Despite the sweltering heat if rural Liberia, the dusty roads and callused heels, 10 women volunteer their time to save lives. Each day, they march miles to reach women in need of support.

Kentia’s parents rushed her to the Medical Teams-supported hospital near their home within the Mtendeli refugee camp. “I thought my child would die soon,” her mother later confessed.

When Nur Ankiz began feeling pain in her abdomen, she knew she was about to give birth. At first, the pain seemed normal to the mother of 12. It turned out to be anything but.

Twenty-seven years ago, Pope John Paul II introduced World Day of the Sick. It’s a day to pray for those suffering from illness. Today, we invite you to join us in praying for the sick and their caregivers.

Not all pain is visible. It’s not as if anguish is something you can diagnose with a simple assessment—or treat with a pill. Hurt, after all, can cut scars far deeper than what we see with our eyes.

Thank you for your generous support of these 8 areas as well as many others in 2018. We look forward to sharing many more stories of healing this year and are grateful for your dedication to make sure that every person knows that they matter. To God and to us.

Faced with howling wind and fierce rain, Halima’s family of 16 squeezed into the only place free of rising flood waters — a tiny room in the back of their makeshift shelter.

As 2018 came to a close, two stories show how a few dentists volunteering their time, a fully-equipped mobile clinic and a lot of heart can make life-changing impacts on people’s lives.

As we celebrate this Advent season, a time of anticipation, wonder, prayer and reflection before Christmas, we find ourselves at an unprecedented time in modern history, where more people worldwide are refugees than ever before.

We’ve assembled 18 powerful images to tear back the curtain to reveal what it’s like to cross a border, receive a health screening at a refugee clinic or be treated at a war-afflicted health center in Syria.

Two weeks ago, Bangladesh deemed it safe for Rohingya refugees to return to their homes in Myanmar. Rohingya families were skeptical. Having escaped what the United Nations describes as systemic abuse and violence, these families — now occupying camps in a desolate and deforested swath of land in Bangladesh — did not heed the call.

Few things compare to the joy of holding a newborn baby for the first time. For mothers who have experienced violence, terror and loss, the happy relief of delivering a healthy baby is even greater.