When a single project can house the homeless, create jobs for the jobless, protect the planet, and be self sustaining—all at the same time—Cross International would consider it to be just about the perfect project!

That’s why we’re so excited about a special enterprise being launched in Haiti. It’s an all-in-one housing program, vocational training program,

Boys of working age at an orphanage are learning how to assemble pre-fab houses that will go to families who lost their homes in Haiti’s earthquake. This will be a steady livelihood for them for years to come.

construction company, and livelihood for orphans.

Now for the details.

The houses are designed by Shelter2Home. They resist earthquakes, hurricanes, fire, termites, and 96 percent of the sun’s heat. They’re made of environmentally-friendly materials, yet you can’t tell them apart from traditional cement homes in Haiti. Through Cross’s support, these homes will go to families who lost theirs in the earthquake.

Right now, orphaned and vulnerable kids of working age at an orphanage in southern Haiti are getting trained to put these pre-fab homes together. They’ll be able to make a living for years to come while rebuilding Haiti, through the construction company they’re forming. Those are good job prospects considering Haiti had 80 percent unemployment before the earthquake!

Click here to watch a video and learn more about this ideal project!

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.

For Mari Lu and Lino Vizoro, a new house changed everything.

Top: This shanty is where the Vizoro family used to live. Left: The Vizoro family now lives in this house built by the Gawad Kalinga housing program. Right: Mari Lu, Samantha, Angelica, and Lino Vizoro.

“We used to be one of three families who lived together in one house,” Mari Lu said. “The house had no toilet inside—we had just a common outhouse for 10 families! When it rained the house flooded because it was below street level. This new house is above street level, so it won’t flood.”

The Vizoros, along with their daughters Samantha and Angelica, live in Pasay City, part of metro Manila in the Philippines. They used to live in the shanty pictured here, which was patched together with tin, wood, and whatever other materials they could find. Flooding and disease were two major problems in the area, along with crowded and dirty living conditions.

Thousands of families live in horrible conditions in slums throughout the Philippines. An estimated 5 million families in the Philippines are in need of safe housing. These poor men, women, and children live each day on the edge of survival. Families living here are constantly exposed to garbage, polluted water, and disease.

But there is hope for these families. The Gawad Kalinga (Giving Care) housing program replaces these shanty communities with clean, safe houses. For families like the Vizoros, a new house is more than just a building—it’s a chance for Mari Lu and Lino to offer a better future for Samantha and Angelica. Their new house, shown here, keeps them warm and dry, and it also gives them self-esteem and hope.

Mari Lu says God gave her a house and answered her prayer for a safe place to raise her daughters.

“Thank you for the materials to build a dream come true,” she said.

Click here to read about Gawad Kalinga and the many other housing programs that Cross International supports around the world with the help of generous American Christians.

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.

The following excerpt recently came to us from our ministry partner, Annie Chikhwaza, founder of Kondanani—a wonderful orphanage in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries:

The wonderful environment orphaned children experience at Kondonani stands in stark contrast to the poverty and hunger that surrounds them.

Our children have no idea what “being needy” means, they went into the village and asked the teacher if the mud hut the people live in was a toilet.

We are now giving our children veggies to give to the children in the village to try and give them an understanding that there are children who do not have enough food; they get only one meal a day and do not have enough clothes to wear, so we have to help them.

They always ask us why the village children have holes in their clothes. What is so amazing is that should our children have stayed in the village they would be in the same situation or be dead because of malnutrition.

Thanks to you, our sponsors, our children’s needs are met.

To learn more about Kondanani, click here.

Did you know that Christians invented charity? Well, not exactly; but Christians were the first to popularize the idea that we should love the poor and powerless, regardless of whether they deserve it and regardless of whether it benefits us to do so. That’s according to David Bentley Hart in his new book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies.

Atheists say religion is the cause of all the evils in the world. But Bentley shows how the Gospel turned the pagan world upside down with the wild idea that life has meaning and that, because it has meaning, we should love one another.

Cross International President Jim Cavnar prays with the children at Togetherness in Christ Orphanage

In a review of Bentley’s book, Paul J. Griffiths describes the church as a community “in which every human being is welcome and in which all together, without separation or distinction, worship the Lord who became one of them. From this, in turn, comes the aspiration to care for the material needs of all human beings—Christians certainly, but also pagans….The once faceless—the poor, the newborn, the widow, the sick, the imprisoned, the slave—must now be taken care of, treated as gifts of infinite value….”

Here at Cross, we serve “the poor, the newborn, the widow…” because our faith compels us to do so. Every meal given to a hungry child is an expression of sacrificial love from our donors. We work through Christian ministries – such as the Togetherness in Christ Orphanage in Haiti – because they share our vision, not just of feeding and sheltering the destitute, but also of spreading the Gospel. More than anything, the poor need Christ, because he alone has the power to transform hearts and minds and bring real hope for a better future.

Click here to learn more about our commitment to the Gospel, and how we’re integrating our faith into our service to the poor.

One of our project officers, Jim Kline, recently returned from a several-week trip to Africa to visit some of the projects we support. In Mozambique, he spent some time at the Reencontro orphan project, which provides care to about 7,000 orphans and vulnerable children in Maputo. That’s where he met Zeinabo, a 15-year-old double AIDS orphan who overcame some pretty difficult circumstances and started her own successful sewing business with the help of Reencontro.

Zeinabo, a 15-year-old double AIDS orphan, started her own sewing business with training and equipment she received from Reencontro, a ministry we support in Maputo, Mozambique.

Zeinabo, who moved in with her aunt after her parents died, split her day between a vocational tailoring program at Reencontro and her many chores at home. Her aunt became angry that she was spending so much time at the training program — time she could have spend doing chores. One day in a rage, she poured hot water on Zeinabo’s feet, thinking it would prevent her from making the long walk to Reencontro. But what was intended for evil, God turned to good!

Social workers from Reencontro came and spoke to Zeinabo’s aunt, and convinced her to let her niece finish the tailoring program. They also gave Zeinabo a sewing machine so she could start a business once she graduated. Now in 10^th grade, Zeinabo is able to make a comfortable living from her sewing business and still attend school.

“What is really neat about this story is that Zeinabo’s feet [which her aunt tried to hurt to keep her from going to the vocational training] now power her manual sewing machine and in essence her career,” Jim said. “That’s definitely a God thing.”

Zeinabo uses her feet to power her manual sewing machine and, in essence, her sewing business.