OPERATION BLESS ING INTERNATIONALAUGUST 2014

Blessingsoperationblessing.org

Precious Gifts for Rosita

Operation Blessing brings hope and

health to a young shepherdess in the mountains of Peru

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A Message from THE PRESIDENTBill visits a Maasai community in Kenya aided by Operation Blessing.

We have all made legitimate complaints about the high cost of health care and medicine, but can you image living in a place where there is no health care or medicine?

Living in America, with hospitals open 24/7 and 911 emergency service available to anyone with a phone, it's hard to imagine what it might be like for a mother giving birth or a child suffering with a broken bone miles from nowhere, with no hospital, doctors, phone... or hope.

Operation Blessing cannot staff clinics the world over, but we are doing the next best thing: training and equipping resident community health workers. We recruit individuals already living in unserved areas. We choose people who have a willingness and aptitude to help others. We teach candidates the fundamentals of health care and provide a tool kit, a supply of basic medicines and a cell phone. In serious cases our health workers know how to get professional advice and assistance and function as a bridge between villagers and professional medical care.

Here's an example of why village-based health care works so well. In Kenya's Maasai tribal villages, by tradition, mothers do not practice breast feeding. Instead, they concoct a formula of goat’s milk and butter. Many infants have difficulty digesting the formula and die or suffer malnutrition while the mother’s nutrient-rich milk goes to waste. Efforts to convince mothers that breast feeding is beneficial did not work until our resident Maasai health worker gave birth herself and carried her baby throughout the village, demonstrating proper breast feeding technique. The baby thrived, village women were amazed and started breast feeding their own children! The practice is now spreading to other Maasai villages and the regional Ministry of Health has adopted OBI's model for community health workers.

Training and empowering locals to look after themselves is an example of how Operation Blessing's innovative strategies enable your gifts to keep on giving. We thank God and thank you for making this possible.

May God bless you,

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A Message from THE PRESIDENT 4 Caring for Their Communities Operation Blessing-trained community health workers bring aid and awareness to Kenyan villages

6 Survivor Helps Stop Trafficking Once a victim of human trafficking, Sareeta now spends her life protecting other young women

12 Protecting His Family With help from an Operation Blessing-supported food pantry, a retired police officer is able to provide for his family

13 A Smile for Leta A little baby in Cambodia receives a precious gift

14 Hammocks Full of Hope Operation Blessing helps a struggling family overcome hunger in El Salvador

Inside this issue Cover PAGE 8

Precious Gifts for Rosita Operation Blessing brings hope and health to a young shepherdess in the mountains of Peru

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KENYA

Caring for Their Communities

Operation Blessing-trained community health workers bring aid

and awareness to Kenyan villages

When he got the emergency call, Joshua rushed to the home of an 80-year-old grandmother in his village who was struggling with diabetes.

“She looked weak and was complaining about a headache and joint pain,” Joshua said. “I gave her medicine to help the pain and immediately took her to the Kimana Health Center, where she was examined, treated and registered to receive free insulin after a monthly observation at a local clinic.”

Joshua is an Operation Blessing-trained community health worker, providing first-aid and wound care and promoting good health practices in his village. He is also trained to identify and respond to a variety of diseases, including common waterborne,

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insect transmitted, soil transmit-ted and respiratory diseases. After graduating Operation Blessing's training program, community health workers like Joshua are outfitted with all the supplies needed to respond to the medical needs of their communities, including back-packs with supplies such as thermometers, cold packs and gauze, as well as cell phones for use in emergencies.

For most community health workers, just teaching people in their communities about the importance of practices like latrine use and proper hand washing has made a difference.

“In my village, there were only three people who had latrines,” said Joyce, a community health worker in the village of Somoire. “I went around talking about latrine use, and I’m happy to report that two individuals who were against it are now constructing latrines.”

In some areas, like Kitamuesi’s village, raising awareness about certain health practices can go against cultural beliefs.

