OM Russia partners with local churches to respond to the needs of Ukrainian refugees in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

Discipleship Centre students shared the Gospel with a group of unreached villages during a short-term outreach.

OM Russia had a great kick-off to the STM summer season by serving in a camp for children with disabilities to hear about Christ.

For the first time, OM Russia organised a camp for children from Central Asian families where kids saw and felt God’s love.

An OM worker in Russia finds opportunities to share Christ's love with members of the Romani ethnic group.

OM offers Russians intensive Bible and ministry training, along with opportunities to live among unreached people to share the gospel and plant churches.

A woman from a least-reached group of people accepted Christ during Discipleship Centre student outreach.

OM, in cooperation with the local church, has sent believers to serve in a village where unreached people groups live. Shortly after, some local people repented and decided to follow Jesus. Now a vibrant church has been started.

After discovering his freedom in Christ and being discipled, former drug addict Ruslan wants to share hope with the least reached.

Despite not openly being allowed to speak about Jesus, an outreach team finds ways to be instruments in God's hands.

Through people like Arayk, locals have started to listen to God's word and are responding to it in a small town.

OM Philippines will host three training sessions this month in an effort to see sustainable, transformational and developmental ministries grow in Cebu City.

Home to many mountain tribal people, most of whom practice animism, Banaue will host this year’s Go Extra Mile outreach from 9-24 April.

OM Ships’ vessel Logos Hope welcomes her three millionth visitor on board while in Puerto Princesa, Philippines.

Forty new students registered for OM Philippines-Cebu’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) programme in June, and by faith, their financial needs have been met.

Marie Reyes from Australia led the Out of the Comfort Zone Cebu team, and shares lessons she learnt during the two-week outreach.

How OM Philippines is making a long-term difference in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

OM Philippines hosts micro-business workshops that offer a future with hope.

OM Philippines completes their annual mission training and exposure programme in the tribal areas of Palawan, Philippines.

Six young people joined STEP OUT 2014 and an outreach in the Philippines to challenge their comfort zones, and they were not disappointed.

Cebu, Philippines :: Pastors and their wives who serve in the region affected by Typhoon Haiyan are invited on board for a time of rest and refreshment.

Subic Bay, Philippines :: Logos Hope’s Official Opening in Subic Bay is blessed by the attendance of pastors who have stood with the ship’s ministry since its first visit.

An Out of the Comfort Zone team experiences island life as they bring Christ’s love to children and families on Gilutungan and Kinatarcan Island.

OM Philippines send staff to assess the earthquake damages in Surigao City and provide needed disaster relief training.

After over 10 years of praying, the Philippines had its first-ever TeenStreet!

Young Filipinos participate in OM Philippines Alternative Learning System, a learning institution for those who have dropped out of school or failed their exams.

Testimony of a Greek woman.

A local church group's visit to a clinic in central Greece.

History of how Albanian gypsies came to Greece and their life today.

In 2008, the Greek Evangelical Church in Athens opened a community centre, in a suburb where many Albanians live. OM worker Martha describes how she and other staff are reaching out with God's love to local young people.

Rosie from OM Greece helps at a project for homeless people run by local believers in Athens. She describes how one regular 'guest' is progressing towards faith in God.

Jemina (Finland) joined the Transform team in Athens. Changes in travel plans meant she used the metro system—between stations with very special names.

In an interview with OM Greece’s country leader, Kees den Toom (Netherlands), we learn about the current situation in Greece and OM’s response to it.

OM Greece partners with the Greek Church to help feed the hungry and share Jesus in their own community.

Believers from different nations and denominations gathered to worship God together in Athens, promoting unity amongst the city’s believers.

Beyond providing basic relief items, one OM worker spends time with refugees passing through Greece, listening to their stories and hopes.

OM Greece facilitates food distribution and children’s programmes at an Olympic arena in Athens now housing hundreds of refugees a night.

A long-term worker overseeing refugee relief work on Lesbos describes the people he’s met on the island, the chances he’s had to share his faith and how God has shown up during the crisis.

