerian minister who started the Para-Mallam Peace Foundation. He is also a leadership development catalyst with the Lausanne Movement. He believes persecution in Nigeria is becoming an existential threat to Christianity in the nation. 

Two of the challenges facing Nigerian Christians today are lack of collaboration and lack of resources. 

“The discouragement is not even coming from the persecution, per se. The discouragement is coming more from leaders who need to get together to craft a response that’s biblical,” says Para-Mallam. “That’s not coming.” 

This lack of a constructive, united response to the Islamic militant attacks has deeply frustrated younger Christians. 

Displaced and in need

The other challenge Para-Mallam notes is that when believers are systematically uprooted from their ancestral homelands, it leads to lack of resources.

Nigerian children. (Photo courtesy of Victor Nnakwe/Unsplash)

“In the last decades, the [form of] persecution [is] sustained in the sense that they’re uprooting Christians from their ancestral farmlands, their homelands,” Para-Mallam says.

“When you begin to uproot [a] large population of Christians from their ancestral homelands, it’s not a joke. Their houses are burnt, their farms destroyed, and on top of that they have no place to go. It presents the huge challenge of humanitarian response, and when that [need] is not met, it can be very, very discouraging.”

Now that you know, would you commit to praying for Nigeria?

“Pray for Christians to respond biblically to this persecution. Listen to the story of what’s happening in some of these places, because if you don’t hear, you don’t know, you won’t know how to bring the needed support in terms of collaboration,” Para-Mallam says. 

The Gideon and Funmi Para-Mallam Peace Foundation brings Muslims and Christians together to reflect on the important subject of peace. Learn more about their mission here.

“Our inspiration came from Matthew 5:9,” says Para-Mallam. “‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ — underscore makers, not peace builders, but makers — ‘for they shall be called the sons and daughters of God.’”

Header photo of 2020 protests in Abeokuta, Nigeria courtesy of Tope. A Asokere via Unsplash.

Image of war-weary flag of Lebanon generated by R. B. Klama using NightCafe.

A senior U.S. official confirmed Israel was behind the pager explosions. Israel has not claimed the target on walkie-talkies and solar equipment.

Nuna with Triumphant Mercy Lebanon says, “Most of the people in the hospital or those who have been wounded are from Hezbollah. I would say ‘most’ because the pagers could have been sitting on a desk somewhere and somebody got hit. But usually, it’s the Hezbollah people who have the pagers in their pockets or in their hands or whatever, and then they are the ones that were wounded in the first place.”

Hezbollah already claimed yesterday to have attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets in retaliation.

“Israel is moving all their troops to the north, meaning the war has moved from Gaza to the south of Lebanon. So it’s the whole situation that people are watching now, which is a preliminary of a full-on war,” says Nuna.

“We’re definitely having all this news coming…about Israel and the war and Hezbollah and trying to rally everybody around Hezbollah to fight Israel — which Lebanon doesn’t want.”

Familiar Rumblings of War

The rumblings of war are all too familiar. More Lebanese civilians are fleeing the southern border with Israel, and TM Lebanon is getting relief to refugees.

“They’re already displaced once and twice and sometimes more…because of the government moving them from one place to another or stopping them,” says Nuna. “So now it’s another fear of being displaced again. Where can you hide when there’s a full-on war – especially if you live in areas where Hezbollah is present, so that’s a dangerous area?”

Unfortunately, for other civilians who want to flee their homes, movement is controlled by the government. It can be very difficult to get permission to move to a new home or even relocate to refugee camps. “They have to actually get an approval so that the government can follow them and know where they’re at,” says Nuna.

(Photo courtesy of TM Lebanon)

TM Lebanon met with other local NGOs on Wednesday morning to coordinate relief efforts for displaced civilians. Nuna says TM Lebanon has a unique role as a Gospel-based ministry.

“What we can add to this is the spiritual aspect. So, as much as possible, bring Jesus in the story. He’s in control…. He’s the one sitting on the throne. He knows everything from the beginning, and he knows the ones who are called for salvation. He is the one who’s the Prince of Peace. So we have to just keep encouraging people not to be disheartened.”

Call to Prayer

After the first attack on Tuesday, TM Lebanon called for local Christians to pray at 9 pm local time. In addition to praying for their nation and for peace, Nuna says, “We prayed for those who are now in the hospital that they will receive a vision of Christ and that they will know how to turn their eyes to Christ.”

These prayers echo the heart of Jesus in Matthew 5:44: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”.

Nuna explains, “Hezbollah is from Lebanon, but they are enemies of the country…in the sense that they are controlling the government, and they are trying to control everyone and have everybody submit to their own thing — just having a government inside the government. So they’re not really the friend.

“Still, these are people, and the first response was to pray for them.”

Pray for both Lebanese citizens and Hezbollah fighters to ultimately turn and follow Jesus.

Learn more about TM Lebanon’s Gospel ministry here.

Header photo depicts Hezbollah fighters training in southern Lebanon, May 2023. (Photo courtesy of Tasnim News Agency/Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138677143)

Although today’s challenging circumstances remain, Jesus provides hope for tomorrow.

(Graphic courtesy of VOM Canada)

“The battles Syria [has] seen in the cities and from home to home, from street to street, is over. But the results [are] very difficult,” says Voice of the Martyrs Canada partner Fayez Youssef, a pastor serving in the Middle East/North Africa region.

“Life is so difficult in Syria. There is no free gasoline for heating; [there are] electricity problems [with] maybe two, three hours a day [of electricity] maximum. When the dollar equals 6500 liras, the person whose income was $500 is now about $10 or $15.”

Nearly seven million Syrians are displaced inside the country, while over five million live as refugees in neighboring countries. Islamic State violence drove a mass exodus of Christians out of Syria in 2014 and 2015, but those who remain today shine brightly.

“It’s the natural role of a church to be light in the places of this darkness, to show God’s love and mercy towards the people and share the Good News. The church in Syria is [doing] a great job,” Youssef says.

“This was one thing that amazed me in Syria: to see the Church growing and opening the doors for everybody from all backgrounds to come.”

With help from VOM Canada, believers are reaching out to vulnerable populations, including Syria’s next generation. Pray their efforts will be successful.

“Many, many children are not in regular schools. Some of them lost their parents, so they are growing up as orphans. You’re talking about [a] traumatized generation,” Youssef says.

Header and story images courtesy of The Voice of the Martyrs Canada.