Born with a severe case of clubfoot, Isaiah Cruz spent most of his life crawling around. The 13-year-old Honduran’s feet were so twisted he couldn’t stand without help. Although he is a great student, until recently he hated going to school because the other children made fun of him.

A local newspaper wrote about Isaiah's life-changing surgery. This is how he looked before he received help from the Christian hospital we support in Honduras.

Now Isaiah plays soccer with his friends, who cannot believe the miraculous change they’ve seen in their friend over the last six months.

Much like the lame man from the bible story in Acts 3 who receives the ability to walk for the first time, Isaiah experienced the healing touch of God — it came through a Christian hospital we support in Honduras that provides orthopedic care to children of poor families.

After two surgeries and just a few months recovery, Isaiah was “walking, leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8).

“I thank God, the hospital, the doctors who did the surgery, and the people who gave the money to make it possible,” Isaiah said. “I was so sad before, but now I am very happy. I can walk!”

Isaiah’s mother, Lenore, said that she and her husband never dreamed their son would walk. Poor subsistence farmers, the couple hardly earns enough to feed their six children and pay the rent each month. Like most of the families in their rural, mountain community, they could never have afforded a surgery like the one that enabled their son to walk.

Unable to walk since birth because of a crippling case of clubfoot, Isaiah now walks easily and plays soccer with his friends.

Overwhelmed by his new ability to walk, Isaiah wants to devote his life to helping others in his country.  “I want to be a doctor when I grow up so I can help people like me.”

The Christian hospital in Honduras that fixed Isaiah’s debilitating deformity has helped 382 other children in the past year, offering them life-changing surgeries that were hopelessly out of reach for their poor families.

And according to Ruth Castro, the hospital’s director, it is the support of American Catholics that enables them to continue.

“The need is overwhelming here. The people literally have nothing,” she said. “The support of Cross International Catholic Outreach and its donors is a vital blessing.”

This Christian hospital is one of several we support in places such as Kenya, Dominican Republic, and Afghanistan. Click here to learn how you can provide a life-changing surgery for a child like Isaiah.

Seven-year-old Grace Nachivula is blessed. She can walk, run, go to school, play with her friends, and get through the day without severe pain.

What’s so amazing about that, you ask?

After surgery for her bowed legs, Grace is now able to walk with little effort

Until recently, she could not do any of those things – at least not without extreme difficulty. Like many other children in Zambia and throughout the developing world, Grace suffered from bowed legs, a condition often caused by hunger and virtually permanent – not because it can’t be treated, but because the poor can’t afford surgery.

Bowed legs are normal at birth, and naturally correct themselves during early childhood. But dietary deficiencies of vitamin D and other nutrients can hijack the process, leaving the child deformed.

At home, Grace survives on a diet almost exclusively of maize meal. The average Zambian family consumes two $110 lb. bags of the starch-heavy food per month, but Grace’s family is so poor that they had only two bags for all of last year. Her father earns pennies doing odd jobs as a day laborer, while her mother stays at home raising Grace and her four siblings.

Most likely, Grace would have lived her whole life with bowed legs, if not for the intervention of Sr. Margaret and the compassionate sisters at Kabulonga Cheshire Home. Through this wonderful program, Grace has been provided with three surgeries and ongoing follow-up care, so she can go to school with her friends and live a normal, happy life. The kindness of the Cheshire Home staff has made such an impression on little Grace that she now says her dream is to become a nun and serve others.

Cross International Catholic Outreach provides critical operational support for Kabulonga Cheshire Home, so that physically disabled children like Grace can receive the medical care, nutritious food, and loving pastoral support they desperately need. Click here to learn more about this great ministry!

A recent study by the World Health Organization uncovered an alarming fact: More than 10 million women and children, mostly in developing countries, still die each year from causes which are largely preventable and treatable — such as unattended childbirth.  In Haiti between 500 and 1,000 women in every 100,000 die each year giving birth. (To put that in perspective, in the U.S. only about eight women in 100,000 die during childbirth.)

Often these women die because there are no medical resources available if something goes wrong. Here is an example of how one ambulance we provided with the help of our donors is saving the lives of expectant mothers and newborns in the remote mountains of Haiti. Two hundred mothers were saved in the first year alone!

