by David L. Meyer
This past January, standing on a stage in Hyderabad, India, my mom overlooked a sea of people—hundreds of thousands who had come from miles around to attend our open-air crusade. It was more people than she had ever ministered to at one time…and it was a scene that would come to symbolize the entire year of 2006.
Friends and partners, with your overwhelming love and support, Joyce Meyer Ministries has impacted more people in 2006 than any other year to date. From the grass huts of rural Swaziland, to the desert sand regions of the Middle East, God has allowed us to feed even more people, save even more lives, and introduce even more people to Jesus than ever before.
With your help, we have watched God open new doors of opportunity, provide new ways for us to reach the lost and hurting, and many times help us achieve the seemingly impossible. Yes, 2006 has been a great year. It has been a year of milestones, a year of completion, and a year of many new beginnings…
Ministry partners joined Dave and Joyce in India to dedicate a new village, a new hospital, and our new Asia headquarters.
In January more than 200 of our partners joined us in India to get a firsthand look at some of our lifesaving outreaches throughout the region. They also got to be a part of some historical ministry moments…
Hundreds of joyful residents occupied their new homes after Dave and Joyce dedicated Nireekshana Nagar, one of the three new villages we have entirely rebuilt for tsunami victims. My parents also had the opportunity to cut the ribbon on our brand-new 70,000-square-foot Asia headquarters—a facility that will help us greatly expand our missions efforts throughout the region.
While in India, our team had the chance to visit our new general hospital in Chandrakal, which treats about 100 people a day using state-of-the-art medical equipment. We dedicated this hospital for the Lord’s use, knowing it is truly a godsend for these local residents who have no other means of health care.
Oh yeah, did I mention that our four-day open-air crusade in Hyderabad drew a total of 1.2 million people? And more than 400,000 of them made a decision for Christ! This is truly the greatest new beginning of all. On our way to India, we also made a two-day stop in the pristine city of Singapore, where my mom had the opportunity to minister to more than 20,000 people at City Harvest Church.
With your support, we helped put the pieces back together for families living on the Gulf Coast.
In April my mom had the opportunity to travel south and surprise a few people in Biloxi, Mississippi, with unexpected gifts, including some refurbished homes for those who had lost nearly everything. For her it was nothing short of pure joy to present to these precious families what you, our friends and partners, have made possible.
From the beginning, we teamed up with Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Service International and Pastor’s Resource Council to send ministry teams to the Gulf area every week. Using semitrucks, we transported over 180,000 pounds of supplies, including water, bread, milk, baby formula, diapers, soap and shampoo.
Together, we also launched a massive outreach to help people clean up and rebuild. The results have been astounding. To date, we have helped refurbish or rebuild more than eighty homes throughout the Gulf region! We have also been able to purchase several new vehicles for needy families and distribute gift cards to those who need to rebuild.
We brought healing and restoration to the people of Rwanda through 100 Days of Hope.
The Rwanda Genocide of 1994 was an atrocity that claimed the lives of more than 1 million people. But this past spring, you helped us bring healing and restoration to thousands through our participation in Hope Rwanda—100 Days of Hope.
From April 28-30, Joyce ministered to nearly 66,000 people at our Festival of Hope held in Kigali’s Amahoro Stadium. Throughout the weekend, hundreds gave their lives to Christ and thousands responded to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Recorded as the largest Christian gathering in Rwanda’s history, this conference was the turning point for what had been a long, traumatic journey toward healing for many.
During the week prior to our conference, we launched the most massive prison outreach in the nation’s history, delivering gift bags—containing a Joyce Meyer book, soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush—to every inmate in Rwanda. That’s more than 70,000 prisoners! At the end of the week, Joyce joined our team at Kigali Central Prison where she ministered to more than 5,000 prisoners in their courtyard. This powerful week of ministry was the first time anything like this had been done within the Rwandese prison system, and we saw more than 18,000 give their hearts to Jesus!
Through your support Joyce Meyer Ministries was also able to provide new homes for several families affected by the genocide. While in Rwanda my mom not only had the chance to dedicate some of these homes, but she also had the opportunity to spend some time just talking with many of the local families in Kigali and bless more than 300 children with boxes full of toys provided by Samaritan’s Purse.
Joyce Meyer Ministries continues to bring hope to the inner city.
