Quick Response to Hurricane Florence

Last week, monster storm Hurricane Florence made impact along the U.S. East Coast. But thanks to your support, Operation Blessing’s U.S. Disaster Relief team stood ready to quickly respond to the desperate needs of hurricane victims.

As the storm made landfall on Friday, September 14th, Operation Blessing teams had already moved into action. Truckloads of relief supplies stood by in Emporia, Virginia, near interstates into North Carolina and the expected disaster zones. Included in their arsenal was a mobile command center, a dehumidifier truck, a mobile kitchen capable of making 1,000 meals per day, flood kits supplied by our faithful partner, The Home Depot, pallets of bottled water, food, hygiene supplies, and more.

Thankfully, the storm that had previously attained category 4 status hit land on Friday as a category 1 hurricane. Still, Hurricane Florence packed a powerful punch. It crept slowly inland dumping enormous amounts of rain and causing significant wind damage. Sadly, death tolls began to roll in—3, then 5, and continuing to mount.

As the path of the storm became clear, Operation Blessing’s convoy moved forward to Raleigh, North Carolina, and began reaching out to the State Emergency Operations Center, the National Guard, and the Christian Relief Cooperative. Saturday, as the situation continued to worsen with intense flooding inland, Operation Blessing sent out reconnaissance teams to determine the areas in the most desperate need and to search out local church partners.

On Sunday, Operation Blessing began its first relief distribution in New Bern, North Carolina. This area with many low-income individuals has suffered a hard hit from Hurricane Florence, and the impact could become worse throughout the week as nearby rivers rise. Without Limits Christian Center provided a distribution point and volunteers as OBI passed out hygiene kits, flood kits, water, food, and more to 135 hurting families. And this is just the beginning.

As of Monday morning, September 17th, the death toll stands at 18 and the flooding continues. Very soon, our second distribution center will be set up in Lumberton, North Carolina, in partnership with East Lumberton Baptist Church. Even more truckloads of supplies have been dispatched to the area from Operation Blessing warehouses as the severity of the situation continues to unfold.

In the coming days, we will continue serving victims in North Carolina with immediate aid during this period of crisis. And as time goes on, we plan to stay in the area, helping people recover their lives and their homes.

It is only because of you that we can offer this type of immediate and effective disaster relief to help the hurting.

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

We’ve now served over 17,000 hot meals, and have begun helping hurting residents recover their homes. The Kohler shower trailer is on site, and we’re accepting out of town volunteers. Visit http://www.ob.org/disaster-relief/volunteer/ to learn how you can get involved or go to https://www.ob.org/tag/hurricane-florence-relief/ to see all the latest stories of how you’ve made a difference for hurricane victims in need.

A Desperate Family Finds Hope

Daniel, Lakashah, and their children, seen here praying over dinner, were in desperate need due to a loss of income and medical bills, until they found Operation Blessing and Warehouse of Hope.

GEORGIA – Three-year-old Daniella faced two crises in her life. She suffers from a genetic disorder that has required medical procedures; this soon placed her family in a desperate financial trouble, and she was hungry.

Hunger Relief for Desperate Family in Crisis

Her parents, Daniel and Lakashah, moved to Georgia several years ago, at the time with three young girls, to help start a church. There, they faithfully serve the congregation as children’s pastors. Although Daniel works hard as a chemical batcher in a warehouse, starting at 5 AM each day, his position pays half of what he earned at his previous job, making it difficult for the family to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, as young Daniella’s condition became more apparent, she underwent several surgeries, leaving the family with mounting medical bills.

Worse, sometimes they simply didn’t have enough food to eat. Lakashah said, “There were times when I had to tell them, ‘You have to wait. We don’t have anything to eat.’” Daniel added, “Some people say they’re living paycheck to paycheck. Well, we weren’t even making it to the next paycheck.” The family was desperate for help.

You Sent Help to Hungry US Family

That is when Operation Blessing partners like you stepped in. Lakashah discovered Warehouse of Hope, a distribution partner for Operation Blessing’s Hunger Strike Force, supported by our faithful partners. And everything changed!

Warehouse of Hope receives supplies each month from OBI and meets the needs of over 500 families. For more than a decade Warehouse of Hope and Operation Blessing have worked together to provide for people like Daniella and her sisters. Joy overwhelmed Daniel the first time he saw the food that Lakashah had brought home.

