Bethany Christian Services Co-founder Marguerite Bonnema recently passed away a few days shy of her 100th birthday.

"While I am saddened by Marguerite's passing, I rejoice that she is with the Lord," said Bill Blacquiere, Bethany's president and CEO. "As a result of her vision and courage, Bethany has touched the lives of many thousands of children and families since its founding. In her memory, we will continue our commitment to find loving families for children in crisis."

In 1944, Bonnema and friend Mary DeBoer began to take in abandoned babies who needed shelter in their apartment in Grand Rapids, Mich. Within a few years, the friends were able to purchase land with help from a local church and obtain a license to start Bethany Christian Home. This was the start of a 70 year initiative to combat the global orphan crisis. more >>

WASHINGTON – Government programs that take away poor people's incentive to earn their own success are immoral, because earned success is the key to happiness, Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, argued recently in an interview on "The Morality of the Market," at the National Review Institute's 2013 Summit, "The Future of Conservatism."

Brooks has a master's degree in economics and a Ph.D. in policy analysis and has conducted research and written books on happiness. He found that the happiest people have at least two or three of the following: faith, family, community, and work that is satisfying and vocational.

The key to their happiness, though, is earned success, he said. Success does not have to be financial success; there are those with high levels of income and low levels of income who are equally happy because they feel that they have earned their success as they define success for themselves. more >>

The Christian Post recently had the opportunity to travel to India to observe the work Christians are doing throughout the country to help empower a societal group that has been neglected for the better part of recorded human history. This is the third part of a four part series detailing their work.

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me," Galatians 2:20.

Girls born into Dalit families in India have few options available to them and a large majority can expect three outcomes – death, trafficked or forced to marry. more >>

National Community Church in Washington, D.C., led by Pastor Mark Batterson, continues moving closer to constructing a community center designed to help an impoverished area of the city with both tangible and spiritual needs. Batterson said he believes the DC Dream Center will be the most significant thing his church has ever done.

"One of our core convictions is this: God will bless us in proportion to how we care for the poor in our city. There is a third-world country in our nation's capital," he wrote in a recent blog post. "The Dream Center is our way of saying: not in our backyard and not on our watch!"

Already breaking relatively new ground in the D.C. area by using coffee shops and movie theaters as places of worship for Sunday church services in some of its six locations, Batterson hopes the Dream Center will be a collaboration with other churches and ministries. more >>

A church in Ohio recently raised approximately $10,000 as part of an annual charity drive in order to help its neighbors pay their water bills.

Several families in Pickerington called their water company and learned to their surprise that their water would not be shut off this month because of the charitable efforts of Grace Fellowship Church. Beth Shively, spokeswoman for Grace Fellowship, told The Christian Post that the payments for water bills of those in the neighborhood were part of her church's annual "Giving It Back" campaign.

"Through this campaign, we choose a few organizations or needs and ask our church to generously respond to these needs during December," said Shively. "The mayor of Pickerington, Lee Gray, attends our church, and he brought to our attention that each month many families are scheduled to have their water turned off for non-payment. Our elder board decided this would be an excellent way for us to give back to our neighbors." more >>

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. – It appeared that Scott "Scooch" Miller was winning his battle over the demons that plagued him as a U.S. military veteran of the Vietnam war, at least in part, thanks to his relationship with a Christian homeless ministry serving in South Orange County, Calif. However, he remained homeless, still struggling with alcoholism, while spending nights sleeping in a field next to a famous surf spot until his death two weeks ago.

At a memorial service given by the ministry last Sunday, Christian leaders at a park in the pristine, primarily affluent community of San Clemente were struggling to wrap their minds around the question of why Scooch died in the bushes at "Trestles," alone one night, apparently from the cold during a night of freezing temperatures.

During a moment of reflection at the service on the life of Scooch, the "ornery" man who began to turn soft after accepting Jesus into his life, some in attendance spoke of feeling like they could have done something to prevent his death and that something more should certainly be done for the homeless in the area – especially now. more >>