In an open-air compound in Fiji, Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes are being given to waiting boys and girls.

Simran, a 7-year-old Indo-Fijian girl opens her shoebox to see the wonderful treasures inside. She overhears some church kids talking about creation and the love of God and wants to learn more. With her parents’ consent, she attends The Greatest Journey kids’ program at the local church.

As she does The Greatest Journey, Simran hears the Gospel. Her parents, Dinesh and Vinita see the change in their daughter and the joy she has at church and start coming to church too.

The pastors share the Gospel with Dinesh and Vinita and pray for them.

Dinesh and Vinita say, “Now we are living with great hope, even though we are facing some family issues. We are boldly sharing the Good News with our family at every opportunity we can find.”

“Now we are living with great hope, even though we are facing some family issues. We are boldly sharing the Good News.”

The Greatest Journey After the shoebox comes The Greatest Journey! This colourful 12-lesson discipleship program teaches kids about God, faith and being a follower of Jesus Christ in their own language. On completion, the kids receive their very own Bible.

Cambodia

Thailand

Samoa

PNG

ReligionBuddhist 95% Christian 1% Other 4%

FAST FACTS:

Population 15,135,169

HDI* 138 (out of 187 countries)

74,810 shoeboxes were sent to children in Cambodia.

Vietnam85,004 shoeboxes were sent to children in Vietnam.

FAST FACTS:

Population 92,547,959

Religion None 80.8% Buddhist 9.3% Christian 8% Other 1.9%HDI*

121 (out of 187 countries)

Vanuatu5,499 shoeboxes were sent to children in Vanuatu.

FAST FACTS:

Population 257,747

ReligionChristian 75%Indigenous Beliefs 5.6%

Other 19.4%HDI* 131 (out of 187 countries)

Fiji46,018 shoeboxes were sent to children in Fiji.

FAST FACTS:

Population 896,639

Religion Christian 52% Hindu 30% Muslim 7% Other 11%HDI*

88 (out of 187 countries)

84,442 shoeboxes were sent to children in Thailand.

20,757 shoeboxes were sent to children in Samoa.

4,996 shoeboxes were sent to children in Papua New Guinea.

Religion Buddhist 94.6% Muslim 4.6%, Christian 0.7% Other 0.1%

Religion Christian 97% Other 3%

Religion Christian 96% Indigenous Beliefs 3.3% Other 0.7%

FAST FACTS:

Population 67,222,972

HDI* 89 (out of 187 countries)

FAST FACTS:

Population 192,448

HDI* 106 (out of 187 countries)

FAST FACTS:

Population 7,619,193

HDI* 157 (out of 187 countries) *The Human Development Index (HDI) is a

rank of a country’s average achievement in 3 key dimensions of human development: health, education and income.

AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND

shoebox report

2014/15

Letterfrom Jorge

The level of generosity of Australians and New Zealanders towards kids

living in very difficult circumstances in the developing world is astonishing. This year, we celebrate the sending of

more than 3.6 million shoeboxes since the program began in Australia. In

2014, Australians and New Zealanders packed a record number of 321,526

shoeboxes for children in need. THANK YOU!

SPECIAL REPORT

2015

In our region, we service 7 countries with Operation Christmas Child and on the next few pages, you’ll see the statistics for each of these countries.

Globally, Operation Christmas Child reaches children in over 100 nations and a record number of 10,440,333 boxes were sent this season to delighted children around the world. The shoebox stories from India, Iraq, the Philippines and Nepal are included to give you a global perspective of the program.

Australians and New Zealanders have also been hugely generous during 2014 by enabling our Disaster Relief and Development programs to grow substantially. I hope you enjoy reading about the impact of these programs in this booklet. We have been able to provide “help in Jesus’ name” to people in Alaska, Cambodia, Fiji, Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Liberia, Mongolia, Philippines, South Sudan, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tonga and Vietnam.

The more we work and travel in developing nations, the greater we sense the urgency to reach out to help boys and girls, their families and whole communities with the basic essentials for a decent life. Operation Christmas Child brings new hope and the Good News of Jesus Christ. Our clean water, health, agriculture, education, anti-trafficking and disaster relief programs can be the difference between life and death, or at least make a difference between an abjectly impoverished life and a decent standard of living.

Thank you for joining us - together we can make a huge difference in the lives of people. Please help us to reach even more people by passing this booklet on to your friends and family and encouraging them to consider partnering with us.

If you need extra copies please contact our office on 1300 884 468 or email info@samaritanspurse.org.au.

God bless you.

Jorge Rodrigues Executive Director Samaritan’s Purse Australia/New Zealand321,526 kids received

shoeboxes this OCC season!

CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

OCC AROUND THE WORLD

In a tiny home in a crowded neighbourhood lives Samir, an 8-year-old boy who has grown up in India with his parents and grandmother. His mother Mita spends most of her time caring for

Samir and her mother-in-law, and uses all her spare time to create handmade items.

When he was 7 years old, Samir received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox full of crayons, coloured pencils, a toy car and many other precious gifts. He was amazed at all the gifts in the box that now belonged to him.

“When I received my shoebox I was very happy. My favourite toy was the yoyo.”

Mita also expressed her delight that her son had received this gift. “We don’t have the words to express our gratitude for the shoebox sent to Samir…The moment he opened the gift box, we were surprised to find such precious, nice toys inside. We knew it was not possible for us to buy him such expensive toys!”What goes into a shoebox is nice, but what comes out is eternal.Samir and his family were most thankful for what happened after he received the shoebox. He said, “I learned that Jesus loves me. After I received the gift I started coming to the church and my parents started coming with me.”

“After I received the gift I started coming to the church and my parents started coming with me.” SAMIR

India

Fourteen-year-old Basil lives with his family of nine in the town of Enishke. They made a home among other Yazidi families in an abandoned building that was once used to store Saddam

Hussein’s military supplies.

When ISIS came, his family began the two-day walk to Mount Sinjar. They spent nine days on top of the mountain without food and very little water as they were surrounded by ISIS.

When the Peshmerga, the Kurdish military force, opened the road off the mountain, Ismael and his family were loaded onto a big truck and taken to Syria.

Basil’s message was simple, “I need to say to everyone who will hear me, we need help here.”

Some of that help came in the form of an Operation Christmas Child shoebox distribution. The gathering with 125 children was intended to extend hope and let kids be kids. An Operation Christmas Child leader from the Middle East shared a Bible story and taught the children a song before the gift-filled shoeboxes were passed out. On the count of three, the children opened their boxes simultaneously.

Basil was excited about everything in his box, but his favourite item was a pair of black tennis shoes with white stripes. Speaking to those who packed his shoebox, Basil said, “Thank you and God bless you!”

Samaritan’s Purse has provided aid and relief to displaced families in Iraq and blessed their kids with gift-filled shoeboxes!

Iraq

W hen Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, Rhea Martinez and her family took shelter in their home. Heavy rains soaked the ground beneath

them and heavy winds of 305 kilometres per hour screamed above them.“It sounded like a person was crying,” Rhea said of the storm. “It just kept getting louder, and we were all so scared.”

It didn’t take long before the Martinez home had

been shredded, the roof torn off and its walls battered and broken. They ran for safety to Rhea’s mother’s house, which was nearby.

A few days later, Rhea’s 4-year-old son, Luke became violently ill and the government-run rural health unit referred him to the Schistosomiasis Control and Research Hospital, an hour’s drive away.

When Rhea arrived with a weak and dehydrated boy in her arms, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

“I kept thinking that I was just dreaming,” Rhea said. “But destruction was everywhere.”

Nearly the entire second floor of the hospital was decapitated in the storm, and much of the staff had left to deal with their own devastation or that of family members. Samaritan’s Purse has taken over the outpatient clinic until the facilities can be repaired and people are able to come back to work.

Luke received the medical care he so desperately needed, but would be spending Christmas in a hospital bed.

To Rhea’s delight, Luke soon received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox through Samaritan’s Purse.

“I wasn’t sure what was going on,” she laughed. “But then Luke got this beautiful gift. We didn’t expect to have any gifts for Christmas this year, especially after the typhoon hit.”

Every time Luke pushes around his new toy truck, he can forget about the tragedy and sickness that rage around him even for just a little while.

“Thank God for this amazing gift and for the person who packed it,” Rhea said. “All of Luke’s toys and belongings are gone. This is a true blessing.”

Phillipines

Nepal

“...Luke got this beautiful gift. We didn’t expect to have any gifts for Christmas this year, especially after the typhoon hit...This is a true blessing.” RHEA

Samaritan’s Purse sent a 747 cargo plane filled with 65,000 shoeboxes to the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan.

In Nepal, a nation nestled deep in the snow-capped Himalayan Mountains, the love of God is being shown through lovingly packed gift-filled shoeboxes, delivered by local Operation

Christmas Child partners.

Though the gifts are small, God can use them to change the hearts of the children and families who receive them.

“My son’s name is Prakash,” said Laxmi. “The day he got his shoebox gift, he was so happy.”

Her son carried his shoebox with him everywhere. He even kept it by his side during meals. But, Laxmi did not feel the same joy as her son.

“I used to beat and scold my son,” she said. I used to get so mad.”

The family struggled with poverty, and Laxmi’s husband worked far away and was often away from home.

“We had nothing,” Laxmi said. “I had no support. But Prakash was so happy. He said, ‘Look Ma, I have a lot of gifts! The doll is mine. The pencils and paper are all for me!’”

