Dedicated Volunteer Goes Above and Beyond

Dedicated volunteer Amy claps as the Operation Blessing team reveals an Extreme Blessing to a worthy recipient.

TEXAS, USA – When Amy Fernandez, wife, mother of six mostly grown children, and online student from California, heard about an opportunity to help Hurricane Harvey disaster victims in Texas, God tugged at her heart and she felt that she needed to get involved. But at the time she had no idea how huge her involvement would become.

Amy’s heart always pulls her toward helping others. Back home in California, she serves as a Sunday School teacher, runs a ministry called Servant Heart that delivers meals to people in need, and she and her husband lead P.S.A.L.M. Outreach, a support group for parents of children who have been sexually abused. In fact, when the hurricane first hit, she was on a mission trip in England.

Meanwhile, some friends of Amy’s familiar with Operation Blessing decided to organize a group to help disaster victims in Texas. Although Amy had never done disaster relief work before, she knew she needed to go along. After just a few days at home, she packed to travel to Texas, planning to stay for only a week. But God had other plans!

Amy was so touched by the disaster recovery work going on in Texas, and the people she met, that she decided to stay. “I’ve watched the Lord work every single day,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I want to be a part of that?”

For the last several months, dedicated volunteer Amy has been an integral part of Operation Blessing’s disaster relief work in Texas. During that time, she’s made a few brief trips home. Several of her family members, including her husband Gary and her youngest three children Riley (15), Ian (16), and Meghan (19), have also traveled to Texas to visit her and help with the relief efforts. Her whole family has been very supportive of her decision to stay in Texas and help disaster victims.

Although at times Amy has found it challenging to keep up with her online school work as a Christian Studies major at Grand Canyon University, her teachers have been understanding. Amy said, “The Lord is all over this. Just grace all the time.”

Operation Blessing volunteers like Amy are offered free housing and meals, and are merely asked to provide their own transportation to and from the work sites. However, as Amy became more and more a part of OBI’s efforts in Texas, it became clear that some special accommodations were in order. Amy now works leading other volunteers, and has become a part-time employee for Operation Blessing.

In addition to the gutting, mucking, and sanitizing of flooded and molding houses that typically occurs during disaster relief work, Amy ministers to the many people in need—showing them love and compassion, praying with them, and giving them hope. In just a few days, Operation Blessing teams can help residents accomplish what might have taken them weeks or even months on their own. Amy has learned from the people and their experiences even as she serves them.

Additionally, she’s had the opportunity to be involved in two Extreme Blessing projects in which OBI completely restored, and even decorated, homes for two very special people in need. Amy was particularly involved in working on the home of a veteran and widower named Allen. Of all the many projects she’s worked on, this one especially touched Amy’s heart. She doesn’t have grandparents of her own, and she said that Allen “became a grandpa to me.”

Amy’s love and enthusiasm is evident in every word and action, and her positive outlook on life is contagious. In addition to her work in the field, she has also regularly shared her experiences on Instagram to generate prayer and awareness. After the immediate danger of a disaster passes, it’s easy to forget the huge task of recovery that’s yet to be accomplished, but Amy is determined to help people remember.

Dedicated volunteer Amy Fernandez is certainly an inspiration. While few people can spend months at a time doing disaster recovery work, many have helped by giving a few dollars or a few days of their time. Some Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas are still desperate for help in recovering and rebuilding their lives. Operation Blessing plans to remain in the area assisting those in need through March, 2018.

What does Amy have to say about volunteering with Operation Blessing? “It’s pretty amazing. I can’t really put a feeling into it. You just have to come and experience it…. There’s so much love here. It’s just a blessing…” She also points out that it doesn’t matter “how old, how young, how strong, how fit, how healthy… There’s really a position for everybody.” Amy urges everyone to get involved in volunteer disaster recovery work, so that the victims will know they’re not alone.

Health Care for Remote Village

CORNILLON GRAND-BOIS, Haiti – It takes over two hours on a dirt path just to reach the main road. And for the impoverished villagers of Cornillon Grand-Bois, that is a long way to go if you need health care.

The community struggles without access to medical aid, so Operation Blessing conducted a two-day medical mission in the area. Rather than requiring the villagers to travel long distances while ill to find help, OB Haiti brought the care to the community.

The medical team consisted of four doctors, along with several pharmacists, nurses, auxiliary nurses, a trained Community Health Worker, and a chlorine agent—all led by an Operation Blessing health manager. It took the team five hours of travel each day to reach the villagers.

Over 300 adults and 300 children received medical attention during the campaign.

OB Haiti’s team provided medication and consultation for cases of high blood pressure, respiratory infections, gastroenteritis, scabies, and more. Eighteen pregnant women attended the campaign, and one was diagnosed with preeclampsia, which can be dangerous to both mother and baby. Operation Blessing provided medication to help get her blood pressure under control, as well as prenatal vitamins and iron.

