Relief

West Africans could face another food crisis in 2012, but Oxfam International is insisting it is avoidable.

Calls to increase aid are underway, as experts warn millions of adults and children risk facing starvation.

"The situation is looking extremely worrying for millions of people in West Africa, but the worst is not yet inevitable," Mamadou Biteye of Oxfam Humanitarian Lead in West Africa said in a press release Monday. more >>

After nearly two years of serving in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team is completing the mission and chaplains are set to come home, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association reported Wednesday.

More than 120 chaplains spent 22 months in the devastated country, after arriving in Haiti immediately following the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake. Chaplains typically stayed for two-week periods and were rotated in and out regularly, said Keith Stiles, deployment manager of the Rapid Response Team.

“We were in clinics, orphanages and school. We worked with Samaritan’s Purse at the shelters … we ministered to Samaritan’s Purse volunteers in the camps at night,” said Stiles. more >>

WASHINGTON – The countdown towards AIDS' extinction began this morning in honor of the 24th annual World AIDS Day.

President Obama and a panel of experts, celebrities and social leaders promised that their combined efforts could start the ending of the disease's global epidemic as early as 2015. The group's bold statement is based on the idea that before the next decade, an entire generation of births could occur without new infections through prevention efforts.

"Today we come together across countries, cultures and faiths to combat the pandemic of AIDS," Obama told a packed Jack Morton Auditorium on George Washington University's campus. "Back in those early days, few could imagine we'd talk of the possibility of an AIDS-free world. Make no mistake – we're going to win this fight." more >>

A faith-based trade organization believes that consumers can save the developing world with their spending habits this Christmas season.

Nathan George, the co-founder and CEO of Trade as One, said that he's always seen a fine line between Christian belief and international business. His organization now oversees a worldwide mission to place impoverished people in long-term, productive jobs making products valued by first world buyers.

"We set this up to be a tool for the church in America to engage their spending power on behalf of the global poor," said George, who founded the company in 2006 with his wife, Catherine. "Charity does not fix poverty. The only thing that does is sustainable, dignified jobs, and those are created by enterprise." more >>

Current front-runner in the Republican presidential race Newt Gingrich advocated a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants at Tuesday's debate. Other topics at the CNN debate in Washington, D.C., included foreign aid, the Patriot Act and Syria.

Former Speaker of the House Gingrich advocated a review board to decide if immigrants who currently reside in the United States without proper documentation should be allowed a path to citizenship. Gingrich also explained that he supported the “Red Card Solution” by the Kriebel Foundation.

“If you've come here recently, you've got no ties to this country, you ought to go home. Period. If you've been here 25 years and you got three kids, two grandkids, you've been paying taxes, obeying the law, you belong to a local church. I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out,” Gingrich said. more >>

At least 32 homes in Reno, Nevada have been destroyed by a wildfire on Friday, and a fire expert has told The Christian Post what homeowners in the region can do to minimize the risks to their homes.

The out-of-season blaze was spread through an upscale community in the Sierra foothills southwest of Reno after being spread by gale force winds early Friday morning. Several injuries were reported and emergency personnel officials described battling the flames as being very difficult. Fire Chief Michael Hernandez said fire crews had a tough time “getting ahead of” the blaze which covered 400-acres.

Many homes have been lost to wildfires across the U.S. this year. In August, hundreds of people in northern Texas, California, and Oklahoma were forced from their homes as over two dozen buildings were lost to fire in August. more >>