After Prakash received his shoebox, Laxmi started attending the church that had delivered the gifts. When she started to go to church, she learned about the love of God and began to feel that He would take care of her family.

“God started to lead me in His way,” she said. “I went to church and I confessed my sin and gave my life to God. And then I escaped from all the anger and started to love.”

“Through that box, not only did I come to know God, I came to love Him, too,” she said.

“We had nothing... The day [Prakash] got his shoebox gift, he was so happy. He said, ‘...The doll is mine. The pencils and paper are all for me!’ ” LAXMI

CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Our “TURN ON THE TAP” campaign provides wells, rainwater tanks, BioSand water filters and more along with health and hygiene training so that children, families and communities in poor nations can drink safe water and prevent dangerous waterborne diseases.

Nhem Sok from the Kampong Speu province of Cambodia recently received a BioSand water filter from Samaritan’s Purse.

She says, “Before, we used unclean water from many sources such as the community pond, dam and rain water without treatment. Because we were not trained about disease prevention, hygiene and sanitation, we faced many diseases such as diarrhoea, malnutrition, parasites, typhoid and stomach aches. The women in our village would get diseases after they had taken a bath in a pond or canal.

Now that Samaritan’s Purse is working in our community, we have been trained in disease prevention, sanitation, hygiene and clean water. We know to wash our hands before we eat and after we have used the latrine, and our health is much better.

In 2012, we received a BioSand filter. We are very happy because we hope that through this filter we can produce enough clean water for many purposes. So our living standard is improving through hygiene, sanitation and drinking clean water from our BioSand filter.

Thank you, Samaritan’s Purse! And thank you to the donors that have supported our community with this program.”

Health & Nutrition The health issues of people in poverty are many and women and children are especially vulnerable. Our health clinics, health education and health services improve the quality of life for women, children and families in poor communities.

W omen in rural Cambodia traditionally give birth at home with little help. Sadly, many die in

childbirth and others lose a child every year.

Samaritan’s Purse is building maternity wards beside health centres so that women have a safe place to go to give birth. We are also providing healthcare training for midwives, and pregnancy and child nutrition training for mothers.

When Kuntaeray, 21 went to the health centre for prenatal check-ups, she learned that women were delivering their babies at the new maternity ward next door. When her labour started, she went there instead of staying in the village.

Kuntaeray had complications and was transferred to a hospital, where she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She and her husband were overjoyed to take their baby home after two days – a happy ending that could have been very different if she had stayed in the village to give birth.

Education & Vocational Training Education provides the building blocks for a future free from poverty. We provide vocational training and give kids access to quality education by building schools and pre-schools, providing school supplies and paying school fees.

T hi Ay wanted to get an education but her family was very poor and her mother was sick.

Samaritan’s Purse gave Ma Thi Ay a monthly scholarship to pay for school fees and supplies at Hoa Sua Vocational Training Centre, where we fund education for students from poor ethnic minorities in the highlands of Vietnam. Ma Thi Ay finally had the support she needed to pursue her education and to have hope for a better future for herself and her family.

“What I desire the most is that I will study hard and have good results so that I can get a good job to help provide for my parents,” she says. “I do not need to worry anymore about anything. I will try my best to make my dreams come true. I am very grateful to Samaritan’s Purse for giving me the help to go to school.”

People at Risk We provide aid, health care, housing and education for victims of human trafficking, orphans, the disabled, and other vulnerable people at risk of being exploited and struggling to survive in hostile environments.

Phi Hong has been disabled since birth and struggles to walk and speak. His son worked in the rice paddies to earn money

for the family but when floods destroyed the crops they were desperate and borrowed money for a broker to take the family over the border into Thailand illegally to find work.

Like many, they believed the promise of a good-paying job for the family. Instead, they earned just $233 in 14 months tending 4,000 cows.

Fearing for their safety, the family finally saved enough to pay another broker to bring them back to Cambodia, where they returned to their village.

Each year, thousands of desperate Cambodians become victims of unsafe migration and find themselves indebted to traffickers, in jail, or worse.

In response to the migration and trafficking crisis, Samaritan’s Purse teaches Safe Migration and Trafficking Awareness in 82 villages, educating schools and villages on safe migration and protection from human trafficking.

More than 150 firefighters fought the blaze that destroyed 26 homes in the recent Adelaide bushfires. After emergency

services were withdrawn, Samaritan’s Purse deployed our new Disaster Relief Unit (DRU) for the first time to assist families in the area.

We met Jim, a homeowner in the Adelaide Hills area who had a narrow escape as the fire, driven by the unpredictable winds in the gully behind his house, raced across his property. The family home was completely lost - a lonely chimney stack reveals where the house once stood, surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Jim returns daily to clean up the debris on the barren property. His wife, a horticulturalist, has not been able to return yet. The loss of the gardens is still too much and the charred landscape too confronting.

