“Last year our VOMK supporters made it possible for us to send more than 850 Christmas Care Packages to children of Christian families facing persecution in eleven different countries in Africa, the Middle East, and south and southeast Asia,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “This year there are urgent needs in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, and the Philippines, so we are focusing our 2024 Christmas Care Package distribution efforts on children there.”  

Representative Foley says the contents for each Christmas Care Package are sourced locally, with the contents tailored to the needs and preferences of local believers. The packs are then distributed in late December and early 2025 by VOM frontline workers, who also identify children eligible to receive the gifts. Representative Foley says that in some of the countries a small number of the packages are used by local believers and VOM frontline workers for outreach events reaching non-Christian children.  

Representative Foley says that a donation of 45,000 KRW can send one Christmas Care Package. Donations for the Christmas Care Package program must be received no later than December 31. 

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea cooperates with its Voice of the Martyrs sister missions around the world in order to ensure that the packages reach the children of Christians who are facing persecution. She provided updates and testimonies from the countries where Christmas Care Packages were distributed last year: 

Burkina Faso: “Radical Islamists have now pushed more than 2 million people out of their homes, which makes Burkina Faso currently the worst refugee crisis in the world,” says Representative Foley. She says Protestant Christian families are particularly hard hit because of their extreme minority status. “Protestants make up only 6% of the population in Burkina Faso, so finding places where they are welcome to resettle can be hard.” She says VOM Korea worked with other VOM missions to provide a total of 2,405 Christmas Care Packages to 22 churches across the country who are caring for displaced Christian families. “Sadly, as the situation has worsened, the government’s and other charities’ help almost disappeared, leaving displaced Christian children alone. The Christians there prayed to God for help, and when the local team arrived with our packages, everyone was amazed by God’s intervention,” says Representative Foley. 

Ethiopia: The after-effects of civil war in the northern part of the country continue to be felt especially among children, according to Representative Foley. “One boy who received a Christmas Care Package from us last year said, ‘My Father has died because of the war but your Christmas gift showed me that I have a father’. The need there among Christians continues to be staggering, so the Christmas Care Package contents that local believers requested for their children this year are staple food items, as well as stationery for their schoolwork.” 

India: “The Christmas Care Package program allows us to do very targeted, small-scale distribution to Christian children in places where the persecution is very localized but severe, and the numbers are often too few or the areas too remote for major Christian humanitarian aid agencies or churches to address,” says Representative Foley. She gives as an example India, where gifts of a Bible storybook, school bag, water bottle, rice, stationery, biscuits and chocolates were provided to 150 children of persecuted Christian families in four rural villages. “The pastors caring for these families are persecuted by local Hindus and Muslims,” says Representative Foley. 

Representative Foley says that the number of Christmas Care Packages the ministry sends will depend on the total amount of donations it receives. 

Donations for 2024 Christmas Care Packages can be made until December 31 at www.vomkorea.com/en/donation or via electronic transfer to:   

국민은행 (KB Bank) 463501-01-243303  

예금주 (Account holder): (사)순교자의소리 

Please include the phrase “Christmas” on the donation.