OperatiOn Bless ing internatiOnalMAY 2013

BlessingsA Second Chance at Life

After nearly losing her daughters to malaria, Satta and her family receive three

life-changing blessings { p A g e 8 }

operationblessing.org

Most poor people share at least one thing in common: chronically empty stomachs. Can you imagine walking around every day with a stomach ache? If a person is chronically hungry they lack the energy required to

break the gravitational pull of poverty. As Christians, we know that we should feed the hungry...but how can we do that effectively?

Since hunger is as close as the next missed meal, it seems that the fight against it might never end—but if a poor person learns to feed himself, a whole new world of independence and opportunity opens up.

In the past few months there have been numerous stories in Blessings about our efforts to alleviate hunger in sustainable ways. Some of the strategies are designed to empower one family at a time (see Meraris’ story on pg. 4), but most of our models impact entire communities and in some cases, whole countries.

Current efforts include a new OBI distribution center near Dallas that accepts thousands of tons of free food donated by corporations and delivered by our fleet of trucks to partners throughout the southeastern U.S.; teaching Masai tribal villagers in Kenya how to utilize drip irrigation and raise drought-resistant crops; training farmers in Honduras to grow a new, disease-resistant variety of potatoes; operating a solar-powered fish farm and hatchery in Haiti that provides seed baby tilapia and technical support for fledging fish farmers; operating 17 famine-busting grain banks in Niger; opening a pastry bakery in Mexico City that employs inner city youth and funds their culinary training; providing boats and fishing gear to tsunami-ravaged Japanese fishing villages; and distributing vegetable seeds and teaching agronomy in Mali, Africa.

All of these are innovative ways of “teaching a man to fish.” With the help you have already given and the help that is to come, we can win the war against hunger! Thank you for continuing your faithful support of Operation Blessing.

May God bless you,

A Message from The PresidenTFrom left to right: Ron Jensen, pro tem mayor of Grand Prairie, TX, joins OBI’s VP of Operations and Logistics, Steve O’ Grady, and OBI President Bill Horan for the Dallas warehouse ribbon cutting ceremony.

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4 Hot Tamales A single mother of three is cooking up success thanks to a new business making and selling tamales

6 Healing Waylee Two-year-old Waylee had suffered from an umbilical hernia since birth, but thanks to help from Operation Blessing partners, she’ll have a healthier future

11 playtime in Fukushima

A new bus is helping safely transport children impacted by Japan’s 2011 tsunami and a damaged nuclear power plant

12 Operation Blessing: guatemala From feeding malnourished children and training families how to farm, to providing free dental care—see how your support is making a difference in Guatemala

14 Waiting for a Miracle While Terry waited for a kidney transplant, his family suffered without his steady income, until they found help at a local food pantry

Inside this issue Cover page 8

A Second Chance at LifeAfter nearly losing her daughters to malaria, Satta and her family receive three life-changing blessings

page 11

page 12

A Message from The PresidenT

page 6

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El SAlvAdor

Hot TamalesA single mother of three is cooking up success thanks

to a new business making and selling tamales

Thanks to a special tamale oven, Meraris is now able to provide for her children.

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A ll Meraris wanted was a chance. At four months pregnant, the father abandoned her and their two young daughters, leaving Meraris as the sole supporter for their family.

Desperate to find work as a cook or housekeeper, she knocked on door after door, but the answer was always the same.

“Even though I have skills, nobody was giving me a chance to work,” Meraris said.

The lack of income began to take its toll on her young family.“There was a time that we spent almost two days without food because

we had nothing to eat. My neighbors gave me some food, but I knew they couldn’t give me much because they are also in need,” she said.

When Operation Blessing heard about this young mom’s situation, they asked how they could help and Meraris’ answer was simple: tamales.

“I saw the opportunity to make tamales for sale, something that has high potential for success in my community because they are so popular,” Meraris said. “I just was not able to obtain the tools to start my business.”

Operation Blessing teams provided Meraris with the special oven to make the tamales, and now she is earning enough monthly income to provide food for her children as well as the educational resources they need to go to school. ◆>> Want to help make more dreams come true for hurting families? Go to www.ob.org/monthlypartner to become a monthly member with Operation Blessing and start changing lives today!

“There was a time that we spent almost two days without food because we had nothing to eat,” said Meraris, pictured here with her two-month-old baby.

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Healing WayleeHAiti

Two-year-old Waylee had suffered from an umbilical hernia since birth, but thanks to help from Operation

Blessing partners, she’ll have a healthier future

At two years old, most children are sleeping through the night, talking and playing happily with others. But not little Waylee.

the two-year-old has suffered from an umbilical hernia since birth—a condition that has kept her from sleeping well at night and prevented her from playing actively with her siblings.

the hernia could be remedied with a surgical procedure, but Waylee’s mother simply couldn’t afford it. When Operation Blessing learned about their situation, we arranged for Waylee to receive the

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surgery she needed free of charge to her family. When little Waylee was discharged from the hospital, Operation

Blessing staff transported her and her mother to a nearby house where they could rest and monitor little Waylee’s prog-ress before sending them home.

