Remembering to Dream Big Dreams

Nadia smiles with her son Pedro, happy that she remembered to dream big dreams thanks to an OBI community health worker program.

PERU – Like many of us, Nadia had gotten caught in the daily grind of work and family and forgotten to dream bigger dreams. Each morning she would rise at 4am to sell fish, caught by her husband, at the local market. Throughout the day she prepared meals for her family, and she helped her children with their homework each night.

If she’d ever desired more for her life, those wishes had long ago faded away. Nadia hadn’t even finished secondary school, and she accepted her lot, along with the ten to fifteen dollars that she and her husband managed to earn each day to cover household expenses.

Then she noticed a group of women—OBI Community Health Workers (CHWs)—working at a local preschool. “It drew my attention when my neighbors went to the preschool every week. I didn’t want to stay behind,” Nadia said.

She discovered that an educational program in her area run by Operation Blessing had trained these workers. The program provides weekly lessons on subjects like first aid, pre-natal care, infections, and other health issues.

Although Nadia doubted she could achieve becoming a health worker herself, the opportunity stirred up her long forgotten dreams. Nadia’s mother had been a health worker in her own community. As a child, she had watched her mother give shots, measure blood pressure, and help those in need without expecting anything in return.

Nadia realized she wanted to do more with her life and become a part of a beautiful journey to helping others. So she decided to attend the CHW classes together with her neighbor Frida. Nadia said, “I came to OBI with the desire to learn and a hope that my children would feel proud of their mother.”

She felt welcomed and encouraged at the Community Health Worker classes. Nadia had thought she would never have another chance to study or to become part of a team of helpers. But over the next three years, she became empowered to provide medical care and wise counsel to those who need it most in her neighborhood. She said, “That part of helping others is amazing.”

Today Nadia happily lives out the dreams she had almost forgotten to have. “With OBI, I learned to lose fear and face everyday situations. OBI taught me not only workshops, but also to build a family, like my family of CHWs.”

From the Field

Hurricane Harvey: “This Disaster is NOT Over”

Harvey continues to dump rain on Southeastern Texas as beleaguered and besieged residents desperately seek potable water, food, baby formula and shelter. Operation Blessing is on the ground in Rockport, Texas assisting residents in a variety of ways as they wait for the waters to recede in Houston.

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A New Life After Tragedy

Miriam stands with her daughter in front of the oven that kick-started her baking business.

GUATEMALA – Miriam and Carlos had a good life together with their four children, Byron (15), Cristian (13), Abraham (5) and María (2). Carlos worked as an accountant, keeping the books for many local businesses in his town of San Andrés Semetabaj, Guatemala. A dedicated family man, he gave himself to supporting his wife and children. Then, he fell ill.

Carlos was diagnosed with a disease of the nervous system that soon made it impossible for him to work. Since Carlos was the sole provider for their home, Miriam knew that she had to do something to help keep food on the table. She decided to attend a class on baking. Miriam began making cakes to sell to friends and neighbors in order to supplement the income still trickling in from her husband’s accounting clients. Unfortunately, the money from Carlos’ business eventually began to dry up and Miriam’s cakes did not bring in enough to support the family. Just as their financial situation was looking grim, things took another turn for the worst. During an especially tough bout with his disease, Carlos passed away. Suddenly, Miriam was a widow and a single mother of four.

Without a steady source of income, Miriam soon found herself struggling to feed her kids. She felt that she and her children had nowhere to turn in their time of need. That’s when they found Operation Blessing.

Miriam had already come up with a plan to take her baking business to the next level; she just needed a little help to get it off the ground. When Miriam shared her plan with the team from OB Guatemala, it was clear what needed to be done. In just a few weeks, Operation Blessing installed a brand new, wood-fired oven behind Miriam’s home. The oven gives Miriam’s cakes a unique taste unmatched by her competition. In addition to the new oven, Operation Blessing gave Miriam enough ingredients to get her business off to a strong start.

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Since she received her new oven from Operation Blessing, the demand for Miriam’s cakes has grown significantly. She now sells enough cakes each month to pay all of the family’s bills and keep food on the table. Her baking business is thriving, and now the family no longer has to worry about going hungry.

