Hands That Build, Teach and Heal

Healthy compassion springs from God’s work in our own lives—often a painful, tearing work that can lead to brokenness. Then healing. Then new life.

Outside the United States, ongoing, compassion-based ministry in the Evangelical Free Church takes many forms: from homes for AIDS orphans and abused mothers, to English classes and training in sustainable agriculture.

Some are well-developed, following years of prayer, planning and conversations. Others grew out of crisis response and are now seeing amazing fruit because they are touching areas of real need. And many, many others are just being birthed, as believers faithfully walk with God. 

As you read these stories of EFCA believers responding in compassion, consider your own church’s dreams for the future and the baby steps it can start taking today.

» New Covenant Foundation, Ethiopia

It started with friendship and a cup of coffee. A cup of very fine coffee. That friendship between Americans and Ethiopians—who all met in 1996—has now blossomed into a full-scale coffee-processing plant deep in Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia.

The plant employs 200 local workers, uses environmentally friendly methods and plows a percentage of its income into profit-sharing with local coffee growers, as well as into a nonprofit organization called New Covenant Foundation. (Learn more about the beginnings of New Covenant Foundation.)

As local economies are strengthened through the coffee business, NCF addresses other needs of the whole person, from health care to education to spiritual growth—specifically, church planting.

American EFCA members participate in the process by traveling to southern Ethiopia to share medical, business and financial expertise. And everyone benefits. 

“The real heartbeat of the ministry is that we are partnering in ministry,” says Doug Wieber, pastor of His Place (EFCA) in Post Falls, Idaho. “We have some resources they don’t have; they have some spiritual depth we don’t have.”

And so an entire Ethiopian region is growing stronger because a few friends began talking—over a cup of coffee—about not only how to keep coffee profits in the community but also how to bring spiritual growth into the mix.

» Island Literacy Network, undisclosed Asian country

Most people remember the horrifying photos coming out of Asia in December 2004, as a wall of water washed away shoreline, buildings and lives. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, the Evangelical Free Church funneled its largest-ever crisis response to national partners on-location. Immediately, they began relief and recovery efforts. But what has happened since then?

Would you believe that some local Christians who were knee-deep in clean-up are now engaged in active, holistic outreach? What God is doing in that region is proof that something powerful happens when we live out of compassionate hearts.

One example of holistic ministry in this country is the Island Literacy Network. In this nation, public schooling is prohibitive for many; fees for books and uniforms are simply out of reach. Yet education is highly valued. 

So a team of national believers with a heart for education established ILN—which, among its services, provides school fees to children of poor families. Children who qualify are each connected with a caseworker, who regularly visits the children’s homes and builds relationships with them and their families. 

This case worker then helps determine the greatest educational needs in the village, which leads to the establishment of libraries, bookmobiles and even health-education opportunities. When a new library is opened, the whole village celebrates, including its elected officials. 

The case worker, by the way, is also a church planter.

“I’m responsible for eight children from different local families,” says one female case worker. “So far, there are three women who have heard the good news. I’m praying for the rest of them, that God would give me a chance to share the good news with them too.”

And so, as Evangelical Free Churches around the world help fund the Island Literacy Network, they are not only helping to raise the literacy level of this country that has suffered so much, but they are also building a continued legacy of crisis-turned-to-spiritual-rebirth.

» Corazones Abiertos, Mexico 

Rebecca Porter’s story is one of journeying: from initial transformation in Christ to a doing-the-right-thing rut, to transformation all over again. Her story reminds us that we can only bring a healthy gospel to someone else if we are living it out ourselves.

Since 1983, Rebecca and her husband, Clyde, have served with EFCA ReachGlobal in several locations in Latin America. When they transferred to Mexico City in 2004, their goal was to help plant a church that they would eventually turn over to their Mexican brothers and sisters to lead. 

For various reasons, though, they met obstacles at every turn. So they stayed involved in other ministries as they continued praying and planning for their church plant.

In 2005, Rebecca was asked to attend a training session for Corazones Abiertos (“Open Hearts”)—the Latin branch of a worldwide ministry to survivors of abuse. Domestic abuse is a problem rampant across all of Mexico—something that the government is addressing in a public-relations campaign. 

At the training, God opened a decades-long closed door in Rebecca’s heart. “I have spent most of my life running, hiding, ignoring and denying the abuse in my background,” she says. “After I broke my own silence about what had happened, an explosion began, and I couldn’t stop it.”

At age 57, Rebecca finally began talking about her experience—not only how she had been damaged but also how, in turn, she had damaged others. As God began to work healing in her own heart, she started leading 12-week groups for others facing the same pain. Corazones Abiertos calls these “grace groups.”   

“I’ve been a believer for, how long?” Rebecca says. “I’ve been in how many churches? Yet I have never experienced a church as God meant for the church to be, until I experienced a grace group. 

“It’s a safe place where you can say, ‘I‘m sinful; I’m ugly; I have been harmed; I have harmed others; I want to walk forward in my walk with God.’”

Forty Mexicans—both believers and nonbelievers—have now participated in grace groups; 24 have been trained as leaders, and several are planning to take the training to other Latin American countries. As Rebecca and Clyde watch the healthy interaction occurring, they wonder if these groups might indeed be the nuclei of a healthy church plant?

“God continues to put these people in our path,” Rebecca says, “and we are asking Him where to go with this. My prayer is: God, it’s hard to be vulnerable. But I am convinced people cannot see Your glory in me without knowing what You have done for me.”

Church planting might well be where God is still headed with Rebecca and Clyde Porter, and He’s starting with a ministry aimed at making healthier disciples. All springing out of the work He’s doing in their own lives.