Grace Ministries Mission evangelical church has a new leader with a big heart, and big plans, for the poor.

Bishop Stanley Simunyola praying over a poor Zambian family in their home.

Recently, Cross staff met up with Bishop Stanley Simunyola in Lusaka, Zambia, where he told us about the roots of his passion: a Christian teacher from his childhood. As a boy growing up in poverty, Stanley was on the verge of dropping out of school because his parents could not afford the fees and supplies. But his teacher believed in him enough to intervene and pay for his education.

As a result of that act of kindness, Stanley finished school, went to college, became and ordained minister, and earned a masters degree in pastoral studies from an American university. Now he is reaching out to a new generation of children in Zambia to give them the same opportunities.

“When I see street kids, I see potential pastors. I see potential doctors, lawyers,” he says. “I know that what is being done into the lives of those children is not in vain.”

Bishop Stanley’s ministry seeks out children who have lost one or both parents and provides food, school expenses, and Christ-centered counseling. Rather than create an atmosphere of dependency and entitlement, the program is helping the poor to see what they can accomplish through their own diligence and hard work, encouraged by the prayers, love, and support of the local Christian community. For instance, a widow whose four children are being put through school by Grace Ministries was inspired to begin volunteering at her church, and now she provides home-based care to other needy families in her village.

“They don’t want to just be recipients,” Bishop Stanley says. “They want to also pass on help to other people.”

Click here to learn about how Cross International is supporting this powerful ministry.

This weekend, many Americans will express thanks for their freedom as they celebrate Independence Day. The idea of freedom means different things to different people: freedom from want, freedom from oppression, freedom to succeed, freedom to say and do as we please.

Blessings Before

As Christians, we understand freedom in a very exciting way. Ephesians 3:12 says, “In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.” That means God allows us to come to him directly through prayer—we are free to talk to him, share our lives with him, and worship him with not fear, but joy.

Sadly, many people in our world aren’t free in this sense. About 78 million people don’t have access to the Bible in their native language, and about 1.2 billion people have never heard the gospel. What are we as Christians to do about this? Can we do anything at all?

Here’s a story that can help us take heart: In Malawi, Africa, thousands of children have become orphans in the wake of the AIDS epidemic. Annie Chikhwaza, who runs Kondanani Orphanage there with support from Cross International, discovered a pair of 17-month-old twins in “tragic” condition.

Seeing Blessings recover under Annie’s care is proof that Christians can make a difference in lives around the world.

Little Blessings weighed about 8.5 pounds and his twin, Hasting, weighed about 15 pounds. Blessings had large, open wounds on his body and both children looked like skeletons. Neither had hair on their heads nor could sit and stand.

Annie says that in just two weeks, the twins have gained weight and their skin has changed color from pale and gray to chocolate brown. Their hair is growing and it is black instead of orange, a tell-tale sign of malnutrition. Blessings’ wounds are nearly closed up, and Annie says she’s certain they will both make a full recovery.

God calls us to use our freedom to give in his name, to offer of ourselves when no one else will. Thanks to gifts from caring American Christians, children like Blessings and Hasting experience God’s love through us. Galatians 5:13 says, “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” God calls us to use our freedom for good, for serving each other in his name. He reminds us that we can’t understand freedom only in the sense of what we aren’t forced to do; he asks us to think of freedom in terms of what we are at liberty to do for others.

Click here to read about how you can serve others in God’s name through programs supported by Cross International.

Ask a boy who his hero is, and chances are good he’ll name an athlete, rock star, actor, or even a comic book character. But 10-year-old Joshua, who lives at the Cross-sponsored Kondanani Village in Malawi, is no ordinary boy. His hero is a charismatic Zambian preacher he watches on TV, and he’s already started to emulate him.

Joshua, 10, weighed only 2 lbs. when he came to Kondanani as an infant.

When Joshua first came to Kondanani as an orphaned infant, he weighed only two pounds. Today he is a healthy, outspoken boy who loves telling other children about Jesus and inviting them to receive him into their heart. Once a week, he also helps out with evangelistic outreaches in the local village, where they do drama presentations, music, teaching, and prayer.

Joshua’s zeal for ministry shows. He took the initiative, without any suggestion from the adults, to organize a group of friends to sing worship songs. Despite their young age, the boys are as polished as a church choir. They sing loud and joyfully, with perfectly coordinated dance moves and harmonies.

Without hesitation, Joshua will tell you what he wants to be when he grows up: a preacher! He is just one example of the many lives saved and nurtured at Kondanani, a Christian orphanage where children are rescued out of squalor, rehabilitated from malnutrition, given a quality education unlike anything else in the country, and best of all touched with the love of Christ.