Though the last few years have been hard for Miriam, she remains upbeat about the future. “Thank you Operation Blessing for the help you gave to us,” she said. “You really changed our lives.”

From the Field

Life After Forced Labor

Young Kojo, now free from forced labor, walks away from the camera with a worker from Challenging Heights in Ghana.

GHANA – Lake Volta is one of the world’s largest reservoirs and an essential cornerstone of Ghana’s economy. The huge lake was created when the Akasombo Dam was constructed south of where the White Volta River and Black Volta River converged to form the single Volta River. The dam now provides electricity to much of Ghana, and to neighboring countries as well. The lake also serves as an important transportation route for shipping and hosts an enormous population of fish.

Those fish are big business on Lake Volta, but the fishing industry here has a terrible dark side. Thousand of children are pressed into forced labor as child slaves on Lake Volta’s dangerous waters. Until his rescue, young Kojo* was one of them.

As a young child, Kojo lived in the town of Winneba in South Ghana. One day he was sent to Lake Volta to join his father’s business, but his move didn’t go as planned. “I was young when I was sent to Yeji, along Lake Volta, to work in my father’s business, but I was swindled as my uncle used me in his fishing enterprise,” Kojo said. For ten long years he endured a life of forced labor on the lake. The work was hard and dangerous and Kojo often had to dive into the water to untangle fishing nets from submerged branches and trees. The hours were long and he suffered from lack of sleep.

Kojo’s nightmare continued for 10 years until, one day, he was rescued by Challenging Heights, Operation Blessing’s partner in Ghana. He was taken to a shelter where he underwent six months of rehabilitation. Thanks to Challenging Heights and Operation Blessing, Kojo was given lessons on how to read and write, medication and care to treat health problems from long labor on the lake and therapy to help him reintegrate into society. He recalled, “I have fond memories of the Challenging Heights shelter due to the breath of freedom there with the loving care provided by the social workers.”

Kojo is just one of many children rescued from a life of forced labor on Lake Volta through the partnership between Operation Blessing and Challenging Heights. Now that he’s free, Kojo has taken an apprenticeship at an auto mechanic shop, and hopes to build a new life for himself — a life of freedom and opportunity.

*Name changed to protect identity.

From the Field

Holocaust Survivor: Maya’s Story

Holocaust survivor Maya gets help and hunger relief in Israel.

ISRAEL – Like many Jewish Holocaust survivors, Maya made it through one of the darkest periods in human history, only to find herself again facing struggle.

Maya was still a small child when World War II erupted. At the start of the war, her father, who had struggled as a journalist under restrictive Soviet rule, left to fight in the army. Before long, she and her mother were restricted to a ghetto, and matters escalated as the Nazi concentration camps opened and Maya’s mother was imprisoned.

For a time, kind Ukrainian neighbors kept Maya. Vacily, a policeman, and his wife had no children of their own, and they hoped to protect 2-year-old Maya for the duration of the war and return her to her family once they were freed. However, after a few months, someone reported Maya’s Jewish heritage to the German authorities. They took her from Vacily’s home and sent her to the concentration camp with her mother.

Knowing the sort of conditions little Maya was enduring, the kind neighbors tried everything to save her, even considering adoption. Vaciliy risked traveling to the concentration camp, claiming that Maya and a number of other Jewish prisoners were ill. Afraid that the sickness might spread, the Germans allowed Vacily to take them away.

Vacily hid the people he saved in a boat, but as winter came, they suffered from exposure. Finally, they were rescued by a plane that took them to Moscow, allowing Maya and her mother to survive to live long, full lives. But Vacily had been discovered for helping the Jews. Maya sadly reported, “After some time, the Germans came, and they killed him and his wife, and also his mother.”

In 1992, Maya and her family immigrated to Israel. Today, neither Maya nor her daughter, who suffers from a mental illness, are able to work. The two struggle to make ends meet on the meager income provided by the Israeli government. Maya often has to choose between paying bills, buying food and purchasing needed medications.

Just as kind-hearted individuals stepped up to help the Jewish people during the war, Operation Blessing is now stepping forward to help Jewish survivors like Maya have a better quality of life with our Adopt-a-Holocaust-Victim program. Many of these now elderly survivors face financial difficulties, but thanks to our faithful supporters, they are receiving food, medical care, necessities and even companionship.

