In their book Rooting for Rivals, HOPE’s president and CEO, Peter Greer, and chief advancement officer, Chris Horst, write:
We’ve been given a mission and mandate that requires nothing less than the best of our efforts working together in unity for the sake of the Kingdom … It’s time that we focus on the Church’s unified mission above our organizational agendas.
At HOPE International, we’re committed to fighting poverty, empowered by the Good News of Christ—and we rejoice that we aren’t alone in this.
This Giving Tuesday, we want to recommend five Christ-centered nonprofits impacting children, global healthcare, the Church, and the Earth. Together, we’re pursuing a greater Kingdom mission, so that more and more people experience the flourishing God intended for His creation.
Would you consider supporting these organizations today?
Building the Church: Tearfund USA
With a commitment to “follow Jesus where the need is greatest,” Tearfund comes alongside local churches, empowering them to demonstrate the Good News of Christ to their communities by working to fight poverty and injustice. The organization also mobilizes immediate aid following natural disasters.
While Tearfund has been working around the world for 50 years, its U.S. chapter just opened last year. We’re moved by this challenge from Clive Mather, chair of Tearfund USA: “Tearfund USA will be asking Christians to go deeper in thinking about how they live. A whole life response to poverty involves praying, giving, acting, volunteering, and making lifestyle changes. Sometimes it will involve sacrifice and inconvenience, but it will be liberating and empowering in a way that defies worldly expectations.”
Restoring the Earth: Plant With Purpose
Plant With Purpose recognizes the direct and deep connections between deforestation, material poverty, and despair. When trees and vegetation are uprooted, water and soil become compromised, an effect immediately felt by agrarian families relying on that land for food and income. With their source of sustenance suddenly removed, families face impossible decisions about eating, childcare, education, and housing—a cycle of poverty that leads to feelings of hopelessness.
Working in areas that have experienced severe deforestation—including the regions surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro, the hills of Northern Thailand, the Haiti-Dominican Republic border—Plant With Purpose has provided training in sustainable practices for farmers, partnered with 683 churches, and planted over 32 million trees.
Investing in global healthcare access: LifeNet International
To improve healthcare in under-resourced countries, outside donors have sometimes insisted on launching new medical facilities, but that can have negative economic and social effects on a community. LifeNet takes a different approach: It invests in pre-existing, faith-based health centers. By coming alongside them with medical training and resources, LifeNet empowers these healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat their patients.
Internal studies show that the 170 clinics LifeNet partners with—in Burundi, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda—have tripled their quality of patient care. This year, a Duke University’s Global Health Institute study found that these dramatic results are not a one-time coincidence but an ongoing reality of LifeNet’s impact.
Standing with children: World Vision
While the child sponsorship model has been around for a long time, World Vision recently announced “Chosen,” an innovative approach that flips the traditional model on its head: Children receiving support now have the opportunity to select their sponsor rather than the other way around. We applaud this move, which offers greater agency to vulnerable children around the world.
We also appreciate World Vision for its wide-ranging services to families and communities—including projects related to water access, disabilities, education, health, and refugee response—and their stated commitment to “live as followers of Christ by being active, visible bearers of God’s love.”
Empowering those with HIV: CARE for AIDS
While we in the U.S. don’t often hear about the global AIDS epidemic anymore, it remains a crisis around the world. In East Africa, when a person becomes HIV positive, they often struggle to access the resources—medical care, steady work, community support, spiritual hope—they need to fight the virus, leaving them and their families vulnerable.
Operating in Tanzania and Kenya, CARE for AIDS partners with local churches to offer a holistic, 9-month program for people living with HIV. To date, the 57 centers of CARE for AIDS have released 15,553 “graduates,” men and women empowered to thrive in spite of their diagnosis. And just last month, the organization’s three founders released Beyond Blood, which describes the unlikely way their paths crossed so that, together, they could make an impact in the fight against AIDS.
Thank you for your partnership—with HOPE and with all those working to see God’s kingdom in our midst!
Friends at Hope International, This effort of calling attention to other significant organizations is commendable and perhaps without precedent. It is an illustration Philippians 2:3: “Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or from a cheap desire to boast, but be humble toward one another, always considering others better than yourselves.” What if you example were picked up by our politicians..and churches!
I can remember a few years back my husband and I were going through alot. Unable to pay our electric bill our power was turned off in our home. My daughter had her appendix removed and shortly thereafter I would start unknowingly having minor cluster strokes. HOPE stepped in and helped my husband with the situation. The electricity in our home was restored shortly after that. We are to this day grateful for all they were willing to do to help us. Since then I have suffered from a massive stroke which sent us on a whirlwind of hardships. We are currently homeless and my husband is working full-time as I get ready for college next semester. We are living in the motel 6 in Pittsburg CA. Awaiting the word as to whether or not we have been approved for a 2 bedroom apartment in Concord CA. As soon as we here if we could possibly get the place we will be staying with mother-in-law hoping for the help we need once again to get back on our feet. Without organizations such as CCIH, HOPE, CORE and many others I could go on and on. Families such as mine who have by the way my husband and I have been diagnosed with AIDS years ago as well would have no HOPE for a future neither would our children and right now our 14 year old daughter is with us through all of this as well. We have 4 older grown children and I am going to back to college again in hopes of getting into writing grants for non profit organization that help people who are trying to do well. We are praying that God willing bless you and your families and all of those who have chosen to be selfless and help others. Thank you so much!
The Martinez family.