Our Mission Is To Help For God’s Glory

Not everyone is in a position to leave everything at a moment’s notice and go halfway across the world to help their neighbor in need. Sometimes, all you can do is watch the news, pray for those hit by such tragedy, and send support however you can.

But sometimes you know that you can do more and actually go yourself.

It is crossing this line from merely talking about it to going and doing something to help that has brought Thirsty Ground International into existence.

The love of Christ compels us to make the sacrifices of time and resources to try and be actively involved in helping people in the world’s worst-hit disaster areas.

From our first mission to the Philippines after super-typhoon Haiyan, to the quake-hit villages of Nepal, to the desperate refugees fleeing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, our volunteers aim to be where the need is the greatest, where the doors are open, and where the message of compassion in the name of Christ speaks the loudest.

We believe that compassion in Christ’s name is a responsibility of the Church and brings glory to God. We want good works done in Jesus name to be a light in the midst of a dark generation.

We are a Christian non-profit organization whose mission is to bring hope to those in disaster-stricken areas through the love of Christ. We were founded in late 2013 by our current Director, Daniel Sem, and have continued to strive to serve in hard places up until today.

This is manifested in physical aid through projects that are determined to meet the present needs of the communities we serve. This can involve short-term aid like water purification, food delivery, shelter/heating, clothing, blankets, and essential medical care. It also involves long-term projects such as agricultural initiatives, business development, education for children, and more. It is also manifested as spiritual aid through counseling those impacted by disasters, sharing with them the truth of God’s saving grace through Christ, and distributing Bibles or other material.

We find it imperative to provide both for the physical and spiritual well being of those involved in a disaster.

If we only approached the spiritual needs, what good does this do to someone who needs food and water right now or else they will die? Where is the compassion in that? However, if we only dealt with the physical needs, this would be short sighted, as eventually all must die and stand before God.

Our organization operates under the oversight of Sovereign Grace Community Church in Corpus Christi, TX and seeks to function as a rallying point for those in like-minded churches across the world to come together and deploy to provide much-needed aid to disaster areas.

Helping Shifting Needs, Partnering With Local Churches

We typically seek a local church to partner with in an immediate disaster area, if that is possible in a given country, and determine the primary needs with their input.

Part of our mission is to help extend the ability of the local church to respond to the needs of their communities by providing them resources to help that they would not otherwise have. This helps the local church serve their own community, opens doors for native Christians to be involved, and leaves an enduring presence for Christ in the area after our teams leave.

Most disasters cripple the infrastructure, meaning food, medicine, shelter and other basic needs may be completely unmet.

We typically provide food, medical and long-term educational assistance or agricultural development based on financial availability and medical staffing resources. Whether it is a 50kg bag of rice, a month worth of life-saving heart medications, a semester for a Syrian child to attend school for the first time in years, or providing work for the poor on a farm producing food for refugees, we seek to determine the best way to meet the needs of those suffering in these disaster areas and crisis situations.

We have provided blankets and heating oil for cold climates, tarps and tin roofs for rainy climates, rebuilding materials for totally devastated communities, and other habitation-related resources on past missions.

In every case we seek to prayerfully consider the best approach to serve these people. It could be a medical mission, or providing food, or bringing blankets, tents and baby formula, helping educate displaced children, restoring abandoned farmland with polyculture techniques, helping locals start a new sustainable business initiative, or any other thing needed for short or long-term survival.

We are not committed to any one particular need or specific methodology; what we are committed to is serving others in the love of Christ with needs they actually need met!

We seek to work with and through regional contacts to best determine the actual needs of those we desire to go help, and seek to be flexible and adjust as needs change on the ground.

How To Get Involved

You can follow along on active programs and relief missions by following our updates.

You can support us by praying for us and for those in the disaster area, and if you feel so led to donate something to enable us to buy more relief goods, basic medical supplies, support ongoing relief programs, and help with the financial burdens of caring for the poor in disaster areas.