Maya is thankful for the assistance she receives, and truly appreciates the time OBI workers spend with her and her daughter. “We are very lonely, and for us it is very important to talk with people, meet with people. And if the people can help us, we are very happy, of course. I’m sure that most of the survivors are in the same condition as my family, and most of them will be happy to have any help.”

From the Field

Former ISIS Sex Slave Shares Survival Story

The following is a first-person report form Operation Blessing staff member “D” from a refugee camp in Iraq.

IRAQ — The heat hits your body the moment you walk outside. It is so hot it sucks the life out of you. My eyes stare in shock at the shimmering horizon. Waves of heat seem to be visible, rising through the dusty landscape. With temperatures well above 100° F, everyone stays indoors as much as possible during the day.

Finally, the evening brings some respite from the baking hot day, and the night air comes alive with the sound of children laughing and playing past midnight.

I enter the Yazidi camp near Dohuk late in the evening. The camp is silent. It is two years since ISIS attacked the Christian and Yazidi minorities of the Nineveh Plains region of Iraq.

I am here to meet a young woman and her four children, all of whom have escaped from ISIS just 24 hours ago.

I step into her tent. She has nothing but some mattresses on the floor. Like many other survivors, she has come into the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp to live in a tent with little or no support.

After her husband and the other men in her community were killed by ISIS, she was captured and sold 13 times to ISIS fighters who used and abused her at will. They are soldiers of the so-called Islamic State who believe they can buy and sell women and children who are not Muslim for their sexual pleasure. They pass them from one jihadi to another or simply go down to the slave market and choose a girl.

She cries as she tells her story. Her hands twist the white tissue she holds over and over into a tight ball of pain soaked with tears.

Some were Iraqi men, some Saudi Arabian and one was an American Muslim. Her 9-year-old daughter was taken by a Saudi man for some weeks and sexually abused. Her son was taken as a slave in the home of one of the ISIS fighters’ families. Two of her children were sold and found, some time later, abandoned in a home when the ISIS fighter had gone into battle. They are all nine years old or younger.

While in captivity, she fought hard to keep track of her children so that she could reunite the family.

After two years in captivity as a sex slave, she was finally able to escape.

During the day, I spent time with her, helping her to pick out kitchenware; buckets to carry water in and to use to wash up in within the hard camp conditions; and clothing for her and the children as they arrived only with what they had when they escaped. She tells me she can’t wear colors, as she is still in grief over the death of her husband and the men in her family.

She and the 110 other women and girls that Operation Blessing is here to help, all former ISIS sex slaves, are incredibly grateful for the help. Most of them have children and are trying to cope with not only what has happened to them, but also with the trauma their children have gone through. On top of that, they are now IDPs in a sprawling, hot and dusty camp.

These survivors have a long way to go on their road to recovery. However, our help not only gives them assistance in their current situation, but also some hope for the future. Hope that they have not been forgotten. Hope that they will have a voice. And hope to keep living and fighting for their lives and the lives of their children.

Operation Blessing has worked extensively with IDPs in Iraq, as well as refugees across the border in Jordan, bringing food, hygiene items, bedding and other relief supplies to those who have been forced from their homes by ISIS.

Starting Anew After Hurricane Matthew

FAYETTEVILLE, NC – As Hurricane Matthew struck their neighborhood, William kept watch as hurricane floodwaters rose. When he and his wife, Barbara, dashed to their vehicle with their dogs to escape, they had no way of knowing the truck would become their home for the next few days.

Each day they found another place to park and sleep for the night, but it took several days for their road to reopen from the flooding. When they parked in the backyard, it was nothing but mud.

Damage From Hurricane Floodwaters

The door of their house was swollen shut from the saturation, and when William was finally able to open it, he was heartbroken. Their furniture had shifted from the waters, their floors were warped and ruined and the walls were soaked.

For days, they waited, hoping help would come. Then, William heard about an organization called Operation Blessing and filled out a form requesting help. The next day, volunteers arrived at his home to find mold crawling the walls and a very thankful elderly couple.