Although Daniella still struggles with her health, over time, matters have improved for her family. They continue to believe God that one day she will be healed. The supplies they receive from Warehouse of Hope have helped fill their pantry and their stomachs.

Today Daniel and Lakasha have four girls and plenty of nutritious food for them all to eat. Daniel has also taken up woodworking to help supplement the family’s income and hopefully improve their financial situation in the future.

To Operation Blessing’s supporters, Daniel said, “With every single cent you’ve given, you’ve touched my life. I can’t put it into words, but I will say thank you, and I know that God is saying thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Sending Health and Hope to a World in Need

A young boy receives life-changing surgery on his eyes.

WORLDWIDE – Whether through community health workers, life-changing surgeries, health clinics, or partnerships that bring hope and medical care to those in need, your support of Operation Blessing is sending healing to the far ends of the earth.

Free Medical Care for Those in Need

In remote areas of countries like Kenya, Haiti, and Peru, community health workers trained by Operation Blessing serve as front line health promoters. These volunteers and OBI medical staff provide services like cervical cancer prevention, pregnancy classes, vital nutritional supplements for preschoolers, prenatal care, emergency medical treatment, and more. Our dedicated workers touch lives and administer healing.

You also bless the hurting through OBI’s Life-Changing Surgeries program. Cleft lips were repaired in Africa, eyes have been healed in Guatemala, and in Latin America precious children were saved through operations to repair holes in their hearts. These are just a few examples of how you help provide medical care to those who need it most.

Medical Partnerships Save Lives

Through partnerships with compassionate organizations like the Dina Foundation, MiracleFeet, Health City Cayman Islands, and Revive Team Nepal, OBI supporters spread hope around the globe.

In the village of Silautiya, Nepal, for example, the houses are made of mud, most residents have no toilets, the poverty rate remains high, and the closest medical outpost lies over 16 miles away. OBI, in partnership with Revive Team Nepal, brought free medical and dental care. Similar clinics are taking healing to places like Zanzibar, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well as disaster zones.

Thanks to your ongoing support of Operation Blessing, “the least of these” find hope, healing, and medical care. Thank you for your heart to bless those who hurt.

Educational Opportunities for Promising Haitian Students

Daphkaline points at the chalkboard. This promising student received a scholarship to continue her education.

HAITI – Since its founding in 2013 by OB Haiti, L’Ecole Nouvelle Lac Azuei (ENLA) has been dedicated to offering the highest standards of learning to the surrounding impoverished community. But the school only goes through sixth grade, and as the students graduated, they found it difficult to continue their educations. Public schools lack funding and private schools are expensive. The distance alone can hinder a child’s education.

Thanks to your support providing scholarships and housing, promising ENLA graduates are continuing their educations at the reputable Hermann Gmeiner Academy on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince. These students now have a chance to receive diplomas and help break the cycle of poverty that has held their families captive!

SCHOLARSHIP SPOTLIGHT: DAPHKALINE

Daphkaline after successfully completing her first year of middle school. — Daphkaline today

Daphkaline comes from a large family living along the shores of Lake Azuei. Her father fishes for a living and her mother sells products at the local market to get by.

During her first year in the scholarship program, Daphkaline has achieved especially good grades, and she demonstrates exemplary behavior at her boarding house. She enjoys French and social studies, saying, “[Social studies] gives me a lot of general knowledge that I need to know in my life and about my country.”

When not in school, she loves to read, study, play with friends, and help her mother with laundry and cooking. She said, “I would like to continue my studies after middle school because I want to become a person who is useful to herself, her parents, and society.”

Project Lunchbox

VIRGINIA – For many children from low-income families across the United States, school meal programs provide an essential source of food throughout the school year. Outside of school, however, these food-insecure kids may be left without a reliable meal source. With parents often working multiple jobs and still coming up short, weekends and “vacations” can be hungry times for these kids.

That’s where Project Lunchbox steps in to help. This new pilot program from Operation Blessing’s Hunger Strike Force is designed to provide these at-risk children with meals on weekends and school breaks. At the William A. Hunton YMCA in Norfolk, Virginia, where Project Lunchbox was recently launched, children attending day camps in the summer received food Monday through Friday but many of the children were going hungry over the weekends. As part of Project Lunchbox, the kids were given groceries to take home at the end of the week.