“I introduced exclusive breastfeeding which is not commonly practiced by Maasai women,” Kitamuesi said. Most mothers here don’t understand that breast milk provides enough nutrients for their babies and instead give their infants a type of butter made from goat milk.

“But I taught about the health benefits of breast milk for their babies, and I’m glad to testify that more mothers from my village are exclusively breastfeeding their newborns,” she said.

“The community trusts me and they contact me whenever they want health information about expectant mothers.”

Through the work of community health workers and Operation Blessing, villages in Kenya and around the world are receiving the care and instruc-tion they need to become healthier communities. ◆

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Sareeta* (name changed to protect identity) works at the border between India and Nepal every day trying to save young girls from becoming the victims of trafficking. She does it because she herself is a survivor

of the horrific sex trade.“The early morning and evenings are very busy times for us,” she said.

“We look for suspects as they travel across the border using different modes of transportation from horse carts to rickshaws.”

Sometimes, Sareeta is tipped off about a missing girl, or she looks for girls or young children who don’t seem to belong at the border. And when she identifies a girl being trafficked, Sareeta makes sure she isn’t taken across the border.

The girls she rescues are able to go to a safe house, thanks in part to Operation Blessing partners. There they are given counseling and skills training so they can be reintegrated into their communities without risk of being trafficked again.

Sareeta was once sold by a man who had conned her into marrying him, but today, she uses that experience to help others.

“I really love the social work we are doing, and I had a desire in my heart to help other girls,” Sareeta said. “I am very happy I am able to do this, and I want to work diligently.” ◆

NEPAL

Once a victim of human trafficking, Sareeta now spends her life protecting other young women

Survivor Helps Stop Trafficking

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Become a Club Bless partner! With your gift of $25 or more, you can help bring much needed food, medicine or other critical relief for someone struggling against the burden of poverty. Whatever giving level you decide to join at — please know that your gift will have an immediate impact in helping those in the most need.

As a special thank you for your partnership, you'll also receive an award- winning, signed photo complete with frame and easel.

Visit ob.org/ClubBless to learn more.

Share God’s blessings with

those who need them most.

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Each morning, 9-year-old Rosita treks more than 40 minutes across the hills of her highland community to

school, where she is able to gain the invaluable education she needs.

And when classes are over for the day, Rosita eagerly heads home to help her mother by spending her afternoons tending her family’s sheep in the mountain pastures.

At nearly 2.5 miles above sea level, during the winter the young girl faces intense cold, frost and Continued on pg 10

PERU

Operation Blessing brings hope and

health to a young shepherdess in the mountains of Peru

Precious Gifts for Rosita

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Precious Gifts for Rosita

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hail that put her feet at risk of getting frost bite as she walks through the highlands. And as the seasons change, the climate alternates between severe drought and high rainfall, mak-ing it difficult for her family to grow food and access safe, clean water.

In search of work, her father has had to travel far away to the city of Arequipa, but he still struggles to earn enough to provide for Rosita and her five siblings. So Rosita wears the same old, worn-out pair of shoes she’s had for years as she goes about her daily tasks. And she eats just one meal a day — usually noodle soup — as her family struggles to survive amid the harsh climate of their mountain home.

Then one day an Operation Blessing team arrived at her school with

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Rosita loves her new boots, she said, because they will keep her feet warm and protected.

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a precious gift — boots from TOMS Shoes. Rosita and all of her class-mates were properly measured and given brand new boots in exactly the right size.

Rosita loves her new boots, she said, because they will keep her feet warm and protected. “And I like how they look!” she added.

Further, Operation Blessing is providing a nutritious meal for Rosita and her classmates every day at school, so she can study and learn without the distraction of gnawing hunger. Operation Blessing is even distributing Pack H2O water backpacks in the region, to help families like Rosita’s retrieve clean water and safely carry it to their homes — promoting health and preventing the spread of water-borne illnesses.

