Six months ago, Resurrection’s 2025 Christmas Eve Offering was collected, and since then, lives have been transformed here in Kansas City and around the world. One of Resurrection’s most meaningful traditions is giving away 100% of the offering from Candlelight Christmas Eve services, sharing the light of Christ with those who need it most. This year, the offering totaled an incredible $2,416,872.04 in support of local and global missions and ministries.
The Christmas Eve offering is essential to Resurrection’s mission. It empowers the church to partner faithfully with local initiatives, step boldly into new opportunities, and meet urgent needs — extending the love of Christ in ways that reach far beyond our own walls.
Global Missions
Growing Leaders Who Multiply Impact — Malawi
The Christmas Eve Offering is helping cultivate more than thriving gardens — it’s developing local leaders. For years about 30 farmers have been watching and learning permaculture practices from nearby communities, Opulence is now equipping these farmers from seven villages with advanced, hands-on training and the tools they need — seed starter kits, seedlings, and wheelbarrows.
Each of these farmers is committing to train 10 additional farmers, while sharing seeds and seedlings from their own gardens. This multiplying approach is a cornerstone of sustainable community development: those who receive are empowered to give back. By investing in people who have already shown initiative and commitment, we know these lead farmers won’t just succeed in their own gardens — they’ll go the extra mile to help their neighbors succeed too.
Turning Harvests into Year-Round Health — Malawi
In Malawi, the months between December and March are known as the “Hungry Season.” By then, many families have exhausted the previous harvest, while others lose valuable food to spoilage because fewer than 20% of rural households have access to electricity or refrigeration.
Through the Christmas Eve Offering, Opulence is helping families break this cycle through food preservation and value-added processing. Teachers are learning these skills to pass on to students, and participants in Village Savings and Loan groups are turning crops like soybeans, peanuts, and leafy greens into products such as soymilk, peanut butter, cooking oil, and dried vegetables. These new skills not only help families preserve food through the hungry season, but also create opportunities to earn additional income — building healthier, more resilient communities.
Growing Opportunity, One Pig at a Time — Malawi
Through the Christmas Eve Offering, families in Malawi are building brighter futures through Opulence’s innovative animal club program. Each animal club receives training, builds a shared pig shelter, and is entrusted with one male and five female pigs. As the herd grows, the group passes six pigs on to a new club, creating a ripple effect that expands opportunity from one village to the next.
The impact reaches far beyond livestock. Families are using pig manure to fertilize their corn fields, eliminating the need for costly commercial fertilizer while producing healthier crops and larger harvests. This project is creating sustainable sources of food, income, and hope that will keep multiplying for years to come.
Khuluma Offers Hope and Healing to Thousands — South Africa
With support from the Christmas Eve Offering, Khuluma Family Counselling in Mooiplaas, South Africa, continued providing critical psychosocial care to individuals and families facing trauma, violence, and crisis during an especially challenging year. Despite limited resources, dedicated leadership ensured counseling services remained available to those who needed them most.
During the first half of 2026, 198 individuals received direct crisis intervention, counseling, referrals, and shelter placements through partnerships with four local police stations — helping survivors of crime and violence find hope, healing, and renewed resilience.
The offering also made it possible for Khuluma to reach more than 3,100 community members through awareness and prevention initiatives held in schools, clinics, taxi ranks, preschools, and community spaces — addressing mental health, responsible fatherhood, substance abuse prevention, and domestic violence.
This investment in compassionate care is strengthening individuals, families, and entire communities.
Safe Water Changes Everything — Malawi
In the rural village of Vimango, 125 families have no local source of clean water and must travel nearly four miles to reach the nearest borehole. For many, especially children, collecting water is a daily responsibility that can be both difficult and unsafe.
Earlier this year, the community experienced the heartbreaking loss of a young student while gathering water — a painful reminder of the challenges families face when safe water is out of reach. Village leaders shared that a nearby, protected borehole could help prevent tragedies like this and give children a safer future.
Through the Christmas Eve Offering, Resurrection is partnering with the United Methodist Church in Malawi to bring clean, safe water to communities like Vimango. Every new borehole means more than clean drinking water — it means healthier families, children who can spend more time in school, and communities filled with renewed hope.
Building Brighter Futures — Uganda
Through the Christmas Eve Offering, young people in the second year of the Zoe orphan & vulnerable children empowerment program in Uganda are taking exciting steps toward lasting independence. Participants received additional micro-grants to grow small businesses, with many investing in retail shops, livestock, and poultry to increase household income and strengthen financial stability.
Alongside ongoing mentorship, youth are also receiving vocational training in trades such as tailoring, carpentry, baking, welding, hairdressing, motorcycle repair, and phone repair — preparing them for greater opportunities and helping them build sustainable livelihoods for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Bringing Health, Hope, and Dignity to Communities — Haiti
Through the Christmas Eve Offering, lives are being transformed across five communities in Haiti through a unique model of community-based healthcare and development. In just the first six months of the project, mobile medical clinics provided care to 1,353 patients, surpassing expectations and reaching people who otherwise have little or no access to healthcare.
The impact extends beyond treating illness. Alongside medical care, local teams are helping families build healthier futures through health education, vaccinations, nutrition screening, and community leadership development. More than 440 individuals have completed comprehensive assessments to identify those with the greatest needs, ensuring support reaches the most vulnerable families first.