The volunteers got to work removing furniture from the house and sorting through what was left. There were six rooms that had to be emptied in William’s house, and he knew he could not have done it alone.

The volunteers got to work removing furniture from the house and sorting through what was left. Hurricane floodwaters, known as storm surge, do a tremendous amount of destruction. In fact, it is often the flooding that does the most damage after a hurricane. There were six rooms that had to be emptied in William’s house, and he knew he could not have done it alone.

For William, the volunteers are a true blessing.

Hurricane Volunteers From Operation Blessing

Operation Blessing volunteers form the backbone of our hurricane relief efforts. The hurricane relief for Matthew was long and tedious. The generosity and kindness of our partner provided both manpower and donations to help people who had lost their homes.

Learn More About Our Efforts To Help People In Need Of Hurricane Relief

“The Greatest Need Is Safe Water” – Haiti After Hurricane Matthew

Operation Blessing Haiti’s staff on the ground flew to Jeremie, Haiti after Hurricane Matthew to provide MSR SE-200 and H2gO chlorine generators that can be used to purify much needed drinking water as well as provide sterilization to stave off the spread of cholera, the deadly disease that always seems to rear its ugly head during the rainy season.

They also brought with them a 22 pound case of badly needed amoxicillin, six pounds of salt and a 15 pound bag of tools—the weight is important because the small four-seat airplane has very specific weight restrictions. Every person, box and bag was weighed before being allowed on the plane, so each pound of cargo selected was extremely important.

The chlorine generators, in particular, are a fantastic tool. They can be flown into areas that are hard to reach with big box trucks or large airplanes and have a huge impact.

The Need For Water In Haiti After Hurricane Matthew

Water is paramount to human life. No time is that more apparent than after a storm strikes and people find themselves without it. Haiti after Hurricane Matthew was in need of fresh safe drinkable water. Providing clean water is a big part of hurricane relief. A big aspect of storm recovery is providing the basic needs of people facing life without them. The donations and support of Operation Blessing partners and friends helped provide water after the destruction of this powerful storm.

Hurricane Matthew Floods Cuba

CUBA – Hurricane Matthew has moved on—its sights now set on the U.S.—but its wake of destruction has left families in Cuba reeling. With a powerful storm surge and towering waves, many roads are still flooded and impassible, making it impossible for relief to reach hurricane victims.

Operation Blessing has staff on the ground waiting for those roads to open. OBI has collected clean-up supplies, hygiene items and chlorine generators. Chlorine is especially important in the aftermath of a dangerous storm because many diseases can be spread by unsafe water, and chlorine is a powerful disinfectant.

In Cuba, our team has both high capacity and handheld generators to create chlorine. The H2gO unit is as small as a person’s palm, but capable of producing enough disinfectant, within minutes, to treat up to 20 liters of water at a time. The San-6 chlorine generator can produce enough food-grade chlorine to disinfect over 1.2 million gallons of water every day.

These are a few of the tools we have at our disposal to provide relief and hope to the people of Cuba—as soon as the roads open.

Preparing Aid as Hurricane Matthew Threatens Haiti

HAITI – Operation Blessing is preparing to help disaster victims as Hurricane Matthew threatens Haiti. The Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 140 mph is projected to hit Haiti in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Operation Blessing is tracking the storm and preparing for its landfall. We have already taken proactive steps in Haiti to help warn residents in vulnerable areas to evacuate, develop shelter plans and ready our teams to immediately assist hurricane victims once the storm passes.

Children are particularly at risk during a hurricane of this magnitude, and the kids of Zanmi Beni Children’s Home in Haiti are one of our top priorities. We have stocked up food for the children and are carefully monitoring the situation as it develops.

In the village of Medan Belize, residents have been invited to use the school built by Operation Blessing as a shelter during and after the storm.

On top of the threat posed by high winds and torrential rains, Hurricane Matthew brings the risk of another cholera outbreak. Recently, cholera cases have spiked 30% in Haiti, and floodwaters will only contribute to spreading the disease. We have fired up our chlorine generators and are prepared to distribute gallons of disinfectant to homes and businesses to help stop the spread.

Please join us in praying for those in the path of Hurricane Matthew as we all keep careful watch on the storm.