Thank you for partnering with Send Relief to support record-breaking ministry in 2022!
Together, we brought help and hope to 2.56 million people this year, and at least 89,670 of those served found new life in Christ! Check out these stories of your gifts at work in vulnerable communities around the world.
Responding to the War in Ukraine
With the abrupt and violent declaration of war in Ukraine earlier this year, millions of women and children were forced to flee the emerging war zones. Because of your record-breaking generosity, Send Relief was able to show up for these families in their time of grief. With your help, over half a million Ukrainian refugees received food boxes and hot meals to keep them healthy and strong on their journeys away from home. Nearly 50,000 heard the story of another refugee, Jesus, and witnessed His love in action through the 466 churches overseas that mobilized in response to this ongoing war. With many projects still underway, it is estimated that at least 1.6 million Ukrainians will be helped by Send Relief projects in the coming months.
One of the evacuees, Iaroslav, was moved to tears at the sight of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and Send Relief teams waiting to serve weary families along the border. The coffee, snacks and Bible distributions you made possible prompted Iaroslav to share the story of his harrowing flight from invaders. To read about Iaroslav’s narrow escape from Russian forces, click here. For updates on our response in Eastern Europe and to continue to support our gospel-centered work, click here.
Hurricane Ian Relief
With wind speeds over 155 mph, Hurricane Ian made landfall on the Florida coast as a devastating category 4 storm in September. Confronted with sudden storm surges and 15 feet of raging floodwaters, over 100 people were killed. As rescue and mud-out efforts unfolded, it is estimated that the hurricane caused over $67 billion in damages, making Ian one of the top five destructive storms in United States’ history and Florida’s deadliest natural disaster in nearly a century.
In response, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams from seventeen state conventions utilized Send Relief’s emergency resources—including flood recovery supplies, protective suits, gloves, masks and other construction materials—to care for the region’s most impacted families. Two grateful homeowners, Stan and Amy Wiggins, were particularly blessed by Southern Baptist volunteer teams’ service. To read their story of survival, click here.
Fighting a Historic Global Hunger Crisis
Between multiple international refugee crises, the war in Ukraine and ongoing pandemic recovery efforts, 2022 was an unprecedented year for increasing global hunger rates. Across the world, over 800 million people still go to bed hungry every night, with more than 30 million of those being right here in the United States. Sadly, nine million members of that statistic are children.
Your gifts made it possible for nearly one million people living with constant food insecurity to gain access to nourishing, filling meals this year. One of the recipients of these emergency rations was Anmar, a 14-year-old boy who fled war-torn Syria at the height of the conflict. Joined later by his brother Mohammad, Anwar got a last-minute spot on a Greek death boat—makeshift rafts well-known for sinking mid-journey and often the only remaining choice for refugees with little money. To hear how your food box donations helped him survive the treacherous voyage, click here.
Clean Water Changes Everything
Universal access to clean water could change everything—a life, a community, a country, the world. Safe drinking water impacts everything from women and children’s ability to stay safe in sub-Saharan Africa to agricultural communities’ ability to provide education in South America. Unfortunately, over 750 million people still live their day-to-day lives without clean water.
You helped Send Relief lower that number in 2022 by helping nearly 59,000 people across the globe gain access to safe drinking water—some for the very first time! In one of these communities in South Asia, a man named Mr. Viraj was notorious for being hostile to Christians in the region, convinced that no follower of Jesus had his people’s best interests at heart. Because of your giving, we were able to bring clean water to Mr. Viraj’s town, changing his mind about Christianity. Read more about his first experience with the Living Water here.
Meeting Needs Across North America
Your support in 2022 allowed our national ministry center operations to expand greatly, empowering even more marginalized communities to find help and hope amid their difficult circumstances. In Las Vegas, our partners have been able to grow programs in five crucial areas that best serve thousands in their surrounding neighborhoods: they now provide valuable resources to foster families, support anti-human trafficking efforts, empower their neighbors experiencing homelessness, cultivate safe environments through education initiatives and encourage racial reconciliation among diverse community members.
One of the main ways that staff address many of these initiatives at once is through consistent motel outreach. Because many individuals battling houselessness are often sexually exploited, victims of racial discrimination or at risk of losing their children, our teams are able to help multiple communities by canvassing some of Las Vegas’ more unsafe motel chains. One resident, Keisha, was fighting generational poverty and a domestic abuse case while trying to keep custody of her daughters when our volunteers met her. To learn how you helped Keisha get back on her feet, click here.
Your Gift Catalog Gifts at Work
Your purchases through Send Relief’s Gift Catalog made a particularly huge impact in 2022. Through the job skills programs that you funded, thousands of people received critical vocational training that helped lift them and their families out of poverty, all while hearing about the love of Jesus.
In Central Asia, a Send Relief agricultural internship that you funded had nearly 1,500 new farmers graduate successfully from the program! Granted the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them in a safe environment, many students went on to run successful farms of their own, financially supporting their young families and breaking generational bonds of poverty. To learn more about the young ranchers whose lives you changed, click here.
Bringing Gospel Hope One Project at a Time
Every project we do at Send Relief is intentionally and unabashedly gospel-centered. Whether we are responding to a crisis in Mississippi or caring for human trafficking survivors in Southeast Asia, each and every program funded by Send Relief points back to Christ. As a result of Send Relief’s compassion projects, over 897,000 people heard the gospel in 2022.
During one project in rural Cambodia, our team knew they had their work cut out for them when they arrived at a village in which nearly every family was battling pervasive alcoholism, illiteracy, digestive diseases and severe misinformation about the pandemic. No one could’ve guessed that this seemingly straightforward project would eventually lead to the dramatic removal of the village idols in response to the compelling truth of the gospel. To read the full story, click here.