In the midst of the refugee crisis in Greece, OM country leader says OM acts as ‘the glue,’ doing behind-the-scenes work to bond churches and other Christian organisations.

Day after day, OM volunteers staffed transit camps meeting and loving refugees on Lesvos. After roughly nine months, the ministry is closing down.

OM Greece's involvement with refugees is always evolving. This summer the team is able to work in more camps and connect with more people.

An OM Greece worker explains, while she is babysitting, how she helps ladies involved in human trafficking and the sex industry.

OM seeks to love refugees like family members through starting sports ministry and cooking meals in camps.

God is working to transform lives in Mozambique through the efforts of the local OM team.

Lives are transformed in Mozambique as OM’s Tabitha Project gives local women training in sustainable handiwork skills.

Limardes Domingo, an OM worker in Mecula, Mozambique, has seen church growth over two years through God's faithful answers to prayer.

“God is working in this community,” James said. He and other Christians in his village are challenging the culture by living their lives for Christ.

People in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe are still recovering from Cyclone Idai. OM is responding to the needs in different communities in these countries.

Lima, Peru, May 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Peruvian congresswoman Luz Milagros Cayguaray Gambini has demanded the country’s health minister provide the legal and scientific basis for a directive that would allow abortion when a pregnant woman is infected with the novel coronavirus.

Abortion is illegal in Peru except when pregnancy would cause death or permanent harm to a pregnant woman.

On April 22, Peru’s Minister of Health Victor Zamora issued a directive calling for provision of emergency contraception in the country, and allowing abortion for pregnant women who test positive for the coronavirus.

In a May 5 letter, Cayguaray demanded Zamora to “Indicate what the legal basis” is for the directive that allows doctors to “end the pregnancy,” if the mother has contracted COVID-19.

The legislator also challenged Zamora to indicate “the scientific and medical basis the norm is based upon.”

At issue is whether a positive test for coronavirus is sufficient to establish that a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman. Gambini says that assertion is unproven and unfounded.

Cayguaray has also written to Dr. Enrique Guevara Ríos, director of the country’s Perinatal Maternal Institute, asking him to report how many pregnant women with COVID-19 have been treated to date, “how many have had their pregnancies terminated,” “on what grounds,” and “what current regulation has been applied to carry out the interruption of those pregnancies.”

The Arequipa Doctors for Life Association has criticized the health directive in a statement.

"At this time in which all our efforts as a nation should be aimed at improving our precarious health system to mitigate the serious impact of the pandemic, the circumstances are being used to dictate measures that threaten the lives of Peruvians in their most vulnerable stage, life in the womb,” the group said.

Regarding the “morning after pill,” the group expressed surprise and concern “that the Ministry of Health promotes the irresponsible and reckless use of this drug in the general population and particularly for minors, and even worse, dispenses with obtaining the person’s medical history, which is an essential tool for the responsible practice of medicine, thus seriously exposing the users to danger."

Aborting a child because the mother has COVID-19, the doctors said “is contrary to the principles that govern medical practice, which must always be based on the application of therapies that are based on rigorous scientific studies and with respect to elementary ethical principles” which guide medical science in providing the best strategies to protect patients.

When a woman is pregnant “we have two patients to take care of, the mother and the unborn child," the doctors association stressed.

Concerning the babies themselves, five newborns whose mothers have COVID-19 were recently discharged from a government hospital in Peru. A sixth, also born of a coronavirus patient who is in serious condition in the intensive care unit, was born prematurely and remains hospitalized. None of the babies have tested positive for COVID-19.

In a May 5 interview with the El Comercio daily, Dr. César García Aste, who heads the hospital’s neonatology department, explained that there are strict protocols as to how the baby is to be fed in order to avoid infecting it.

A doctor from the hospital is assigned to follow up daily by phone on the baby’s condition for an average of 14 days, and “so far we haven’t had a problem with any of the five babies,” Garcia said.

 

A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news agency. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

A team at the Serbian/Croatian border provides relief to migrating refugees. OM Germany leader Gian Walser talks about the work and its impact on him.