Christians and the church often get a bad rap for hypocrisy and failing to practice what they preach.
But when it comes to disaster relief efforts in the past few weeks for Hurricane Harvey and Irma, the body of Christ has shown the world what it looks like to serve the needy and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Statistics show that faith-based based organizations, particularly Christian nonprofits, have surpassed FEMA in their financial and hands-on support for victims.
In fact, faith-based groups have reportedly accounted for a whopping 80 percent of the aid, according to USA Today.
“Several individual organizations have aided in the relief operations in major ways,” says Greg Forrester, CEO of NVOAD (National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster). The Daily Caller points out a handful of these specific groups that have helped significantly in conjunction with FEMA, the federal agency assigned to aid in the recovery and rebuilding process:
“Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical disaster relief group led by evangelist Franklin Graham, recently began a relief mission to the Caribbean to help victims of the hurricanes on various islands. Samaritan’s Purse also has ongoing relief operations in Houston and is preparing to aid Florida in the aftermath of Irma…
The United Methodist Committee on Relief, which has 20,000 volunteers trained to serve in disaster response teams, not only helps clean up the mess and repair the damage inflicted on homes by disasters, but also helps families with the process of applying for and receiving aid from various government relief programs.