Click here to learn how you can be a blessing to Joshua and all the other precious children at Kondanani.

It was obvious to Charity’s parents that something was wrong. All babies cry, but not like this. Charity was crying all the time and seemed to be in severe pain, so they took her to the doctor. The diagnosis turned out to be a common one among poor Zambian families: tuberculosis, often the first warning sign of an HIV infection.

Charity, 2, suffers from tuberculosis.

Charity’s father also has tuberculosis and has tested positive for HIV. He is a bricklayer, but lacks formal employment and is unable to earn a steady income. The local health clinic has provided free medications, but without the proper nutrition, the drugs are ineffective. The family of six relies on a diet almost exclusively of mealie meal – a starch-heavy African food – and sometimes only has enough to eat once a day.

Charity’s siblings are surviving on one meal a day.

The good news is that Charity and her family no longer have to struggle alone, thanks to a local group of Christians who provide home-based care for the chronically ill. Volunteers travel from house to house, giving food to the sick, praying with them, building relationships, and sharing the gospel, while helping the families overcome the sense of shame imposed on them by their society.

Cross has partnered with the home-based care program so that chronically ill children like Charity can receive the care and support they need. With your help, we can alleviate their suffering and empower them to live their lives to the fullest.

Sixteen-year-old Christopher’s village doesn’t just border the city dump – it has become an extension of it.

Cross International is providing an education for Christopher, 16, so he can work his way out of poverty.

While many poor Zambian families grow small gardens in their yards, Christopher’s neighbors fill theirs with garbage, which they dig through for expired food and recyclable goods. The smell attracts flies that seem to be better-fed than the children playing barefoot amid the filth, their tattered clothes caked with dirt. Instead of getting an education, they stay home and help their parents scavenge through the trash, because at school they will be hungry, but there’s food to find at the dump site. This is the only life they know, and the only life they even know to hope for.

The same used to be true for Christopher, whose widowed, unemployed mother has no money to pay for school fees for him or his three siblings. But with help from a local Christian ministry supported by Cross International, Christopher is setting a higher standard for the children in his village by going to school, studying hard, and dreaming big. He is now in 7th grade, his best subjects are math and science, and he says that when he graduates, he wants to become a judge! Two of Christopher’s siblings are also now in school, and the hope is that their example will motivate the neighbors to begin to break the cycle of poverty.

In addition to school fees, the sponsored children receive health care, monthly food rations, and home visits from the ministry. This holistic approach addresses the many aspects of poverty: physical, economic, psychological, and also spiritual. Click here to learn more about this life-changing project that is bringing Christ’s love to the poorest of the poor.

Our project officers must travel to incredibly remote places to reach some of the projects we support—but they’re well worth the effort. Take the Chikankata catchment area in Zambia, for example. That’s where our ministry partner is spearheading the Chikankata Water Project to give wells, latrines, and health training to each of 35 villages.

Villagers cleared and widened a footpath by hand to make way for a borehole-drilling rig so they could finally get clean, safe, water in this remote area of Zambia.

Getting there, however, is quite an ordeal. The 80-mile drive to the Chikankata mission is the easy part. Reaching the remote villages from there is another story. Villagers don’t own cars, so there are no roads. But they cleared and widened footpaths by hand to make a “road” of sorts into each village so a borehole-drilling rig could be driven in. Driving a car over these hand-hewn roads “is like riding on an old wooden roller coaster, only worse,” said Tony Mator, a staff member who just returned from visiting the project.

But the end result will be worth every lurch, when thousands of people will no longer risk dying of cholera or other water-related diseases. Nor will they have to spend their days hauling water from far-away sources. They will be able to draw clean, safe water out of their own village well.

If you’ve ever wondered where the most religious place on earth is, a new study from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has an answer: sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically, the countries south of the Sahara Desert and north of South Africa.

In many cases, indigenous African beliefs, such as sacrifices to ancestors, have been incorporated into their newfound Christianity.

Researchers found that a large majority of Africans consider religion “very important.” But the more interesting find has to do with which religions they are practicing. Just a century ago, traditional indigenous beliefs dominated the region. But Christian missionaries have turned the tables to the point that one in five of the world’s Christians now lives in sub-Saharan Africa!

This reversal is great testimony to the effectiveness of evangelism, but it’s not the whole story. In many cases, indigenous African beliefs, such as sacrifices to ancestors, have been incorporated into their newfound Christianity. A man might attend church on Sunday and then on Monday earn a living as a witch doctor. And as the infamous Rwanda genocide has shown, the tribal violence that plagued pre-evangelized Africa continues to be a problem.

