Body

Stories

Stories from the Field

  • Bicyclists in Malawi

    Steve Voyen

    God is using World Challenge supporters and trainers to empower pastors in southeast Africa.

    World Challenge is based in beautiful Colorado Springs, in the shadows of the Rockies. Almost every time I or my team members hit the hiking paths around our sunny—or frequently snowy—city, we are bound to encounter intrepid bicyclists aggressively challenging the same mountain trails.

  • The Spiritually Hungry in Lithuania

    Rachel Chimits

    God is reaching out to those who have lost nearly everything in this small Eastern European country.

    World Challenge’s partner churches in Lithuania have a motto in their city outreaches to widows and those trapped in inner-city poverty: Food kitchen ministries must not stop with feeding people.

    Eating will temporarily satisfy a physiological human need, but people who come to the church kitchen should get much more.

  • Life From the Ashes

    Rachel Chimits

    God is working through the church in Burundi to help widows and orphans survive great emotional and economic hardship.

    “My husband abandoned me and our two children,” one woman in Burundi shared with a World Challenge partner. “He’s a ‘pastor’ and now on his third wife.”

  • A Witchdoctor Comes to Christ

    Rachel Chimits

    India is a land of intense spiritual darkness, but in the midst of this, God is calling out his children to light and new life.

    “Shitala” in Sanskrit means “the one who cools,” and among the Hindu gods, she is believed to cure people of skin diseases and fevers, particularly children. Her day of worship comes right after Holi, the festival of love where people are called to forgive others and repair broken relationships.

  • Feet That Carry the Gospel

    Rachel Chimits

    World Challenge partners are working to make sure one very special Cambodian girl can make it through school. 

    When Rachana was a baby, her feet were unusually large. Her parents examined them then shrugged. They had no money to take her to a doctor, so like many Cambodian parents, they simply made do as best they could.

  • Escaping the Lord’s Resistance Army

    Rachel Chimits

    One widow remembers her harrowing childhood being taken captive by Uganda’s LRA and then barely surviving a tragic accident in a refugee camp.

    How many of you remember the Kony2012 video?

    It was a call to action, a cry for us to stop the human rights violations and atrocities that the Lord’s Resistance Army was inflicting on central Africa. In a few days, the video garnered millions of views.

  • A Cambodian Family in Christ

    Rachel Chimits

    God heard one woman’s prayers for what seemed like an impossible situation with her husband.

    The border of Cambodia has known decades of conflict as French colonialists, the kingdom of Siam and the Khmer Rouge swept the whole region like a deadly blaze.

    Throughout it all, many people clung to their traditional religion as the last bastion of their culture: Buddhism mixed with ancestor worship and animistic spirits.

  • Overcoming Strife With Generosity

    Rachel Chimits

    One Filipino church’s rough start in their new community turned out to be a perfect blessing for opening people’s hearts to God’s truth.

    World Challenge partners’ work in the Philippines has sought to show people how they can have godly community through education and relationships.

    A huge part of this has been helping people see how salvation should affect not only their own lives but also their families and neighborhoods.