Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Since 1945, Lutheran World Relief has carried the love of Christ to every corner of our hurting world ... because the burdens of poverty, hunger, loss and disaster are too heavy for our neighbors to carry alone.
In our earliest days, Lutheran World Relief focused on helping innocent families in Europe recover after the bombings, occupations and losses of World War II. This looked like food and clothing drives as well as the assembly and shipment of LWR Quilts & Kits.
(Courtesy of the ELCA Archives)
By 1946, LWR set a goal of collecting 2 million pounds of clothing to ship to Europe. Pictured here are the women of Trinity Lutheran Church in Akron, Ohio, sorting and packing donated clothing for shipment. (LWR Archives Photo)
LWR even shipped livestock to Colombia (1962) and containers of milk to India (1965).
Thank you for trusting LWR to carry your compassion for 80 years
Although our mission has grown, changed and expanded across the generations, we know our forefathers would recognize the calling to love our neighbors that we still follow today — just as we recognize Christ’s fingerprint in the work they began 80 years ago.
Meet some of the people your compassion has supported recently and learn how you helped to carry their burdens.
"I carry water to sell on the street."
Posseh Kamara, an orphan from Sierra Leone, fell behind in school because she had to work to buy her own food. At age 15, she still hadn’t finished primary school because she was working instead of going to class — and she was too hungry to study. Her teacher said she was the “saddest child” at school.
This year, your love provided Posseh with a small monthly cash transfer to help cover her food and other basic expenses. Because of you, instead of carrying water, she went to class every day — and she finally graduated from primary school.
“I carry the only daughter I have left.”
Amer Hac Abdullah, a Syrian refugee, lost his wife and two of his three daughters in the Türkiye earthquakes. When we met Amer and 3-year-old Illin two weeks later at an LWR-supported food distribution, he and his children were living on the street without a tent — barely surviving.
Your compassion ensured families like Amer’s received critical support such as nourishing meals, clean water, LWR Quilts & Kits, emergency supplies, counseling and temporary and longer-term shelter to recover after this terrible tragedy.
“We carry the burdens of addiction and homelessness.”
Imagine the challenges of overcoming addiction and homelessness. You’re so close to starting fresh, then a devastating hurricane threatens to rip everything apart. This was the story of our neighbors living in a shelter in Asheville, North Carolina, when Hurricane Helene struck in October 2024 — flooding the residence and leaving them without power for days and water for months. Many of the men felt defeated on their journey toward recovery.
Then, just in time for Christmas, your love surrounded them with the warmth of quilts, reminding them how much people like you care. “The gratitude was palpable,” one volunteer said. “Time and time again we were told, ‘This is the nicest Christmas I have ever had in my life.’”
“We didn't carry anything ... We just ran.”
When the M23 rebels invaded her village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Fela Mbahibwe tied her children together and ran. Fela and the children arrived at a displacement camp with nothing but each other. Fela’s husband was killed, and she mourned the loss of her home, garden and life as she’d known it.
Because of you, she received a delivery of LWR Quilts & Kits, kitchen supplies, soap and a cookstove — simple tools that restored warmth, dignity and a chance to care for her family when everything else was lost. “We don’t have anyone else,” she said. “We only have you.”