Our Beginning — Christ for Humanity

“I think most of us believe that missionaries are a special breed of people, chosen by God from the masses of humanity too serve Him in extraordinary ways. However, from my life experience, I realize that God uses ordinary men and women, people like you and me, to advance His purposes both home and abroad. If that’s true, everyone is a potential missionary in his or her sphere of influence. All God needs is a willing heart, and He can grow a mustard seed sized faith into a mighty tree capable of providing a bit of cooling shade across a sun scorched world. That certainly is the case with Christ for Humanity.”

Tina Rollins (Co-founder and CEO)

How It All Began

Mark Rollins came to Christ in his mid-40s and was very excited about his newfound faith. After witnessing terrible conditions of the Tepejuan and Tarahumara Indians in northern Mexico during a 1989 trip, Mark immediately contacted New Tribes Mission, an organization working in the Sierra Madre Mountains, asking if there was anything he could do to help them minister to tribal people. He learned the Indian population had no access to state sponsored healthcare. Christian doctors and dentists were desperately needed, even if only for a short time. Could Mark help arrange short-term mission trips for medical teams to meet this need? Mark’s answer was a resounding “YES!” Given his enthusiasm and powerful personality, if you were a Christian healthcare worker, you didn’t stand a chance if Mark came calling to enlist you into Christian service in northern Mexico. The cost to lay-missionaries was merely their time, expertise, and the price of a plane ticket. Mark made all the arrangements. The reward for accepting the call was the knowledge your service to the Lord was advancing His kingdom among people who desperately needed Jesus. Who could resist such a proposition? Few did. A church building project in Baborigame, Mexico soon followed, involving even more church members and the youth. The tender shoot, which grew into the local and international humanitarian aid organization Christ for Humanity is today, was planted and watered by the success of these early trips, thanks to the willingness of men, women, and young people to serve the “least of these.” Mark’s ministry vision became “to enable the Body of Christ to get out of the pew and go to the poor,” which remains our staff’s goal today.

After obtaining a U.S. State Department grant in 1992 to ship humanitarian aid to the former Soviet Union, the ministry took off in a dramatic way. Everyone is familiar with the verse in Matthew that says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” Social media didn’t exist in those early days, so Mark did a lot of asking God for direction, seeking humanitarian aid everywhere it was available and knocking on the doors of hospitals, clinics, food packing plants, baby food companies and even the U. S. government. God is good! During the next decade, CFH became one of the top five shippers of humanitarian relief throughout the Soviet Block, providing nine million pounds of medical supplies, clothing, and food to needy people from Siberia to the Kalmyk Republic. The prerequisite for receiving aid remains the same today as it did then: God’s Word had to be included when aid was distributed. To help facilitate our work, God raised a volunteer army for CFH to sort, inventory and pack donated supplies, enabling thousand in communist countries to experience of the love of Christ. By the end of that decade, the Iron Curtain once again closed; however, CFH’s relationship with larger ministries like Samaritan’s Purse and Unto Global Aid Network still allows our ministry to provide medical supplies and equipment to Christian clinics around the world. As always, our faithful volunteers make this possible.

In 1999, God opened another ministry door – Local Outreach. Today, CFH has a food pantry, clothes closet, housewares department and medical supply room for people in our community seeking help in desperate times. What began as an in-house ministry to area poor soon expanded into the Tulsa Housing Authority system. Over the past 20 years, CFH recruited numerous church partners to adopt low-income housing facilities across Tulsa as ministry opportunities. A mission team from each church presented a monthly church service or Bible study for interested residents at their adoptive location, and CFH provided food for the hungry. The success of this program rested on the shoulders of Christians from each congregation leaving the security of their home churches (getting out of the pew) and becoming missionaries to area people -- many of whom were without hope apart from a relationship with Christ. Others from their congregations worked to support the ministry teams by volunteering at CFH on Saturdays to fill food boxes for these outreaches. Hundreds of people from all walks of life have been involved in ministry through our organization during the past 30 years. What a blessing it has been to serve alongside each of them!

God is always full of surprises, and our staff is excited to see what He has in store during the years ahead. Like Mark before us, we willingly follow His lead and use our God-given gifts to serve where we can. Our prayer is that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ will join us as His witnesses in their personal Jerusalem’s, Judea’s, Samaria’s, and even to the ends of the earth.