This ambulance provided by Cross International Catholic Outreach has saved the lives of hundreds of women living in rural Haiti.

Mirlande Joseph, 33, had lost her first baby during pregnancy and was having trouble again. With no money to afford the hours-long trip to the nearest hospital, she instead labored at home for three days under the care of a poorly-trained birth attendant. Nearly overcome by pain, Mirlande finally realized she and her unborn baby needed help — fast. Unfortunately, it was the middle of the night and Mirlande lived in the rural mountain
village of Moron in Haiti far from the government hospital in Jeremie, and the hospital didn’t have an ambulance that could come pick her up.

Her only options were to walk, something she could not do after three days of labor, or be carried six hours down a steep mountain in a “chair ambulance” — basically a small wicker chair with two poles stuck through either side.

Fortunately, one of our ministry partners, the Haitian Health Foundation (HHF), was able to send a nursing staff and vehicle, equipped as an ambulance, to Mirlande and take her to the hospital where she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. “If it wasn’t for the ambulance, I would not have lived,” Mirlande said. “I thank God every day for this miracle.”

This week, Cross Catholic was visited by Fr. Marc Boisvert from the Espwa orphanage in Haiti. One of his staff members, Nathalie Amyotte, shared a personal story that painted a vivid picture of Haitian poverty and the importance of Fr. Marc’s work.

Jamesley (center) and two of his brothers getting a physical at the Espwa orphanage.

One night, as Nathalie was getting something to eat, she saw children on the street begging for food. They were calling to her by name, because she often would help them. But this time, something was different.

“There was one child who was apart from them and he wasn’t begging and he wasn’t asking for anything,” Nathalie said. The boy was holding a plate of old chicken bones, and she realized he had collected them because he had nothing else to eat. Suddenly, another child bumped into the plate and knocked it over, scattering the bones across the ground. The boy raised his voice and cried as if grief-stricken.

“His cry will stay with me my whole lifetime. It haunts me. Because his little chicken bones had been thrown to the ground and that is the only meal he was going to have that day,” Nathalie said. “I went to see him because I heard this cry. He was trying to wipe the dirt off his little chicken bones. And I said, ‘No, no – let’s go eat.’”

After feeding the boy, whose name was Jamesley, Nathalie visited his home. She learned that his mother was pregnant with her eighth child and about to get kicked out of her home. Nathalie rushed to Fr. Marc and told him there was a family that needed help. Without a second thought, he responded, “Let’s go.”

Fr. Marc gave Jamesley’s family money for food, paid for a year’s rent so they wouldn’t be kicked out, and welcomed Jamesley and his brother into the orphanage.

Nathalie told us, “They’re going to school. They eat three times a day and he is thriving. I said to Fr. Marc, ‘I love that you didn’t even question it. You just said, let’s go.’ And he said, ‘But that’s why we’re here.’”

That’s also why Cross Catholic is there – to reach out to children like Jamesley and save them from despair. Click here to help us make a difference in the lives of impoverished Haitian children at the Espwa orphanage.

With the help of Cross Catholic, Christine has turned her life around after losing everything she had.

Last year, we met a Zambian woman named Christine who had gone from riches to rags because of AIDS. Once the owner of three houses, she sold all her properties in desperation and used the money to pay a medicine man to cure her. In the end, she was left with no money, no friends or family to support her, and a worsening illness.

At the time of our meeting, Cross Catholic was providing nutritional support and counseling for Christine through a local home-based care program. The support, in combination with antiretroviral (ARV) medication, had effected a dramatic change in her life and restored her declining health to where she was able to function.

Just last month, we met Christine again – this time at her brand new home that we provided through the help of the same local ministry. We were delighted to find that Christine was raising chickens on her new property and that she was utilizing all the available space outside to grow her own food. The chickens will provide a steady income that will enable her to support herself and her one child who is now living with her.

Christine’s new house.

Christine’s work ethic is setting a good example for her neighbors, all of whom have also received their homes from Cross Catholic. The temptation for these families to give in to despair is great, but Christine wasted no time in making the most of her situation. She is no longer a victim, but an overcomer. Instead of weeping over her past, she is looking toward the future with new hope, as she plans for her family’s welfare.

