Guest article: Dr. Paul Chitwood, president, IMB
In the past week, I’ve heard reports from your Southern Baptist missionaries and their partners from all around the world. Time and again, personnel shared how God has used unexpected hardship—wars, natural disasters, and other unsettling experiences—to draw people to him. They shared how God has richly blessed Southern Baptists’ efforts to be God’s hands and feet among the hurting who are desperately seeking help and hope. For example, through Send Relief, you’ve been faithful to respond to meet the needs of people directly affected by the war in the Holy Land.
Two years have passed since, on Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist militants launched a multipronged assault on Israel, executing scores of Israelis, including women, children, and babies. As Israel responded toward Gaza, the situation escalated into this war which has left thousands dead and injured on both sides. Soon, the war involved the border with Lebanon, impacting yet more people directly. To date, an estimated 200,000 people in Israel, more than 100,000 people in Lebanon, and 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced by the war. Each of these lives have been affected in ways we cannot imagine.
I thank God that Southern Baptists are doing what we have always done: helping the hurting by meeting practical needs and sharing the enduring hope of the gospel.
That is the heart of Send Relief’s work as a collaboration of the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. Through Send Relief’s work overseas, Southern Baptists, often by partnering with or working through local evangelicals, have endless opportunities to change lives for time and eternity.
Meeting practical needs through Send Relief in the Holy Land
The movement of aid is difficult throughout the region, but it’s not impossible. Send Relief gives you a way to respond to the life-threatening needs of the Holy Land in lasting, compassionate ways while sharing the hope of the gospel. And that is exactly what you’re doing.
In one village, many homes belonging to members of the local church community were damaged, including broken or missing glass panels, shattered aluminum windows and doors, destroyed water tanks, and cracked walls. A Send Relief project in that village aims to restore safety, privacy, and dignity to 15 affected church families by repairing or replacing these critical components. Because you gave, these Christian families are sleeping safer—and they could continue to be able to focus on ministry to others who are hurting.
In another place, Send Relief provided a food, medical, and trauma-healing program for people affected economically by the war. The aim is to enable local evangelical partners to be the first to love their neighbors through disaster relief. We are coming alongside them to provide counsel and training. The project is helping at least 200-250 individuals as food boxes and medicines are provided to families in need.
Late last year, the war in Lebanon spread from fighting along the southern border to the entire country. Residents in heavily targeted neighborhoods were forced to flee their homes, joining thousands of people who previously fled the south to seek shelter in other parts of the country. As the number of internally displaced people rose to over 1 million, Send Relief partnered with local believers connected with five centers who had the opportunity to provide food, shelter, medical care, and other basic needs for at least 5,000 of those people.
Your gifts cover practical needs such as the fuel expenses to run generators providing electricity at these centers. You’ve provided bomb shelters for what must be the most harrowing moments a family could face.
Praying for the spiritual needs in the Holy Land
We know that the truly traumatic issues caused by this war still fall short of the greatest problem most people in the region face: spiritual lostness. While the war rages on, we can see how God is using Southern Baptists’ efforts to raise up the gospel in the Holy Land. Nearly 50,000 people have received help through Send Relief. Nearly 5,000 have heard a full gospel witness. I praise the Lord that we know of at least 155 who have chosen to follow him, and 21 new areas of work have been established.
Please continue to pray for the people of the region. Here are a few ways you can pray:
- Pray now that God would have mercy on the millions who are suffering and comfort those who have lost loved ones. Ask God to bless the efforts of those distributing aid. Pray for needed resources such as food, water, and medicine to reach those impacted by the conflict. Pray He will provide opportunities for believers to share His love.
- Pray that God will use current events to draw the lost into a relationship with His Son. Pray that believers will have attitudes of peace amid the current situation. Pray that the lost will ask them about the peace they have in times of trouble.
- In a land impacted by years of hatred, believers from diverse backgrounds who are united in Christ can display God’s love to each other and to their neighbors. Pray that they will seek to share and be the light of Jesus to their neighbors.
Thank you, Southern Baptists, for your generosity in praying and giving so lives can be transformed in the midst of this crisis. Together, we look expectantly toward the Revelation 7:9 vision that fuels our work, that promise of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”
