ACTION Christmas Outreach 2020

Dear Friends of ACTION,

During my two decades as director of ACTION, I visited many of our mission fields to encourage the workers, fact-find for reporting to the board and supporters, and experience first-hand the work of the ministry.  Many times, I was taken to the slums to actually step into the day-to-day reality of the missionaries and those whom they serve.  

One time it was to see a feeding program to AIDS orphans in Lusaka, Zambia. In Mexico City, I vividly recall the sewer opening at the surface where we visited youth who lived below, in the darkness and filth.  Hiking up the hills of Bogotá, Colombia, with now-retired Raquel de Jesús, she was like a pied piper to children from the slums flocking out to greet her.  Thomas Smoak took me to see the former slave market in downtown São Paulo, just steps from a freeway overpass under which lived street folk that we later visited. 

A most striking moment for me occurred in the Philippines, when we went to a slum built in a narrow river valley where the sun never shone except at high noon.  The next year a flash flood passed through and destroyed everything.

ACTION's annual Christmas Outreach project combines these experiences of ministering to the poorest of the poor with the celebration of the Incarnation. And we invite you to be a part of it.  Your prayers and gifts are essential, as plans are being made right now in 20 countries to use the Christmas season to accomplish a fresh wave of evangelism in dark places. 

The food, presents, and decorations make our evangelistic events attractive to the desperately needy, but the eternal value that remains after the calendar turns over to 2021 is the faith and changed lives of those who will respond to the message.

This Christmas, step into the story with us, as your birthday gift to the Lord.  The decisions for Christ will be more valuable even than gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas,

Rex Lee Carlaw
USA Director Emeritus