Hunger Relief for U.S. School Children

Brenda Gibbs, Senior VP/COO of the Hunton YMCA, said, “We’ve periodically had programs where we’d feed them breakfast, or maybe we will feed them lunch on weekends, but we were unable to sustain those programs over time because of the expense. … We were trying to bridge that gap, and Operation Blessing is truly a blessing.”

With the success of the Project Lunchbox pilot program, Operation Blessing hopes to expand Project Lunchbox into communities across the country. With your support, we can make sure these children have food they need to grow healthy and strong!

Volcan De Fuego

An Operation Blessing medical director helps Fuego victims.

GUATEMALA – When Volcan de Fuego, one of Central America’s most active volcanoes, erupted without warning, clouds of gray ash billowed thousands of feet into the air and a deadly pyroclastic flow sped down the mountainside. Dozens were killed, hundreds more went missing, and thousands were left displaced from their homes.

Volcano Relief for Guatemalans

Thanks to your support, Operation Blessing’s Guatemala office immediately sprang into action to bring relief to the victims of this disaster. First, OB Guatemala staff began putting together emergency aid kits containing food and hygiene supplies. In partnership with the Guatemalan Army and the Asociación Nacional de Municipalidades (ANAM), these kits were soon distributed to residents who had been evacuated to shelters.

Operation Blessing also distributed more than 1,000 respirators to firefighters and over 30,000 facemasks to area residents. These respirators and facemasks helped filter out the harmful volcanic ash that continued to fall.

In addition, OBI teams used mobile kitchens to help provide hot meals to the firefighters and first responders who were tirelessly working to rescue survivors.

It’s only through your support that these disaster response operations were made possible!

From the Field

Aiding West Japan after Devastating Floods

JAPAN – Devastating flooding in West Japan has created one of the worst natural disasters that country has faced since the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. But the ongoing, faithful support of Operation Blessing partners empowered OB Japan to rush aid to hard hit areas.

Successive heavy downpours between June and mid-July, 2018, brought over 20 inches of rain to some areas of Japan, causing flooding and landslides throughout the western part of the country. At the latest count, over 200 are dead and 21 remain missing.

Another 8 million people faced evacuations, and thousands fled to shelters. Almost 300,000 households lost their water supply, and thousands lost electricity. Hard hit areas included Hiroshima, Kurashiki, and Sukumo City. Floods have left homes destroyed, roads damaged, and essentials like food and water in short supply.

With your support, Operation Blessing Japan quickly sprang to action. Initially, they rushed much needed aid like water bottles and tools for cleaning damaged homes to shelters in the affected areas. They also began reaching out to local churches and partner organizations to plan for long term recovery efforts.

Next, in cooperation with volunteers from local churches, they set to work cleaning homes and blessing disaster victims like the Tuzame family in Kurashiki. They removed mud from their floors, walls, and cabinets, and dried their house with fans. The family was excited and grateful for the help. OB Japan also helped a farmer, Mr. Ono, whose barn had been filled with agricultural chemicals during the flooding.

As they continued their recovery efforts, they met many overwhelmed homeowners who were dazed and confused about how to even begin the recovery process. In response, OB Japan offered consultation services to provide a roadmap to recovery for those still reeling from the disaster.

The residents of West Japan have a long rebuilding process ahead of them, but thanks to your generosity, Operation Blessing can continue to stand beside them, aiding them along the way.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Four by fours delivering aid to Bedouins in the Judean Desert.

WORLDWIDE – Operation Blessing partners are speeding relief, comfort, and hope to millions around the world. Sometimes, however, getting to where the need is greatest can be an enormous challenge. Undaunted, your Operation Blessing teams use whatever mean necessary to transport food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the remotest villages and harshest disaster zones.

Here are just a few examples of the lengths Operation Blessing will go to bring your help to those in need, utilizing a diverse array of transportation methods and vehicles.

Reaching the Bedouins in the Judean Desert
Struck by drought, two Bedouin camps in the southern hills of Hebron were facing a severe food shortage. Operation Blessing enlisted the help of a local 4×4 club in Jerusalem, and soon a convoy of rugged off-road vehicles were making their way across the desert laden with supplies. In all, Operation Blessing was able to deliver enough food to supply over 800 people for an entire month.

Air lifting aid to Haiti after a hurricane.