Children are also receiving life-saving protection: community vaccination clinics have reached 195 children and 12 pregnant women, administering more than 426 vaccine doses to help prevent serious disease and strengthen community health.
Perhaps most encouraging is the project’s emphasis on long-term sustainability. Two permanent community health hubs have already been established, and local leaders are being equipped to manage healthcare services, launch small businesses, and create lasting solutions that will continue serving their communities for years to come.
Local Missions
Hunger Ministries
Resurrection’s Hunger Ministries have already made an incredible difference throughout Kansas City in 2026. So far this year, support from the Christmas Eve Offering has helped provide:
- 4,705 individuals from 1,342 families with nutritious food through the Overland Park Food Pantry
- Fresh food and essential groceries to 4,068 families through the FoodMobile, bringing healthy food directly into neighborhoods with limited access
- More than 8,000 sack lunches for neighbors experiencing homelessness, offering nourishment, dignity, and hope
- Ongoing support for 20 community partner pantries, providing monthly pallets of food and hot meals so they can continue serving families in their own neighborhoods
Every meal shared tells someone they are seen, valued, and loved. Every pantry stocked strengthens a community. Volunteers, donors, and partners are all playing a part in making sure neighbors have access to healthy food and hope — living out Jesus’ call to love our neighbors, one meal, one family, and one community at a time.
Flourish Furnishings
A $50,000 gift to Flourish Furnishings was earmarked to help the organization hire its first Development Director. Bringing on a director-level team member has strengthened Flourish’s organizational capacity by distributing leadership and supervisory responsibilities more effectively.
Because of this new role, Flourish launched its first-ever mid-year campaign — and the response from the community has already been encouraging, with over $38,000 in donations received so far. The Development Director has also helped establish fundraising policies and is positioning Flourish to pursue planned giving and major donor development in ways they haven’t been able to before.
From Amy Cox, Flourish Director: “We are deeply grateful for this investment and for the continued support of Resurrection.”
Avenue of Life
Avenue of Life received a $200,000 grant to support families and unaccompanied youth facing homelessness in Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. So far, $125,000 of that award has been put to work, with $59,306 applied toward program staff salaries to sustain the case management behind every number below.
KCK Families (average of 3 individuals per household)
- 16 households housed
- 4 households placed in hotels
- 3 households received utility assistance
- 4 households received transportation assistance
- 1 household received a birth certificate
- 106 households received essential hygiene items
- 2 households received furniture
- 136 families impacted
KCK Unaccompanied Youth
- 6 youth housed
- 2 youth received identification
- 1 youth received furniture
- 7 youth received medical and dental assistance
- 3 youth received transportation assistance
- 19 youth impacted
KCMO Families (average of 3 individuals per household)
- 11 households housed
- 8 households placed in hotels
- 5 households received utility assistance
- 73 households received essential hygiene items
- 3 households received furniture
- 1 household received storage assistance
- 101 families impacted
In total, 256 households across the metro have been impacted so far this year.
Behind those numbers are stories like Milena’s. As a teenager, Milena became an unaccompanied youth in high school after living in an unsafe home. Avenue of Life’s youth services coordinator worked with her to secure essential resources — food, clothing, hygiene items — and found her a safe place to stay, eventually helping her transition into stable, transitional living. Avenue of Life continues to support her financially and through case management as she enters her senior year of high school, walking alongside her toward graduation and into college or a career.
The Andreas family of five arrived at Avenue of Life, experiencing homelessness and deep uncertainty. After losing stable housing in another state due to a series of financial hardships, the family had been living in a two-bedroom apartment with two other adults, forced to choose between food, transportation, and other essentials. A grant to Avenue of Life covered the family’s first month’s rent and deposit, helping them secure safe, stable housing of their own. That stability gave the father room to maintain steady employment and pick up carpentry side jobs, while the mother began using her cosmetology degree to earn extra income while the kids are in school. Today, the family continues to visit Avenue of Life’s pantry, easing the financial pressure of groceries so they can focus on maintaining their home, managing their budget, and building toward long-term self-sufficiency. As the Andreas family’s story shows, lasting stability takes more than housing alone — it takes housing, food, and ongoing support working together.
Justice Ministry
Team Welcome — Refugee Ministry
The 2025 offering provided $80,000 in support of Team Welcome, Resurrection’s refugee ministry that walks alongside families through community partners and helps them navigate resettlement and build healthy lives here in Kansas City. Team Welcome’s mission is to live out Matthew 25: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
So far this year, the team has connected volunteers to service opportunities at local organizations, provided educational opportunities, and vetted $60,000 in grants to meet the most immediate needs of those building new lives here. This work is done with respect, cultural humility, and kindness — recognizing that when Resurrection extends hospitality and builds relationships, the church is representing who it is as a people of faith and extending the love of God.
Grants were distributed to six local partners: Jewish Vocational Services, Della Lamb, Don Bosco, Mission Adelante, New Roots KC, and Asylum Clinic KC.
THANK YOU
The light shared through the Christmas Eve Offering is still shining — across neighborhoods and around the world. God is at work through this generosity, and Resurrection is grateful to be on this journey alongside the communities, partners, and ministries it supports.
2025 Missions Annual Report
Want to see the fuller picture of how God is working through Resurrection’s missions and ministries? Read the 2025 Missions Annual Report for a closer look at the impact happening throughout the year.