Jim expressed deep appreciation to our volunteers who came with chainsaws to help clear the fence lines. Most of his livestock had survived the flames and recent rain is encouraging new shoots of grass to spring to life.

Domestic Disaster Relief We mobilise staff, equipment and volunteers providing practical support and recovery assistance to families impacted by cyclones, bushfires, floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters in Australia and New Zealand.

International Disaster Relief In disasters, wars and emergencies, children and families are often hardest hit. We stand ready to respond at a moment’s notice to humanitarian crises around the world, bringing relief, comfort, physical help and life-saving, emergency aid to victims of war, famine, natural disaster, poverty and disease.

A little over a year ago, the Philippines was struck by Super Typhoon Haiyan bringing heavy rains, 6 metre waves and winds of more than 300 km/hr. It was the

strongest storm to reach landfall in recorded history.

Initially, our response was to provide critical aid for the desperate families - food, water, shelter and medical supplies. We then began programs in hard-hit areas, providing clean water, shelter, latrine kits, nutrition programs and hygiene and sanitation training.

The people in the Philippines still need our help. In December 2014, a year after Haiyan, Typhoon Hagupit struck, destroying many of the homes that had been rebuilt. Families are struggling. One community we reached has lost 80 percent of its homes. Another was still completely under water.

Myrna Agner tells us about the loss her family has suffered.

“Our situation is hopeless,” she says, standing next to a pile of debris that used to be her home. “We don’t have food or shelter. Everything was washed away. We don’t even have clothing for our family. There are so many needs.”

Samaritan’s Purse continues to work in the Philippines, assisting families like Myrna’s as they recover.

Animals & Agriculture Livelihoods We provide the resources and training to help poor people in rural communities earn an income farming animals and agriculture to provide food for their families and to create a livelihood and a new future, free from poverty.

Mrs Khiem Moeun and her family were living with a number of challenges. She had eight family members living in a one-room home and her three

teenage children had a difficult time obtaining an education and staying healthy.

In 2012 through the Samaritan’s Purse ‘Seeds of Hope’ program, Mrs Moeun received help to start a vegetable garden and raise chickens and pigs. Her entrepreneurial spirit made her very successful; she simply needed a little help getting started.

Mrs Moeun started out raising four pigs. Four pigs turned to eight and eight pigs turned to sixteen. Soon she had sold sixteen pigs and decided it was time to recognise a dream she had for her family - building a new home. They went from a small thatched home to a large wooden home that is big enough for the whole family and is much more secure.

When one of our staff members visited Mrs Moeun’s village, he spoke with the village chief who told us this family was not the only success story. He said that as a result of the Seeds of Hope project, many families have now increased their income, domestic violence cases have dropped significantly, and mothers and fathers no longer need to migrate to other provinces or countries to find work. Families are now healthier, happier and free from poverty, thanks to your support!

*Your gift to Where Most Needed equips us with the resources - including personnel, materials, supporting services, buildings and equipment - to fulfil our mission of relief and development. All donations of $2 or more to Samaritan’s Purse Relief and Development Projects are tax deductible for Australian taxpayers only.

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Church Resourcing We build churches, train church workers and provide Bible literature and other resources to help churches in poor nations reach out to their local community with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

As church leader, Batzorig looks out across the rugged plains of central Mongolia, he recalls the brutal winter of 2010 that left

nomadic families stripped of their livestock, broken, lost and starving.

He remembers Samaritan’s Purse coming with emergency food, clothing, medical aid and starting a livestock recovery program to help the herdsmen rebuild their herds.

Over time, the families began to ask about this ‘Jesus’ who had brought Samaritan’s Purse to help them. They wanted to attend church and find out more, but their lifestyle made it difficult.

On hearing this, Samaritan’s Purse began providing gers - portable structures for 30 or 40 people – that the nomadic families can use as churches and for other Christian activities.

We aim to provide 10 ger churches in Mongolia and are currently building several churches in Fiji.

RELIEF & DEVELOPMENT

AUSTRALIA PO Box 346, Penrith NSW 2751

Phone: 1300 884 468 samaritanspurse.org.au

NEW ZEALAND PO Box 870, Shortland Street,

Auckland 1140 Phone: 0800 726 274

samaritanspurse.org.nz

RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT SAMARITAN’S PURSE AUSTRALIA LTD.

ABN: 84 070 722 404 NZ CHARITIES NO: CC36649

CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SAMARITAN’S PURSE AUSTRALASIA

-OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

ABN: 80 162 895 623

Samaritan’s Purse Australasia -Operation Christmas Child is a subsidiary

of Samaritan’s Purse Australia Ltd.For feedback or complaints, please email complaints@samaritanspurse.org.au