Christine represents exactly the kind of success the home-based care program aims to achieve in the lives of poor Zambian families traumatized by the AIDS pandemic.

While traveling through Haiti, Cross Catholic Projects Officers Mike Wilson and Claudio Merisio visited the camps where our mission partners are continuing to provide medical care for earthquake victims. They got to see firsthand the incredible work that so many doctors, nurses, and volunteers are providing on a daily basis in tent facilities or even outside.

Cross Catholic Projects Officer Claudio Merisio visits a Project Medishare health clinic in Haiti.

Now that more than three weeks have passed since the quake, our partners are beginning to transition from trauma to general health care for the many displaced men, women, and children who are trying to rebuild their lives in the aftermath; and Cross Catholic is working alongside them to ensure success.

For instance, our Cross Catholic partner Arc en Ciel is providing care for about 4,000 people, including 1,600 children, in five refugee camps. They plan to send health workers to fifty additional camps to train their peers on general health issues such as hydration, nutrition, vaccination, and psycho-social support.

Another Cross Catholic partner, Project Medishare, is increasing the number of women and children receiving care, and plans to double the number of mobile clinics from one to two per week.

Gladys Thomas, who runs Hopital Espoir and Village Espoir, is shifting her focus to rehabilitative care for people needing physical and occupational therapy and post-traumatic support.

To help our mission partners provided the best possible health care under the strained conditions of disaster-stricken Haiti, Cross Catholic has given food, medicine, medical supplies, and in one case even a container to be converted into a clinic. To learn more about what Cross Catholic is doing in Haiti, check out our latest updates at www.crosscatholic.org/relief.

Sunday, Nov. 29, marked the advent of Advent – a traditional Catholic observance that often gets upstaged by Thanksgiving on one end and Christmas on the other, especially now that the Christmas season seems to begin on Black Friday or even earlier!

But Advent is important. For one thing, it’s the liturgical version of New Year’s Day. Everything begins with Advent. Catholics prepare themselves during this time, through prayer and fasting, to be in the right place spiritually to celebrate the anniversary of Christ’s birth and to receive him as our Redeemer.

First Things editor Joseph Bottum writes that Christmas needs Advent, and Advent needs Christmas:

“Through all the preparatory readings, through all the genealogical Jesse trees, the somber candles on the wreaths, the vigils, and the hymns, Advent keeps Christmas on Christmas Day: a fulfillment, a perfection, of what had gone before. I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh.”

This Advent, we should contemplate the hope we have in Christ, and how we can share that hope with others. We bear the good news the world has been waiting for! And we can demonstrate the power of the message by joining it with acts of compassion, such as by providing food, shelter, and medical care for orphans.

Like the angel who appeared to the shepherds bearing the news of Christ’s birth, you can be a bearer of peace and hope to the world. Celebrate this Advent by joining with Cross Catholic and serving the poorest of the poor today!

In honor of World AIDS Day, Pope Benedict XVI recently gave a talk at St. Peter’s Square:

“The Church never ceases to strive to combat AIDS through her institutions and personnel dedicated to that task. I call upon everyone to make their contribution, with prayer and tangible assistance, so that people affected by the HIV virus may experience the presence of the Lord Who offers comfort and hope. Finally, I trust that, by increasing and coordinating efforts, we may manage to halt and eradicate this disease.”

Cross Catholic provides AIDS education for poor school children in Uganda.

A lot has changed since the first World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, 1988, thanks to the development of antiretroviral drugs and increased awareness of the dangers of promiscuity. But much work remains to be done, especially in Africa, and we at Cross Catholic are humbled to be a part of the ongoing efforts to fight the disease.

Last year, a full 72 percent of new HIV cases worldwide were in Sub-Saharan Africa. It has also been reported that half of all maternal deaths in Botswana and South Africa are due to HIV. Numbers like these tell us that the AIDS threat to the African people is still very real and very serious.

