04/16/2022 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – I was primarily attracted to working at ICC because of the chance to engage with faith all around the world. I love attending Christian liturgies from outside the West, and at ICC, I have the opportunity to interact with people for whom these are typical features of existence.
But with the cultural richness of these religious expressions also comes great challenges. Christians outside the West, particularly in communist and Muslim-majority countries, face great hostilities in professing the faith, including persecution and even death.
This is where ICC and our strategic partnerships come in. We seek to assist the persecuted and spread the gospel in the darkest corners of the world. We do this by employing both funding partners and implementing partners.
Funding partners, on the one hand, provide funding for projects and are usually based in the West. Implementing partners, on the other hand, work on the implementation and logistics of projects, and are usually based in the countries the projects operate in. Without the synergy of both funding and implementing partners, we wouldn’t be able to accomplish our projects around the world.
Thanks to a strong network of domestic and international partners, in the past year ICC successfully delivered COVID-19 aid to Christian-owned small businesses in Pakistan, extracted and resettled Afghan Christian refugees, distributed Bibles and bikes to pastors in India, and more.
I’ve been especially inspired by our Bibles and Bikes project, which assisted 1,000 pastors in distributing 100,000 Bibles. I’m moved by the faith of these pastors, and I think they serve as exemplars of zeal for the glory of God. The Bibles and Bikes initiative was an immense undertaking, but it successfully accomplished its goals and furthered ICC’s mission. In the process, it built several key partnerships in India.
Aside from these projects, I’ve also enjoyed working with a major NGO partner which conducts research and advocacy on democracy, freedom, and human rights.
With the support of this organization, we’ve been conducting counseling projects in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. These projects catalyze the healing process for Christians who have experienced genocide and persecution.
We’ve been working with an exciting array of partners, including an organization that works on conflict resolution, human rights, and dialogue between Muslim and non-Muslim communities, as well as an organization that promotes human rights in South Asia.
I’m grateful for the existing partnerships that have made these projects possible and look forward to forging fruitful partnerships in the future.
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