One of the reasons I love my church family is their heart for reaching out to help marginalized people. Our missions board organizes an annual International Fair Trade Expo each year. It was there that I learned about many ministries working to make the world a better place for marginalized people across the globe.

I’ve wanted to create an informational post for a long time to highlight ways that everyday people like you and me can have a global impact. The time has come for me to just do it. I started this list with those I knew about and then took to Facebook to ask my friends. They didn’t let me down.

I’d like to challenge you to read through this list and then turn to prayer to see where God may be leading you to help. Together we really can change the world.

Ministries Making a Difference Around the World

• Compassion International – Sponsors financially support children from all over the world. Sponsorship is just a small portion of what Compassion does.
• Samaritan’s Purse – Their most known program is Operation Christmas Child, but they also have ministries to aid in crisis situations, natural disasters, support military veterans, and more.
• Children’s Hunger Fund – Literally feeding the hungry children around the world. Each $1 you donate provides 20 meals.
• Restore Haiti – A ministry that provides medical, educational, and nutritional needs in Haiti. You can sponsor children through them as well.
• Youth With a Mission – Connecting willing workers with projects all over the world.
• American Leprosy Missions – Curing and caring for people with leprosy. They also recently worked in the Ebola outbreak.
• Living Hope – Works with at-risk kids to provide emotional, physical, social, and educational needs.
• Matthew 25 Ministries – Provides humanitarian aid and disaster relief around the world.
• Word Made Flesh – Works in the poorest of communities, serving children who work in sewers or the streets; women forced into the sex industry; and children soldiers fighting in civil wars.
• Amani Ya Juu – Means “higher peace” in Swahili. This ministry serves marginalized women in Africa, teaching them to sew and run a business. The fair trade products you can purchase through their website directly helps a woman who has nothing.
• Wipe Every Tear – Rescues girls and women from the sex trade industry in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.
• RecycloCraftz – This ministry works with widowed, unemployed, and orphaned women to help them create a business to support them and their children in Zambia.
• Education and More – Educating children and aiming to reduce poverty in Guatemala.
• Sari Bari – Sari Bari works with women in India’s red-light district. These women have heartbreaking stories that start at very young ages. The ministry teaches them to sew and they make beautiful blankets out of recycled cotton saris.
• World Gospel Outreach  – Works with the poor in Honduras.
• Samaritan’s Creations – Beautiful jewelry and accessories created by Thai women whom the ministry has rescued from Bangkok’s red-light district.
• Mission Lazarus – A ministry that works to provide educational, medical, agricultural, and spiritual help to those in Honduras and Haiti.
• Medical Ambassadors International – Providing medical help worldwide.
• Community Livestock Integrated Development Consultancy – Located in Uganda, CLIDE works in the area of community development.
• Gospel for Asia – Focusing on the 10/40 window, you can sponsor a child or a missionary to help spread Christ’s love and provision.
• United Methodist Committee on Relief – A wide range of services provided.
• Insight Resources International, Inc. – Entrepreneurial guidance for people, businesses, and communities around the world.
• New Missions – Another option for sponsoring a child’s needs in Haiti.

As you can see, you can support these ministries by donating funds or buying items created by the people (largely women) your money will help. Consider doing holiday or birthday shopping with one of these ministries online or finding a local fair trade store.