Help from the Air in Haiti
After Hurricane Matthew made landfall in Haiti as a category 4 storm, Operation Blessing took to the sky to bring relief, chartering a small plane to help survey the damage from the air and bring relief supplies to the badly damaged town of Jérémie. Though the tiny aircraft’s small payload only allowed about 30 extra pounds of supplies, OBI made maximum use. One case of amoxicillin, containing 144 bottles of antibiotics, accounted for 22 pounds. Eight pounds was given to two chlorine generators and the salt required to run them for one week — enough to treat 68,000 gallons of drinking water!

Elsewhere in Haiti, the remote community of Bwa Pikan was cut off from the outside world and in desperate need of relief. Thanks to partners like you, Operation Blessing secured a helicopter and loaded a cargo net with food, hygiene supplies, chlorine to disinfect water, seeds to restart crops, medical supplies, and more. In all, the helicopter made three trips from Port-au-Prince to bring these essential supplies to the people of Bwa Pikan.

Semi-trucks from OBI's Hunger Strike Force deliver food and supplies in the U.S.

Hunger Strike Force
In the United States, Operation Blessing’s Hunger Strike Force boasts a fleet of semi-trucks that are constantly transporting tons of food, hygiene items, and more to our network of food pantries and other ministries across the country. These trucks deliver millions of pounds of food to families in need each year thanks to partners like you.

Using an army truck to reach flood victims.

Driving Through Floodwaters in Louisiana
In August of 2016, prolonged rainfall caused widespread, catastrophic flooding across much of southern Louisiana. Operation Blessing’s U.S. Disaster Relief team responded immediately, but the floodwaters were still so high that many areas remained virtually inaccessible. To get through, the team enlisted the use of a massive 6X6 Army truck. The truck plowed through the floodwaters to reach isolated communities with relief supplies, including much-needed drinking water.

Motorcyles deliver aid in Mexico after an earthquake.

On Wheels and Wings in Mexico
When two powerful earthquakes rocked the nation of Mexico in a span of only 11 days, Operation Blessing partners responded immediately. In Mexico City, traffic jams clogged the city streets making in nearly impossible for OBI to deliver relief supplies and meals to those in need. So Operation Blessing used a brigade of motorcycles to infiltrate into the hardest hit areas with water and relief supplies.

To transport relief supplies to some of the hardest hit areas of southern Mexico, Operation Blessing was able to secure the use of an Aeromar cargo plane. Staff and volunteers loaded the aircraft with donated food, water, and other essential supplies.

Boats are used to deliver aid along the river in Peru.

Boats Bring Relief in Belén
The district of Belén, Peru, is built on the banks of the Itaya River. For about half the year the river overflows its banks, flooding the entire region and making small boats the only means of transportation. Operation Blessing’s local office, in the neighboring city of Iquitos, conducts a wide variety of projects in Belén, including a school nutrition program, community health worker program, medical brigades, new housing construction, microenterprises, and more. These projects require Operation Blessing staff and volunteers to frequent the water taxis that offer the easiest transportation around and across the Itaya.

Motorcyles are used to reach remote, mountain villages in Haiti.

Motocross in Haiti
In Haiti, Operation Blessing’s projects are widespread and often in remote and hard to reach areas. Roads are frequently dirt or gravel and in poor condition. Luckily, OB Haiti’s Dora Nemere is an accomplished motocross rider. She uses her motorcycle to navigate the treacherous routes in between Operation Blessing projects while having a little fun along the way!

From the Field

Getting Water to Santa Fé

hen all the streams and reservoirs dried up around the mountainside village of Santa Fé, Honduras, the villagers were left to retrieve water from stagnant pools and other temporary and unsanitary sources. Drinking this water resulted in widespread illness throughout the isolated community. Thanks to you, Operation Blessing located a source of safe water higher up the mountainside and constructed a durable network of piping to deliver that water down to the village. Then, we constructed a massive water reservoir fitted with a state-of-the-art chlorinator to ensure that the water is safe to drink. Finally, OBI ran faucets into every single home in the village so that families will no longer have to walk long distances just to access this life giving liquid. Because of your generosity, the village of Santa Fé, Honduras, will have unlimited access to safe, delicious water.

Ground Zero: Volcán de Fuego

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRdmIrCEqsk

Weeks after the eruption, many have moved on from the tragedy still unfolding in Guatemala. To date, 110 people have lost their lives and 197 are still missing. Because of your generosity, Operation Blessing is still on the ground working to help the survivors of this disaster by distributing food and hygiene kits as well as providing medicine and support to local hospitals.