Contact: Amy Jo Jones, Christian Freedom International (CFI), 906-253-2336

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich., May 9 /Christian Newswire/ -- Christian Freedom International, a Michigan-based humanitarian organization, is embarking on a unique mission to get desperately needed relief aid into cyclone-ravaged Burma. The organization's efforts are coming at a time when other international assistance has been rejected by the Burmese government, and as U.N. food aid shipments have already been confiscated by the military for its own use in the storm’s aftermath.

Cyclone Nargis, which hit the Southeast Asian country on May 3, 2008, destroyed homes, roadways, grain stores and rice fields, and knocked out electricity in many parts of the country. To date, the official death toll from the storm has climbed to nearly 23,000, with 42,000 others still missing. It is the worst cyclone to hit Asia in 17 years, when 143,000 people were killed in Bangladesh in 1991.

Despite the overwhelming need for food, shelter, clean drinking water, and medical supplies for thousands of Burma's survivors, the junta remains adamant in its refusal to accept the help of a major international relief operation, insisting that it alone will distribute emergency aid among the cyclone victims. "Conventional ways of delivering aid just doesn’t work in Burma," says Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International. "Independent groups like CFI are the only answer to getting aid into the country." Jacobson, who has personally made dozens of trips to the region to deliver relief aid to persecuted Karen and Karenni Christians, believes that the Burmese government's indifference to the widespread suffering of its people in the wake of Cyclone Nargis is helping the international community finally understand the true level of the junta's abject inhumanity.

For the past decade, Jacobson and his workers have witnessed firsthand the devastation of Burma's genocidal brutality carried out against its own citizens, which has caused the displacement of tens of thousands of refugees and the vicious beatings, rapes, and murders of thousands more – a humanitarian crisis that has remained unknown to most of the international community. Burma's repressive government also became the subject of worldwide scrutiny after the country's recent monk-led protests demanding freedom for all Burmese citizens.

CFI, a nonprofit organization that assists persecuted Christians around the world, has an established network of underground house church pastors in Burma, through which it is wiring funds to help provide emergency assistance for cyclone victims. CFI has also dispatched a team of indigenous backpack medics into remote areas, where storm-affected victims will receive lifesaving medical care. CFI workers are also providing spiritual guidance to Burma's suffering victims, offering Bibles and other materials to those who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To provide a donation for Burma's cyclone relief effort, or to learn more about CFI's work in Burma, call 1-800-323-2273 or visit www.christianfreedom.org.