2022 Impact Report

2022 REPORT impact

GOOD NEWS TO THE

world

In the following pages of this report, you can find stories of the ways people have acted through the transformative love of Christ to respond to great needs. Each of these actions took individuals seeking to address the needs in their communities holistically.

As you read about the impact of this work, know that this report represents just a few samples of a tangible web of hope in the midst of disasters, war, famine, and poverty. This is the work that Nazarene Compassionate Ministries has facilitated through local churches who saw the needs in their communities and mobilized to meet them.

There have been many moments of pain and struggle over the last year, but there have also been moments of great hope and connection. In the children who have learned and grown through holistic child development, the Nazarene disaster response teams who have mobilized in the face of disaster, the new farmers seeing the first fruits of their labors in their fields and communities— in these things, we are privileged to see the hope of Christ at work through tangible compassion. You, too, have become the hands and feet of Christ through the work of the church. May we continue to offer hope and friendship in all circumstances, together.

NELL BECKER SWEEDEN Director, Nazarene Compassionate Ministries

FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS —

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries partners with local Nazarene congregations around the world to clothe, shelter, feed, heal, educate, and live in solidarity with those who suffer under oppression, injustice, violence, poverty, hunger, and disease. Nazarene Compassionate Ministries exists in and through the Church of the Nazarene to proclaim the gospel to all people in word and deed.

WHO WE THE CHURCH IN ACTION

are

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries (NCM) is the church in action. We are an outflow of the Church of the Nazarene in our world, working to mobilize local congregations to live out Christ’s call to care for those considered the “least of these” (Matthew 25). Through your partnership, NCM walks alongside local churches when they are looking for ways to meet the needs around them. We use a holistic ministry model that both proclaims and demonstrates the gospel of Christ, resulting in lives that are transformed through Christ.

Together, we partner with congregations around the world to provide tangible expressions of Christ’s compassion through church-led community development and emergency relief work. We are seeing lives and communities transformed through these nine areas of work:

Anti-Human Trafficking

Clean Water

Economic Development

Emergency Relief Food Security (Access to Food and Sustainable Agriculture)

Holistic Child Development

Refugee and Immigrant Support

Health Care

Women and Girls

NAZARENE COMPASSIONATE MINISTRIES IS THE CHURCH IN ACTION

FOOD

INTEGRATED AGRICULTURE

security

Food security—access to reliable, nutritious food—has long been a focus of compassionate ministries. While that can mean providing food during emergencies, it also means partnering with people to grow healthier, more resilient, and more sustainable crops. With these skills, farmers will develop a safety net despite disasters or unexpected weather.

This year marked the inaugural year of a holistic agricultural initiative in five countries—Armenia, Burundi, Malawi, Sri Lanka, and Zambia. By addressing needs that go beyond hunger, integrated agriculture projects consider chronic challenges. Promoting financial management and creating strong community connections mean the results of these agriculture projects extend far beyond the field and garden.

Sustainable agriculture training increases yields of crops to sell and eat for years to come.

Growers unleash their potential through business training, financial literacy, and savings groups.

In Pakistan, food distribution ensured people had enough after crops were decimated by severe floods.

Rachelle’s

Rachelle, 21, lives with two teenage sisters in Burundi. Their parents were killed in the country’s brutal civil war when she was just 15. While the sisters continued attending school through the generosity of a woman in their village, without regular income, the girls often went days without eating. Once she graduated, Rachelle struggled to find work in an uncertain economy.

Through her church, Rachelle was invited to participate in agricultural training, where she learned small business skills along with sustainable agriculture practices. “These activities influenced my life in many ways,” she says. “I will help my village and the church by teaching them good agriculture techniques that will help the community increase food production.”

Rachelle’s story is just one example of the far-reaching impact of integrated projects. Local churches become agents of transformation, working with their communities to cultivate long-term, hopeful change.

RESPONSE TO THE WAR IN Ukraine

This year was deeply impacted by the war in Ukraine, which began in February. Nazarene churches all over the world mobilized in response, whether by sending support, housing those living as refugees, or ministering during the constantly-changing reality within the country. These churches have continued to respond, and NCM volunteers are still greeting those leaving Ukraine at the border with Poland.