“interacting with Waylee post-surgery has been entirely different than pre-surgery,” OBi staff said. “she smiles and claps her hands. she is full of energy and has become much more social with her friends and siblings.”

today, Waylee is home with her family again. she’s finally able to sleep through the night and is even eating more. With surgery now behind her, little Waylee has a bright future ahead. ◆

5,421 Lives Changed and Counting…Thanks to You.

Because of faithful partners like you, precious children around the world are getting the healing they so desperately need. From

surgeries to correct cleft lips and palates, to hernias, club feet and eye and ear impairments, last year, compassionate friends like you helped provide 5,421 life-changing surgeries.

To help even more children in need, visit community.ob.org/lifechangingsurgeries or call 1-800-430-2537.

Post surgery: Waylee is happy, all smiles and full of energy.

Guatemala: Geiser, cataract surgery

China: Siyan, cleft lip surgery

Haiti: Adianne, treatment for bone infection

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For most moms, exhaustion is not something to be celebrated. But in Satta’s case, a sleepless night was something to be grateful

for—because it meant her daughters were alive.Just hours earlier her two little girls were

struggling to survive severe cases of malaria. When they were first diagnosed, Satta had spent

all her resources to purchase medicine for them—but before long the medicine ran out and she simply didn’t have enough money to purchase more.

So Satta treated her girls with the best local remedy of herbs she could find, but four-

year-old Lucy and two-year-old Fanta grew steadily worse.

By the time Operation Blessing’s medical clinic arrived in their community, both girls were malnourished and Lucy was feverish, with an enlarged liver and spleen—and in dire need of a blood transfusion.

“Lucy had malaria 4+, which is the worst rating they have in Liberia,” said OBI’s Tony Cece. “It would have killed her if she had not been treated.”

Dr. Deddeh Smith recognized the severity of the situation right away and rushed Lucy and Fanta to a hospital.

Not long after receiving a successful blood transfusion and other medicine, the girls were lively and talkative again.

libEriA

A Second Chance at LifeAfter nearly losing her daughters to malaria, Satta and her family receive three life-changing blessings

God put us in the right place at the right time.

– tony Cece

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A Second Chance at Life

Before: The poor condi-tion of their home left young Lucy and Fanta vulnerable to malaria-carrying mosqui-toes at night.

After: Satta admires her new brick and mortar home with 2-year-old Fanta in her arms. ☛

☛

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“God put us in the right place at the right time,” Cece said. But the life-changing blessings didn’t end there.

While investigating what had caused such an extreme case of malaria in Lucy, Operation Blessing teams learned that their small home was falling apart—the roof had been left unfinished by the contractor and the mud walls were simply disintegrating in the rain, exposing the girls to harmful mosquito bites at night.

Satta and her mother, Sawou, didn’t have the funds to fix the home. Sawou had once owned a small shop selling clothes and earned a decent income, but then her husband became ill and she used all of her earnings to pay for his treatment, although it wasn’t enough to save his life.

Now Sawou makes charcoal to sell while Satta does odd jobs like cleaning and laundering for the neighbors. But all their efforts provide barely enough income to purchase just 1/3 of a cup of rice to share each day.

So while Satta was with her little girls in the hospital, Operation Blessing teams rebuilt their house out of brick and cement mortar and finished it with a sturdy roof. They even provided new beds and mosquito nets to protect the girls from further exposure to malaria.

Teams also provided Satta and Sawou with supplies to start another shop selling clothes and shoes at the market—ensuring they would all have a second chance to live a healthy life.

“To just treat the girls’ sickness would not solve the problem,” Cece said. “They would soon be sick again and their mother and grandmother wouldn’t be able to afford the medical care needed, so we made a decision to change their reality by building them a new home and offering them a new source of income.” ◆

Rest for the weary: Sitting next to OBI staff, Satta and her daughters fall asleep as they leave the hospital to return home.

Dr. Smith assesses Fanta at the Operation Blessing medical clinic.

Playtime in FukushimaA new bus is helping safely transport children impacted by Japan’s 2011 tsunami and a damaged nuclear power plant

When most parents are encouraging their children to go outside and play, families in Fukushima are suggesting the exact opposite.

Following the devastating tsunami in 2011, the community suffered another blow when the local nuclear power plant was crippled in the disaster. Among other things, concerns over radiation exposure kept children from being able to play outside for long periods of time.

