Christmas Appeal 2020

What does a child want for Christmas? A poor or persecuted Christian child?

What does a little girl in Pakistan pray for continually, though it seems impossible?
What does an Armenian child, homeless and distressed after escaping bombardment in Nagorno-Karabakh, yearn for?
What does an emaciated youngster in Zimbabwe hope for every waking moment?

As we look forward to celebrating our Saviour’s humble birth, new-born babies and infants are starving before their desperate parents’ eyes in Zimbabwe. Other children suffer bravely for their faith, like Leah Sharibu in Nigeria, only 14 when she was kidnapped by Boko Haram. She refused to deny Christ and therefore is still held by the Islamist terrorist group, nearly three years on.

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“And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.”

Luke 2:7

This year of catastrophe for the world brought terrible suffering to God’s little ones in so many regions where Christians were already marginalised, persecuted and desperately poor.

Hundreds of thousands of Christian children are going to bed hungry in Africa and Asia where food insecurity has spiked in the wake of Covid lockdowns, locust plagues, flooding and drought.

Babies and infants facing starvation in Zimbabwe this Christmas

The children of Zimbabwe were already suffering malnutrition, stunting and pellagra; now they face starvation.

It was estimated in September that two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s population will need food aid by Christmas.

Warm clothes and stout shoes

Barnabas is providing desperately needed winter coats for Armenian Christian children, whose lives have been turned upside down by the violent attacks from Azerbaijan’s armed forces which erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh in September. Many have fled to neighbouring Armenia, a very poor country, where the churches are struggling to cope with the newcomers. Winters are bitterly cold, so warm clothes can save lives. Will you help these child refugees?

In tropical Indonesia, keeping warm is easy, but many Christian children are so poor they have no shoes. They walk miles in their bare feet each day to get to and from school. Will you give them a pair of proper shoes, to protect their feet on the long journey?

The gift of future hope

For many Christian children, school is something they can only dream of. Without an education, their future looks as bleak as the lives of their illiterate parents. But the gift of schooling transforms them. Barnabas provides teachers, school buildings, books and stationery – whatever is needed to enable young Christians to get an education that will bless their whole family.

Will you give a Christmas gift to remind hungry Christians that God is good forever? Thank you for your regular giving to Barnabas Fund. May I ask you to consider prayerfully whether you could give an extra gift this Christmas to our “Children’s Fund” to help Christian children, many of them orphaned or fatherless, traumatised by violence and disaster, worn down by discrimination and contempt? Will you be the one to remind them that God is good forever?

Above all, please pray. Ask that these little ones will remain steadfast in faith, trusting in Jesus Christ to guide, protect and keep them.

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$5.50

could pay for a month’s schooling for a Christian brick-kiln child in an open-air “classroom”

$18

could buy a proper pair of shoes for an Indonesian Christian child to walk to school in

$52

could provide 10 kg of ePap, with its health-giving micronutrients and protein, to nourish three children in Zimbabwe for two months

$58

could buy a warm winter coat for an Armenian child who has fled the violent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh

$13,000

could construct a simple three-room school building, with water and electricity, for 60-70 Christian brick-kiln children in Pakistan