In addition to medicine and medical care, Operation Blessing also brought a solution to the safe water crisis in the community. OBI provided chlorine and taught the villagers how to use it to treat their drinking water, which will go a long way to increasing the health in the community.

Families in this remote village now have a better understanding of hygiene, the ability to treat their water, and the knowledge that they are not forgotten!

From the Field

An Island in Ruin

After Hurricane Maria, the island of Puerto Rico was in ruins.

PUERTO RICO – On September 6, 2017, the eye of Hurricane Irma, a powerful category 5 storm, passed just north of San Juan. Though the hurricane caused massive damage to the island, Puerto Ricans breathed a sigh of relief knowing it could have been much worse. But just two weeks later, their worst fears were realized.

Maria, a massive category 4 hurricane with wind speeds just two miles per hour shy of category 5 status, slammed into Puerto Rico on September 20. The storm’s powerful winds and torrential rains wreaked unprecedented havoc across the entire island. Puerto Rico’s electrical grid was completely destroyed leaving millions without power. Even worse, the storm left many without access to safe water, and, in some areas, 80 to 90 percent of structures were destroyed.

As the scope of the destruction became clear, Operation Blessing set to work. OBI staff arrived on the ground as soon as the airport opened. With no power on the island, Operation Blessing began by distributing hundreds of solar lights to children and families in need. OBI partnered with a local bakery to produce 1,000 loaves of bread per day, providing critical food relief.

As much as they needed food and light, the greatest need for Puerto Ricans was water. At the height of the crisis as many as 50 percent of residents did not have access to safe drinking water. Operation Blessing shipped large-scale water purification and desalination equipment to the island as quickly as possible. It wasn’t long before nine reverse osmosis systems, and the generators to power them, were installed in various locations across Puerto Rico. Each system is capable of desalinating and purifying 1,800 gallons of water per day. Operation Blessing also set up a chlorine production center in San Juan’s Roberto Clemente Coliseum utilizing three Sanilac-6 chlorine generators. The chlorine produced at this location alone was enough to disinfect over 1.2 million gallons of drinking water a day. In addition, Operation Blessing distributed over 100,000 water disinfecting Aquatabs and handed out thousands of Kohler Clarity water filtration units to families without safe water.

To further meet the water needs of hurricane victims in Puerto Rico, Operation Blessing created Operation Agua in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the Hispanic Federation. Operation Agua will allow OBI to bring even more Kohler Clarity water filters, Sanilac-6 chlorine generators, Parker reverse osmosis systems, and Water Mission chlorinators to Puerto Rico.

Not only have Operation Blessing teams brought solar lights, food, and safe water to the needy in Puerto Rico, we’re also helping them start the rebuilding process. As Maria tore across the island, many Puerto Ricans lost their roofs. Operation Blessing is targeting some of the most vulnerable families and repairing their homes.

As our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico face the monumental task of recovering from Hurricane Maria, friends like you have been there from the beginning, working to forge a path forward.

Weathering the Storms

Winderful gives a thumbs up, thankful to be past some of the major storms of life.

TEXAS – Winderful has weathered many storms in her life. Over the last few years she’s lost her husband to cancer, her eldest son in a car accident, and suffered the devastation left behind by Hurricane Harvey.

Winderful was not home when the hurricane struck her neighborhood. She and her fiancé traveled three hours away to visit his father whose health was failing. When they returned, there was too much water for a car to make it through the neighborhood. Though she was terrified and did not know how to swim, she took a boat to her house to survey the damage. Everything had been destroyed.

“We didn’t have anything,” Winderful said. “We got six feet of water in our house. It’s a very empty feeling to feel you have nothing left.”

Worse, Winderful did not have flood insurance. While there had been other storms to hit the area, none prepared her for the totality of destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey.

“I have been through some storms, and this was the worst ever,” Winderful said.

Winderful was already overwhelmed with the recent losses of her husband and son. The added loss of everything she owned was beginning to feel like too much to handle. Then, a friend told her about Operation Blessing who had teams of volunteers in the area helping families begin recovery after the hurricane. She gave them a call, and soon there were volunteers in white Operation Blessing shirts knocking on her door.

“When Operation Blessing showed up it was a big relief,” she said. “And you knew then everything was okay.”

The volunteers gutted Winderful’s house, removing damaged sheetrock and insulation, and emptied her house of her damaged belongings. It was more work than she and her fiancé could have accomplished on their own.

“If it wasn’t for Operation Blessing coming out to help us gut it out, and clean it up, and getting it mold-free, I don’t know what I would have done.”

Though the road to recovery for victims of Hurricane Harvey is long, people like Winderful are thankful for the reminder that they are not alone and that someone is there to help.

“When [Operation Blessing] arrived, I thought that people really do care about not only me, but everyone here in Port Arthur,” said Winderful. “That gave me hope, hope that things were moving and improving.”

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.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Your support is critical in helping families fight poverty. Click here to make an online donation today and let your gift make a significant impact in the lives of those who urgently need it.

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.