One way we are reaching out to AIDS victims is through the Mbikko Integrated Development project in Uganda, where Catholics are using education to transform a rural community plagued by prostitution, poverty, and disease. Counselors go into classrooms and have one-on-one talks with children to teach them at a young age how to protect themselves from sexual exploitation and to abstain from sex until marriage. They integrate Bible lessons into their teachings to provide a solid moral foundation for promoting a monogamous lifestyle.

In Zambia, we are working with the Franciscans’ Itimpi Community Health Care project to visit AIDS patients and other chronically ill people in their homes and provide medication, food, baby formula (HIV-infected mothers can’t breastfeed), and other care.

As we commemorate this year’s World AIDS Day, you can demonstrate Christ’s love in a powerful way by giving to one of our projects in Africa. Get involved today!

A few of our staff members recently visited China to see how we could expand our outreach there. During their trip, they met with a ministry called China Little Flower, which is run by Nebraskan-born Catholic Brent Johnson.

The ministry operates five homes around Beijing for premature babies and critically-ill children who were abandoned or sent from local orphanages without the means to provide for their specialized medical needs. Each home has a hospice unit, a preemie unit, a club foot unit, and a special care unit.

“Though some of the children are too far gone to help, they can at least leave this earth knowing they were loved and well-cared for in their last days,” said Brent, who added that many of the children they help make complete recoveries and are then adopted.

Their goal, Brent said, is to promote a culture of life through their work and give a voice to children who are cast away or overlooked.

Every year, around 30 million babies are born in China. Due in part to the country’s one-child population control policy and policies restricting adoption by Chinese couples who have children, many babies — especially those with disabilities — are abandoned.

If it wasn’t for ministries such as China Little Flower, many of these abandoned children would have no one to care for them. Recognizing the importance of their work, Cross has agreed to support China Little Flower and other like-minded orphanages in China.

Sometimes it’s difficult to understand why innocent children like the ones helped by China Little Flower are born with such devastating problems, but the story in John’s gospel where Jesus is being asked why the beggar was born blind gives us some insight. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus said, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” (John 9:3)

We must remember that when we reach out to children like these we are revealing the works of God and giving Him glory.

Nguyen was dying. She had a congenital heart valve defect that was slowly getting worse. The 36-year-old widow could no longer work as a day laborer in the rice and coffee fields of southern Vietnam. Without a job she had no way to support herself and her 10-year-old daughter, so she moved back in with her elderly parents for help.

Nguyen with year 10-year-old daughter a few months after the Cross International Catholic Outreach-funded heart surgery that saved her life.

Nguyen was receiving medicine through a program for ethnic minorities we support in partnership with the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM), but it wasn’t doing much to help her heart problem. She desperately needed surgery but could not afford it.

The double-valve replacement that would save her life — a common procedure in the U.S. — was nearly impossible for Nguyen to get because of her poverty and the lack of specialized medical care available in most of Vietnam.

“One of the sisters with FMM told me the situation and asked if Cross Catholic could help. I immediately said yes,” recalls Mike Wilson, Cross International Catholic Outreach Projects Director. “Without the surgery she would have died.”

A few months later, Nguyen had her surgery. Cross Catholic paid for the procedure itself, pre- and post-operative care, and the eight-hour trip from Nguyen’s hometown in Southern Vietnam to the capital — the only place she could get the surgery.

On a recent trip to Vietnam, Mike had the pleasure of meeting Nguyen and her daughter. The woman he met hardly resembled the tired and frail one from the before photos he had seen — Nguyen had energy and life in her eyes.

“To see her up and walking was an incredible experience. There was a glow to her that you often don’t see in Vietnam,” Mike says. “She was so thankful to be alive and well for the first time in a long time.”

Just seven months after Cross Catholic said “yes” to funding her surgery, Nguyen was up and walking, something she hadn’t done in months.

“Now I can sit to the table and help my daughter with her homework,” Nguyen told Mike. “Before I was confined to bed. Praise God for this amazing miracle!”

Nguyen is excited that she will soon be able to go back to work and once again care for her daughter and help her elderly parents.

“You have given me more than just a surgery,” she said, a broad smile sweeping across her face. “You have given me a future and a life with my daughter.”

We are able to fund unplanned needs such as Nguyen’s surgery because of the generosity of our Catholic supporters. Click here too learn more about our work with the poor in Vietnam.