Founded and supported by Joyce Meyer Ministries, the St. Louis Dream Center church and outreach center has been offering hope to inner-city residents for over six years. This year alone we provided over 180,000 meals to the hungry and ministered to and cared for more than 18,000 homeless people. We visited over 20,000 elderly in nursing homes and retirement communities, reached thousands of prostitutes and drug dealers for Jesus, and made nearly 67,000 personal visits to homes, offering prayer, gifts, and loving guidance.
Joyce ministered in Kiev, Ukraine, celebrating ten years of foreign language broadcasts.
In May Joyce ministered to a total of 22,000 people during her two-day conference at the Sports Palace in Kiev, Ukraine. She also had the chance to minister at Rick Renner’s Moscow Good News Church in Russia. These events marked the tenth anniversary of airing our Enjoying Everyday Life telecast in the Russian language—our very first foreign language broadcast.
Today, ten years later, our telecast airs in thirty foreign languages worldwide. In 2006 alone we began broadcasting in Khmer throughout Cambodia, in Farsi throughout the Middle East, and also in two additional Indian dialects—Bahasa and Urdu—throughout the nation
of India.
Setting a new goal in Singareni.
During our recent trip to India, Dave and Joyce and our team had an opportunity to visit Singareni, a slum located on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Here, the people live in grass huts without access to clean drinking water or sanitation systems. Through your support we have begun feeding and educating some of the young children in this slum, literally saving their lives.
That day, after spending time feeding the kids and looking at each of their smiling faces, my mom and dad left Singareni with new hope. They also left with a brand-new goal—to feed 1 million children every day.
Friends and partners, we are happy to announce that in 2006 we were able to launch a new feeding program in Nicaragua, in cooperation with Dan Salas Ministries, and also began supporting feeding programs in Egypt and Ethiopia. This is in addition to our many worldwide prgrams already in operation. Also, our feeding outreaches in Asia have dramatically increased, enabling us to serve more than 20,000 meals every day!
In total, by the end of the year we will have served more than 5 million meals to those desperate for help.
Joyce ministered in Sweden for the first time ever.
In November our team traveled to Europe where my mom ministered for the very first time in Uppsala, Sweden, at Word of Life Church. Joyce also spoke at Abundant Life Church in Bradford, England, then had the opportunity to share a word in due season at the Women of the World conference in Karlsruhe, Germany.
2006 saw construction begin for our new children’s AIDS hospice and orphanage in India.
Each day throughout the many poverty-stricken areas of India, literally thousands of young children with AIDS go without medical care. These children have no hope because there is no one who can properly treat them. With your help we are in the process of building a new children’s AIDS hospice and orphanage nearby our existing hospital in Chandrakal. We thank God for this amazing opportunity to provide hope and a future for thousands of individuals suffering from disease in this region.
Our heart at Joyce Meyer Ministries is to help as many needy children as we can. Through our forty-two orphanages worldwide that we fully fund and operate, we are giving hundreds of children the chance to live in a loving home, receive a great education, and learn all about the Word of God. And with your support, we will continue to look for more ways to help as many children as we can.
Our ministry teams visited over 100 prisons worldwide.
Spanning India, El Salvador, Mexico, Canada, and several states throughout the U.S., we distributed gift bags—including hygiene items and a Joyce Meyer book—to over 180,000 prisoners. This includes our unprecedented outreach in Rwanda, which reached their entire prison population. Since 1998 we have delivered over 1.4 million gift bags worldwide.
Thank you!
Friends and partners, with all of our hearts we want you to realize just how important you are to the success of every single thing we do at
Joyce Meyer Ministries. As CEO of World Missions, I have the awesome opportunity to travel the world and see firsthand what we are accomplishing. And everywhere I go I carry each one of you in my heart, knowing that you are the ones responsible…you are the ones who make it all possible. Many times I wish you could go where I go and see what I see, because surely then you would understand just how valuable your partnership really is. On behalf of the Meyer family and our entiresupport staff worldwide, thank you for
all that you do…and thank you for the eternal investment you are making in the Kingdom.
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Friends and partners, this is just a minor overview of what you have helped us accomplish. Our 2006 Annual Report will be released in the summer of 2007 for a more in-depth look at this year's outreaches.
