Stories from the Field

Pastors and church leaders in India are witnessing God’s miraculous works as World Challenge teams help them disciple new believers. 

Rabhya* was confronting with a terrible possibility in her life. Her husband had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and had become very ill.

God is consoling the broken hearts of those who have lost loved ones and giving them hope for the future.

Rana* arrived at a conference held by World Challenge’s partners, and she sat and wept the entire time. Concerned, members of the team approached her and asked her what had happened. Tearfully, Rana explained that her husband had died only eight months earlier.

The gospel is bringing change and healing to a war-torn country through people’s hearts, minds and communities. 

World Challenge’s partner in Bosnia, Marko, has been working for years to help heal the scars caused by the Bosnian War in 1995 and then the Bosnian Spring in 2014.

Systemic racism and classism can seem like overwhelming issues, but the church has the keys to unlock these doors and give people a space to see radical healing and change in their communities.

As horrible as the news has been in Ukraine, the church there and abroad is rallying in prayers for the Lord’s mercy and praise to God’s power and providence over even current events. 

“This verse has been on my mind the last few days,” one of our partners in Ukraine named Nina said in the wake of Russia’s first attacks.

World Challenge’s partners in Kenya are helping abandoned kids create a better future. 

Joshua was very young, probably not yet a teenager, when he was abandoned to live on the streets of Kenya’s capital city. Sadly, that’s not uncommon. It’s estimated that there are as many as 300,000 kids living on the streets in Nairobi and other big cities across the country. Those kids lead difficult lives. Consistent meals are hard to come by, and fights and violence are very common.

God is a healer who knows every way in which our heart, mind and body is burdened by the curse of sin. 

World Challenge’s partners in Kenya are providing refuge for girls threatened with forced child marriage.

For many young girls in parts of Kenya, the questions of who and when they marry is not up to them. A legal battle against child marriage has been fought for decades in Kenya. Underage marriage was banned in 1990 and was more heavily criminalized by a law passed in 2014, but that has done little to stop the practice.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand” (Philippians 4:4-5, ESV). 

Scriptures often discuss celebration, and God actually instituted several holidays for his people to rest and worship him. The art of celebration is a regular practice in the Old Testament, and it is echoed in the future wedding feast of the Lamb discussed in Revelation.

God calls us to love our neighbors, but what if we don’t know what our neighbors need? This is where World Challenge’s partners step in.