During emergency situations like this, NCM partners with those at local churches who are already in position to respond quickly and identify the greatest needs. The response to the war has included providing food support, mental health care, trauma care, child safe spaces, shelter, and more.

300 refugees have been cared for in Poland, plus many more in other countries.

Hundreds of people have been given shelter, food, and resources as the war drags on.

8,400+ people in Ukraine received food and medicine, though many more were unreported.

THE CHURCH dispersed

In the face of war and conflict, the church becomes dispersed. Yet, the church is still the church, for both those who have stayed and those who have left.

In Ukraine, food distributions have remained a key part of serving those in the community, where many people suddenly lost access to goods or finances. Raica, who attended a distribution in Kyiv, can no longer receive her pension because all of her job data was lost. Natasha used to work in a kindergarten, but now she is unemployed. Lyuba worked as a railroad cashier, a job made impossible by the war.

They are just a few of the many people the church dispersed is serving. From trauma counseling to meeting people at borders, from fundraising events to delivering food and supplies, local churches have become the hands and feet of Christ in the face of terrible conflict, whether they have a building to meet in or not.

HOLISTIC CHILD development

Nazarene child development programs use a holistic model, addressing every facet of a child’s life: the spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, and social. In many world areas, this is accomplished through Nazarene child development centers, which children attend in addition to traditional schooling. These centers become hubs for the entire community by supporting both the children who attend as well as their families. Children are enrolled at the centers, a key factor in the children’s success, through NCM’s child sponsorship program.

Over the last year, holistic child development projects focused on cultivating resilience, which means that families will be better prepared for food supply crisis, economic downturns, or disasters. Through these holistic, integrated ministries to children and their families, communities are transformed.

Children living as refugees in Poland play and learn in a safe space set aside for them.

Child development centers in Guatemala helped families start businesses with looms.

Laila*, age 12, hopes to become a lawyer when she grows up; she loves defending people and has a passion for justice. Right now, though, she is facing the same struggles as the rest of those living in Lebanon. The financial crisis there is increasingly dire, with inflation rates topping 158 percent (compared to 7 percent in the United States). “There’s a lot of bad things happening in this country, but still there is hope,” Laila explains.

The Nazarene school in Beirut has continued to care for students, families, and staff, making sure children have a place to feel valued and safe even in the midst of uncertainty. At school, Laila can experience a little bit of normalcy. Teachers and psychologists at the school are trained to provide holistic care to students. “It can really change somebody’s life,” Laila says. “I don’t know about the others, but for me it feels like home.”

*Children’s names are changed throughout for safety.

NEPAL: INSTEAD OF resilience

Before the devastating 2015 earthquake that killed 9,000 people, Rama’s family had an average life. “Not good, not bad,” Pujan, her father, says. They were in their field harvesting potatoes when the quake struck, and so no one was hurt. In the aftermath, though, things quickly changed.

Food became extremely scarce in their village. The family shared their potatoes with their neighbors, but they ran out after three or four days. Rama, now 15 years old, was so malnourished that she still experiences the effects of that period half her lifetime ago. “After the earthquake, there were many organizations here, but they only brought 1 sack of rice,” Nirmaya, Rama’s mother, says. “They came and went. NCM continuously helped us.”

WORRY

As part of a holistic, integrated program, NCM established a child development center in their village. Through the center, Nirmaya also joined a self-help group that helped her open a shop with her husband, and the family participated in agricultural training. Before the project, people in the village struggled so much to grow food that those who did have gardens often found food stolen. Now, everyone in the village has flourishing gardens with a wide variety of crops.

“Because of the self-help group, I became stronger than before,” Nirmaya says.

By creating an integrated project, children like Rama will grow up in families that have safety nets when disasters come. When the need was great, churches in Nepal responded in a way that will change lives for generations.

FINANCIAL FISCAL YEAR 2022

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. … Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

(800) 310-6362

INFO@NCM.ORG

NCM.ORG

17001 PRAIRIE STAR PKWY, LENEXA, KS 66220

Matthew 25:35-36, 40 NIV