Defending Children from Hunger

As you care for children around the world, God can use your prayers and gifts to meet physical needs in Jesus’ Name through other projects of Samaritan’s Purse. Among the most critical needs is hunger.

Conflict, natural disasters, and skyrocketing food prices are causing record numbers of families to struggle for food each day. Children like Shyla* are the most at risk of the severe consequences. After a devastating flood destroyed her already struggling community in South Asia, Shyla’s family was on the brink of starvation.

Friends like you make it possible to defend Shyla from hunger. Working with our local partner for Operation Christmas Child in her country, our teams are reaching her with lifesaving emergency food.

Shyla’s Story

Shyla clutches a white cardboard box with hope.

After setting it down, she keeps a close eye on it. “I’ve never received a gift that I’ve loved more than this one,” the 11-year-old said, smiling.

Inside the Samaritan’s Purse emergency package, various food items and cooking utensils are a lifeline for Shyla and her family. Alongside locally purchased staples such as oil and rice, a nutritious mix of dried vegetables grown by Canadian farmers will be enough to sustain them for an entire month. The gift delights Shyla, not only because she is hungry, but also because she loves to cook—baking bread and brewing chai when it is available.
Though Shyla is still so young, she must help her parents and brothers to survive. “I have no time to play,” she explains. “I have to work. I can use the utensils to cook!”

FOOD FOR THE FUTURE: As emergency food distributions sustain families facing immediate hunger worldwide, agriculture and livestock projects equip them to grow nutritious food for the future. Our teams are exploring ongoing help for Shyla’s village.

Not long ago, floodwaters destroyed their home, and her family used what they could to build a small shack for protection from weather and intruders. “I was so scared,” said Shyla. The terror of losing everything traumatized her.

Shyla’s fear also comes from the fact that she is a girl from a persecuted minority group in her country. She cannot walk alone for fear of assault. She has never had the chance to attend school and cannot read or write. When asked about her dreams for the future, Shyla doesn’t know how to reply. “This is all she knows. She can’t imagine any other life,” one of our local partners explained.

But even in this remote place, where vulnerable children seem forgotten, God is working powerfully.

As our partner provides Shyla’s family with food and other emergency relief to help them survive, they also intentionally spend time with the children to show them God’s love and their value in His eyes. One team member sat with Shyla over many visits to her village and taught her the alphabet song, which she now sings eagerly. For a girl who’s had to grow up too fast, it’s a little joy—a piece of childhood she’s never had. Our partner also blessed Shyla with a gift-filled Operation Christmas Child shoebox in Jesus’ Name.

These vital gifts and small acts of God’s love open doors to pray with Shyla and her family and share the Good News of the God who cares for them. “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger’” (John 6:35, ESV).

*Country withheld and name changed for security.