Our Christmas FAIR Appeal Reveal!
Please let me express my gratitude to so many within the Fellowship family who regularly give to the five or six FAIR appeals we host each year. Our FAIR (Fellowship Aid and International Relief) department seeks to involve our churches and donors in relief, development, and justice projects through a variety of means, namely:
- large project appeals (two per year)
- mini-appeals (to support relief work with one of our Fellowship International missions or partner mission agency)
- emergency appeals
- FAIR catalogue (go online to discover dozens of specific relief projects)
- child sponsorship program: help a child for $35/month in:
- Honduras (Casa Hogar children’s home)
- Lebanon (Cedar Home for girls, and Clementia Life Centre for Syrian refugee children
- Sri Lanka (Love Trust program for children)
Fall FAIR Project for Madagascar
Each year we hope you and/or your church will consider giving to FAIR’s Fall appeal. I will let our FAIR Director, Dan Shurr explain this year’s appeal:
What would you do if you needed emergency surgery, or if it was your child who needed surgery? You would go to a hospital. But what about places where medical facilities and services are scarce?
Recently Mina* arrived at the Good News Hospital in Mandritsara, Madagascar, needing emergency care. As any curious young child does, she would put things in her mouth. Two days earlier, Mina had put a battery in her mouth and before her parents could stop her, she swallowed it! The battery became lodged in her throat and she and her frantic parents began the long journey to the hospital. Because of the urgency of the situation and with the girl in a great amount of pain, the medical team began working to get the battery out. Two hours later, success! Patience and determination paid off; Fellowship International missionary, Dr. Jesh Thiessen and the hospital’s surgical team were able to remove the battery from her stomach, despite the lack of proper instruments. Soon, Mina and her grateful parents were able to return home.
In Madagascar, there are only 100 surgeons serving a population of 26 million people. Through a new partnership, FAIR is excited to help launch this new Christian surgical residency program to train Malagasy junior doctors to be skilled and compassionate surgeons who know Jesus and love to make Jesus known to their patients.
You can learn more on our website and by watching this video.
Thank you for your generous gift. Please consider a Thanksgiving Sunday or Christmas FAIR offering this year.
*the young girls name was changed to Mina to protect her privacy.
Have a blessed week,