Christian Aid Ministries: An Amazing Amish and Conservative Mennonite Relief Organization

CAM worker on the cover of Christianity Today

Christian Aid Ministries is a growing Amish-Mennonite based organization established in Berlin, Ohio, in 1981. While supported largely by Amish, conservative Mennonite and other "plain" Anabaptist groups in the US, it has since gained contributors from many other denominations as well. For clarification, the Amish involved are mostly not Old Order but are from the more progressive branches of the group.

Like its older sister organization, Mennonite Central Committee, based in Akron, Pennsylvania, it reaches out to needy people all around the globe. Last year CAM distributed approximately 15 million pounds of food, clothing, medicines, seeds, Bibles, Bible story books, and other Christian literature, according to their website. Their annual budget has reached nearly $100 million.

Countless volunteers donate their time to the work of the organization year round, and their fundraising and administrative costs represent only 2.4% of their total outlays. Their CEO's salary is very modest by most standards, paid in part by CAM's for-profit publishing side of its operation.

This is an amazing organization, led by a dedicated group of people administering aid projects in nearly every major hotspot in the world.

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This Thanksgiving season should be a special time to make a generous gift for people in unimaginable need, like the ones pictured in the above refugee camp for Yesidi refugees in Iraq.

Here are some links where you can make a donation right now:

Christian Aid Ministries

Mennonite Central Committee

 Oxfam International

CARE

CAM photo