God uses three OM Russia Discipleship Centre students to bring hope and help to members of a remote church in Siberia.

Dorothea, from Germany, joins the one-year programme with OM Russia, which includes visiting Siberian villages to help churches and sharing the Gospel with locals.

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

A Discipleship centre student from an unreached people group meets a girl with the same ethnic background and tells to her about salvation.

After taking inventory of the relief effort, OM Philippines workers, in partnership with churches, distribute relief necessities to some of the least-reached disaster sites.

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.

Three boys who sell fish become “men of peace” for the DreamAsia+ team in three of the poorest Muslim communities in the Philippines.

OM Philippines helps train and provide school drop-outs with the opportunity to earn their elementary or high school diploma.

OM responded to the needs of people affected by Typhoon Vinta, relying on military accompaniment to reach the location and deliver aid.

OM worker rejoices her friend's baptism in Greece.

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

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.

Instead of the two families they had hoped for, seven families from Katerini attend the Christian camp for Albanians in Greece.

After attending Transform 2014 and going on the Greece outreach, a young South African man returns to Greece eight months later to stay.

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.

 

God uses football and English lessons to build friendships between OM Serbia and refugees.

Goran’s decision to follow Jesus challenged the cultural values and traditions he grew up with, causing him to live differently in his community.

During their visits in Serbia, Moldova and Montenegro the two MDT Love Europe teams had many experiences, as well as opportunities to share God’s love.

Jude, project coordinator of OM's Refugee Relief Serbia describes her busy role, and how OM’s service can be a powerful practical witness of the love of Jesus to hundreds of refugees.

Catherine, from the UK, joined an OM team in July to host a dental clinic and outreach for the residents of Pădureni.

A Roma man’s cry to God for mercy to spare his son’s life transforms his future and the future of his small town.

Europe short-term mission coordinators gather in Sibiu, Romania, to increase vision, gain training and share resources for greater impact in Europe.

Bloody feet. Blisters. That wasn’t the expectation of eager Transform participants who left the conference in Rome to join OM Spain on a unique journey.

Walking the thousand year old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela gave the Transform team many opportunities to share the Gospel

In the 1960s, when OM accepted untrained people for short-term campaigns, it was unheard of. Today, it has become a gateway into missions.

A group from the Sharing Lives Course visits a mosque in Lausanne, Switzerland, and learns that greater awareness can lead to greater sensitivity.

OM Hope for Zurich’s kids’ club brings together immigrant children from a local neighbourhood in hopes of sharing God’s love with them and their families.

A teenage boy's ankle is healed and the Good News is spread through this situation.

An outreach to Arab tourists in Switzerland opens up doors to talk about Jesus' love.

In 1988, it became evident to leadership that OM needed to respond to the hundreds of millions of poor and marginalised in India, specifically the Dalit-Bahujan people, or ‘untouchables’.

In an effort to respond to the growing need, OM partner organisation AIDSLink International conducts Channels of Hope training in Malaysia and Myanmar.

On 9 August 2014, OM Malaysia held an open house to celebrate 30 years of ministry, with OM International Director Lawrence Tong as the guest of honour.

TeenStreet Malaysia 2015 was attended by over 350 teenagers wanting to draw closer to God.

Teenstreet Malaysia 2016 begins, and teens there are studying "The Art of Living".

The varied teaching styles at Teenstreet Malaysia 2016 helped teens to connect with the theme of discovering their identity.

Meet one woman who serves God as the only community health worker for over 2,000 people in six remote villages of Zambia.

It started with one ball and grew to become a garden.

It's more than just a sport. OM is using football at Lake Tanganyika to train and empower young boys.

OM Lake Tanganyika faces battles of faith vs. witchcraft.

Yande learns to walk with the aid of crutches and splints provided by Bethesda Mercy Ministries.

A young man with a disability finds help at Mercy House and his grandmother finds a way to serve.

The Good News II School in Mpulungu, Zambia, has grown from 20 students to over 180. Students have grown from the values they learnt.

OM Lifehope coordinates the Transit Challenge, sending out teams all over Europe to love, serve and proclaim Christ.

An OM Lifehope Community Encounter team works to plant churches in an area of England full of beauty, but one that desperately needs Christ.

OM’s Graham Sandersfield shares about sports ministry, the global event Run/Ride for the World and why this work is something we can’t do alone.

God uses a bold husband and wife team to be His witness among Somali people everywhere.