When a kindergarten and after school care center asked Operation Blessing for help to supply food and drinks for the children—teams decided something much more than snacks was needed.

“I was impressed by the programs they had for kids, including an outreach to displaced children living in temporary housing,” said Don

Thomson, country director for OBI Japan. “But in order to transport the children they were required by the government to have a proper bus. They also needed a bus to take the kindergartners on excursions a safe distance away from Fukushima.”

So a proper bus is what Operation Blessing gave them—complete with a beautiful new logo designed by a local artist.

At the official presentation ceremony, the kindergarteners and staff performed special songs in gratitude for the gift.

“We are very happy,” said Pastor Kokubo whose church runs the kindergarten and after school care center. “We look forward to being able to take the children to safe areas to play. It is not just us who are to be blessed, but that we bring the whole town into the blessings,” he added. ◆

JApAn

Thanks to the new bus, children can now go on field trips a safe distance away.

Kindergarteners and staff perform special songs in gratitude for the gift of a new bus.

GuAtEMAlA

Operation Blessing: GuatemalaFrom feeding malnourished children and training families how to farm, to providing free dental care for poverty-stricken children and more—see how your support is making a difference in Guatemala ❶

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Operation Blessing: Guatemala❶ In an effort to fight malnutrition in children, a feeding project in Zacapa is providing protein-fortified rice manna packs to 100 families every week. ❷ Before Operation Blessing began this program, the main food source for these children was in the form of corn tortillas. ❸ Teams track the children’s weight to monitor their progress. ❹ Families in the community of Pani-manche help build a demonstration “field” where Operation Blessing teams will train them on best practices for planting and farming. ❺ An instructor hands out seeds for planting. ❻ Using soda bottles and small con-tainers, Operation Blessing teams show families how to prepare the ground with proper nutrients and humidity to produce good crops. ❼ Through Operation Blessing’s Mobile Dental Van, children living in remote communities with no access to dental services are getting the care they need. ❽ Dentists provide children with clean-ings, fluoride and sealants—all free of charge. ❾ During one week, the dental van visited a school, providing dental care to 145 children. ◆

From feeding malnourished children and training families how to farm, to providing free dental care for poverty-stricken children and more—see how your support is making a difference in Guatemala

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When terry was diagnosed with kidney failure he expected to face some pretty big challenges—but hunger was not one of them.

after being told he would have to go on dialysis until a transplant could be found, terry could no longer keep up his schedule as a full-time truck driver.

But without a steady income, terry and his wife, gail, struggled

GEorGiA

While Terry waited for a kidney transplant, his family suffered without his steady income, until they found help at a local food pantry

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to make ends meet for their family. so terry turned to an Operation Blessing-supported food pantry for help. there, his family received the groceries and essentials they needed to keep food on the table each week.

inspired by the service the food pantry was providing for him and others in his community, terry scheduled his dialysis treatments in order to volunteer at the pantry—packing food boxes and serving wherever help was needed at the warehouse.

“You can see the need being met,” terry said, “and that’s a gratifying feeling to me to be a part of something like that.”

eventually, terry got the miracle he’d been patiently praying and waiting for, and following a successful transplant surgery, is now back at work as a full time truck driver and no longer in need of groceries for his family.

But his experience with the local food pantry during his time of need has stayed with him.

“looking back at what southern Crescent and Operation Blessing have done for me, the only thing i can express is deep, deep gratitude,” terry said.

With help from Operation Blessing, the food pantry serves more than 3,000 families every week.

“i see those trucks come in [and] i can’t help but smile, knowing that it’s full of good product that’s going to help a lot of families,” said Mark Brumbalow, the food pantry’s director. “When you give to Operation Blessing, you can look right here in your own community and see results.” ◆

“Looking back at what Southern Crescent and Operation Blessing have done for me, the only thing I can express is deep, deep gratitude,” Terry said.

While he waited for a trans-plant, Terry helped his local food pantry by volunteering to sort and pack boxes of groceries.

In war-torn Mali, mothers are struggling to protect and feed their children.

They have abandoned their homes, possessions and livelihoods— often with nothing more than the clothes on their backs—to flee intense fighting between rebels and government forces and seek safe shelter in cities far away.

With your help, we’ve been able to provide critical food and relief to these displaced families and give them hope when it was needed most. “Many have come to hear about our loss,” said one victim, “but you are the first to bring food to help.”

Please, will you consider a special gift today to help more mothers and children in their greatest time of need? Thank you for your compassion and living your faith!

Copyright © 2013 by Operation Blessing International, P.O. Box 2636, Virginia Beach, VA 23450. For more information, call (800) 730-2537 or visit our website at operationblessing.org

For mothers like Ameen, your help means everything.