In Przemyśl, Poland, the global Church of the Nazarene has been responding since the onset of war in Ukraine.
When the war broke out, the first Nazarene responder at the Polish-Ukrainian border was a Syrian pastor, seeking ways to serve. Soon after, a team formed, putting out the call for volunteers to come and physically provide resources to the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes.
Cactus, Texas, is a small town of about 3,100 people, a large number of whom are living as refugees or immigrants. The town is truly multicultural, with people from North and Central African countries, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
In Panama, the Rio Abajo Church of the Nazarene created a compassionate outreach in the fall of 2022 called “Love in Action”. Their purpose was to serve the asylum-seeking and migrant population traveling throughout the country.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been caught in a devastating financial crisis. What was a difficult situation has gotten worse and worse, increasingly amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Beirut port explosion, and the economic effects of the war in Ukraine. Now, basic items people need to survive cost dozens of times more than they used to.
Since 2019, Lebanon has been caught in a devastating financial crisis. What was a difficult situation has gotten worse and worse, increasingly amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 explosion, and the war in Ukraine. Now, basic items people need to survive cost dozens of times more than they used to.
In September, footballers (soccer players) of all ages gathered in Ireland and Lebanon to put on two football tournaments to raise money for the Nazarene Evangelical School – Lebanon. The tournament raised much-needed support for the school and its ministries as it supports the community during an ongoing economic crisis.
In Fátima, Argentina, a Nazarene church has put down deep roots, cultivating a compassionate presence through a project centered on simply loving God and loving others.
How do we find hope when all seems hopeless? And how do we find God's hope when it isn’t obvious? Perhaps this is what it means to have faith—that thing with the potential to be beautiful gift even in the midst of desperation because it is an anchor, a guidepost.
On December 16-17 of 2021, Super Typhoon Rai (known locally as Odette) swept through 11 of the 17 regions that make up the Philippines. The storm damaged or destroyed 1.7 million houses, 16,000 schools, and 330 health clinics, impacting 9.9 million people. Almost two months after the disaster, nearly 144,000 people remain displaced. The arrival of the typhoon followed two years of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which had already heightened the vulnerability of many communities.