Thanks to Operation Blessing partners, gifts like these are giving chil-dren like Rosita hope for a better life. ◆

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Richard spent his life protecting others as a narcotics officer, but he struggled to protect his family from hunger.

When a heart attack forced Richard to retire early, his wife Linda was able to work and provide for their family while Richard looked after their adopted grandson Jeremy and kept up the family garden.

Then one day, Richard was injured while working in the garden. He tried to keep the wound clean, but it became infected and spread from his foot up his leg. Richard’s diabetes made it nearly impossible to get rid of the infection, and doctors had to amputate his leg.

As medical bills began to add up, Linda’s job was no longer enough to make ends meet. So they started looking for help and found an Operation Blessing-supported food pantry near their home. There they are able to get enough food to make it through the week and still have enough money to keep up with their bills.

“The help that we have received has been incredible — such a blessing,” Richard said. “It’s made it so we don’t have to choose between paying bills or eating. I am so thankful for what the ministry and Operation Blessing does.”

Each month, the Operation Blessing-supported food pantry in their community helps more than 200 struggling families like Richard’s fill their cupboards and overcome hunger. ◆

TENNESSEE

With help from an Operation Blessing-supported food pantry, a retired police officer is able to provide for his family

Protecting His Family

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When little Leta was born with a severe cleft lip, her family worried about how they would care for her. Due to her condition, Leta wasn’t able to swallow properly and feed-

ing was difficult.Every day the little baby would cry from hunger. Further, her family

knew that someday their precious daughter would face societal shame because of her condition. They desperately wanted to help her thrive.

Her mother, Sophea, brought her to a nearby hospital, hoping someone there would be able to repair the cleft. But she was told she would need to take her daughter to the city of Phnom Penh.

But Sophea is a rice farmer, and her family depends on her income for their most basic needs. They simply didn’t have the resources to pay for the cost of traveling to Phnom Penh and the necessary surgery.

Then Sophea met a young girl who had been helped by Operation Blessing’s life-changing surgeries program, giving her new hope for Leta’s life. Before long, she brought Leta to Operation Blessing, and the little girl was soon scheduled to receive corrective surgery at no cost to her family.

After a successful surgery, five-month-old Leta is now all smiles.“Now Leta looks beautiful,” her mother said. “Thank you for

caring for us while she was in the hospital. Thank you for helping my daughter live a normal life. Thank you!” ◆

CAMBODIA

A little baby in Cambodia receives a precious giftA Smile for Leta

Before After

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EL SALVADOR

With a lot of hard work and determination, Yesenia and her husband built a successful business weaving colorful hammocks, finally earning enough to pay rent, purchase

food for their two children and invest in new materials to keep the business going.

But their growing business did not go unnoticed, and a local gang threatened to harm Yesenia and her family if they did not give them at least two months’ salary.

“The first thing I thought about was my children,” her

Operation Blessing helps a struggling family overcome hunger in El Salvador

Hammocks Full of Hope

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husband said. “The images of what gang members do to others in similar situations made me scared.”

With no other choice, Yesenia and her family fled to safety — leaving everything they owned behind.

They settled in a new area, safe from threats of violence, but now they face a different threat: hunger.

“We are going through a very tough situation because we can’t find a job, and as a result, we can’t feed our children,” Yesenia said. “They cry and cry of hunger until they fall asleep.”

When Operation Blessing heard of Yesenia and her family’s situation, a team immediately stepped in, providing desperately needed food, as well as the tools and materials needed to restart their business weaving colorful hammocks.

Now, as one of the only hammock businesses in their area, Yesenia and her husband are able to make enough to provide for their family again.

“Now, my husband and I have work and can help our children succeed,” Yesenia said. “We know this would not have been possible if it weren’t for you. Thank you for being such a blessing!” ◆

Hammocks Full of Hope

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In a place where poverty is relentless, a single crop failure can lead to famine.

But you can help us make sure children in need get at least one good meal a day. Visit operationblessing.org to learn how.

Copyright © 2014 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