How should we as Christians respond to this? Deep, sincere faith cannot be forced, but God has given us the tools to be an effective witness, and one of those tools is the simple act of loving our neighbors. That’s what is happening at the Kondanani Orphanage in Malawi, where severely malnourished children are taken into the care of loving Christians, raised in an environment of biblical teaching and Christ-centered worship, and instilled with powerful faith. We know that the Spirit of God is moving at Kondanani, because the children have taken the gospel to heart and are telling other people in the community about Jesus!

Cross International is an enthusiastic partner and supporter of Kondanani Orphanage. Click here to find out how you can help Kondanani bring God’s love to Africa.

On Wednesday, many Christians began observing Lent, a time of prayer and fasting during the weeks leading up to Easter. Although some denominations don’t recognize Lent, the practice has a long history among both Protestants and Catholics.

There’s a tradition that during Lent, Christians will give up a particular luxury they enjoy, such as unhealthy foods or even television. But this year, some pastors are calling on their flocks to take a slightly different approach: don’t just give something up – give it away.

The Rev. Bill Hewitt from the Church of Scotland encouraged his congregation this week to reach out with their time and talents to others in need: “I prefer the idea of Lent being a time of giving of ourselves in service to others. This runs contrary to a culture that suggests that the only thing that motivates people is money.”

Lent is a great opportunity for Christians to bless others while denying themselves. We can turn our thoughts not only to the needs of the neighbor across the street, but also to the poor and downtrodden around the world. Of course, not everyone can personally travel to a faraway land to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, but those of us who stay home have an important role to play in supporting those who go.

Our Cross International mission partners simply could not do what they do without the generous giving of our Christian donors. Whether you choose to feed orphans at the Kondanani Children’s Village in Malawi or build houses for poor families in the Philippines, your gifts make a real difference. Check out our online project catalog to see how you can be a blessing in someone’s life today!

Today is World AIDS Day, and though the subject isn’t a pleasant one, there’s good news to be had. The U.N. is reporting that the number of infected people around the world is no longer increasing and has stabilized over the last two years at about 33 million.

Cross is helping AIDS orphans in Mozambique get food, shelter, education, and emotional support.

Education has been a big factor in curbing the disease, as more people have realized the importance of avoiding risky behaviors and getting tested for the virus. The development and distribution of antiretroviral drugs has also been a great blessing, turning what was once a death sentence into a manageable (but still incurable) illness. The transformation has been called the Lazarus Effect – a reminder that God often works through natural means to bring incredible healing to the sick.

Nevertheless, there’s still a lot of work to be done, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounted for a full 72 percent of new HIV cases worldwide last year. Christian non-governmental organizations have contributed, and continue to contribute, a lot of sweat, tears, and funding to AIDS-relief in Africa, and Cross International is doing its part to help.

One way we are helping is through the Reencontro project in Mozambique. The Christian women at Reencontro provide life-saving assistance to thousands of AIDS-orphans suffering from hunger, homelessness, exploitation, and disease. Reencontro puts the children in a good school, finds guardians for them if possible, and takes care of their physical and emotional needs until they are old enough to support themselves.

We also support Grace Ministries Mission, a church in Zambia that rescues AIDS orphans from the streets, provides them with food, clothes, education, health care, and loving homes, promotes abstinence-based AIDS prevention, and focuses on gospel preaching.

Join us as we commemorate World AIDS Day, by reaching out with the love of Christ and giving to one of our Africa projects today!

A new report from the U.N. confirms what we at Cross have been noticing for some time: a widespread hike in the cost of food in developing nations.

Cross is working through churches, schools, and orphanages to provide daily nutritious meals in Christ’s name to the poorest of the poor

As one U.N. official put it, “The food crisis is not over. We have an anomaly happening where on global, big markets, the prices are down, but for 80 percent of commodities in the developing world, prices are higher today than they were a year ago, and the prices a year ago were double what they were the year before that.”
By U.N. estimates, this translates into 1.2 billion “urgently hungry” people – the highest number ever.

At Cross, we are routinely hearing from our ministry partners, whether in Africa or the Caribbean, that food is just too expensive. The rising costs, combined with a struggling global economy, have made them more dependent than ever on our help. How can they pay more for food when they are actually earning less?

We want to provide all the help we can give, but we can do nothing without the support of our many generous donors. Their faithful giving enables us to continue shipping containers of food to malnourished children and their families around the world. We can’t wait until tomorrow to feed a hungry family that is starving today, and that is why the call is so urgent.

Right now, Cross is working through churches, schools, and orphanages to provide daily nutritious meals in Christ’s name to the poorest of the poor, and you can be a part of it! Click here to find out how.