of how
help the hurting around the world.
Catch up with the goings-on
Operation Blessing!
clean water
her family in Mexico
keep flowing
POLAND: In addition to providing huge quantities of food and supplies, Operation Blessing is partnering with Superbook to offer encouragement and fun activities for Ukrainian refugee children.
HONDURAS: After a hurricane struck Gladys’s home, her industrial sewing machine was destroyed. You gave her a new one so that she can support her family once more.
NIGERIA: Christiana can now see again! Thank you for making healing possible for her and so many other surgery patients around the world.
INDIA: Because of your love, vulnerable patients in India, like Ranji, are receiving the healing touch they need through a medical treatment center and free medications.
PERU: Families in need not only have safe new homes, but also cookware and furnishings—because friends like you cared enough to reach out and make a difference!
VIRGINIA: Your compassion helped to supply people in Buchanan County, Virginia, with emergency meal kits during the key days following a flood.
Parents like Teresa won’t have to worry about the water making their little children sick again.
Providing clean water for her family in Mexico
A loving mother, Teresa wanted her three young boys to be healthy and happy. But after they moved into their new home in southern Mexico, there were problems. Teresa’s family struggled to get water for their most basic needs. The local distribution system was sporadic— the community only received water every 15 days. Even then, it barely trickled.
So every day, her three boys lugged buckets down to a nearby river to gather water for their family. Everyone in the community relied on that river for all the water they needed to survive. They washed their clothes, cleaned dishes, bathed in it, and drank it—without any
We found harmful bacteria in their water supply—bacteria that caused children like Teresa’s to become terribly sick. way to ensure it was safe.
Even worse, the boys got sick. Their stomachs ached from severe diarrhea, and they began losing weight. They didn’t want to eat or even play—and often missed school because they had to stay home in bed.
At first, Teresa thought their illness was due to the food, or even the weather. The community was isolated, and she couldn’t afford to take them to the hospital to get them the help she suspected they needed. So she watched helplessly as her children clutched their stomachs in pain. “We didn’t know it was the water,” Teresa said.
When Teresa realized that
the water might be what was making her children sick, she immediately began boiling it. The boys got better, yet that wasn’t enough—the community needed a healthier water system, but getting one would take a miracle.
Then, generous and caring friends like you gave them that miracle.
When Operation Blessing first visited, we found harmful bacteria in their water supply— bacteria that caused children like Teresa’s to become terribly sick. But we also had a plan, and our supporters stepped up to provide the supplies to make it happen.
Over the next few months, we worked with the residents to
build a new community water system that would provide clean, safe water to the 338 people in that community. Our faithful donors provided the pipes to draw water from an underground spring and a large water storage tank with a chlorinated filter system to kill any harmful bacteria. And today, water that is healthy to drink runs freely to a faucet outside of each home in the community, thanks to the kindness and generosity of friends like you! Our team
hygiene and sanitation skills. These community residents learned basic handwashing practices and how to maintain proper sanitation so they could continue providing clean water to the community long into the future. And parents like Teresa won’t have to worry about the water making their little children sick again.
Because of partners like you, Teresa’s children no longer have to haul dirty water from the river. They have enough clean water to drink right at home, and they are growing healthy and strong.
“Nothing stops my kids now. They’re always healthy and playing!” Teresa told us with a smile. “Thank you, Operation Blessing, because now the water is clean and safe.”
Donate stock to Operation Blessing and receive double tax savings. You can receive an immediate income tax deduction for the stock’s fair market value and pay no capital gains tax.
By giving a tax-free QCD gift via your IRA, you can turn your Required Minimum Distribution into a gift to help the hurting.
wait until December to give stocks or your IRA QCD gift and risk late penalties. Now is the time to make your donation count in 2022.
This month, as people around the globe celebrate World Food Day, we’re so grateful that you send food to those in need throughout the year! In recent months, you’ve sent
to Ukrainians who remained in that war-torn homeland. You’ve also reached out with food relief to typhoon victims in the Philippines, Kenya drought victims, hungry Americans, and so many others. Thank you for filling
San Jeronimo de Ullagachi is a lovely place with kind people, but for most of Digna’s life it didn’t have a health center. If residents became ill, they dealt with it themselves or braved the long trek to the city of Puno—where they arrived exhausted. “Every time I was sick, I would walk for hours,” Digna said. “The health center was very far away. When I got there, I
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him (Psalm 103:13).
When your child hurts, you hurt. And God’s heart goes out to every suffering child
a precious 5-year-old girl in India named Sakshi.
Sakshi’s parents discovered the deformity in her left shoulder and spine when she was just a year old, and she’s struggled with it ever since. Doctors said if Sakshi wasn’t operated on at this young age, she’d be partially
disabled for life.
Her condition made it impossible for Sakshi to lift her arms above her head or move her left arm without pain. It broke her parents’ hearts to see her cry, but they couldn’t afford the costly surgery needed to heal her condition.
Because of her shoulder, she was bullied at school so badly that her parents let her stay home. Mostly, Sakshi spent her days inside with her mother. Although she was now 5 years old, her mother still had to help with basic activities like bathing and putting on clothes. She would say, “Mommy, please make my arm better.” Her mother said, “Our hearts break for her, but we don’t know what to do.” Her family wanted so much more for her! They just needed a miracle.
And by God’s grace, friends like you delivered. Just look at her now! Little Sakshi stands straight and tall and pain-free. She’ll continue growing stronger with physical therapy, and she can look
forward to even better days ahead. Her father is overwhelmed with gratitude. “Sakshi has relief! Her posture is also corrected. We are very thankful for all the services we received from the generous support of Operation Blessing. My daughter’s life is better!”
Early one morning in July, Chasity woke up to the sound of her 11-year-old son screaming. Overnight, water had seeped into their house and covered the floor. Just hours earlier, she had ignored the flood warning on her phone. She never dreamed such a disaster could actually happen in her hometown in Kentucky. Chasity ran to the window. It looked like her house was sitting in the middle of a river. “All you could see was muddy rushing water,” she said. “It was the scariest thing ever.”As a single mom, she knew she had to get her four boys to safety. They grabbed
their shoes and some clothes. With her two younger boys in her arms, Chasity and her older children pushed through the raging waters to a nearby hillside. Helplessly, she watched as the river tore through her childhood home in one of the worst floods to hit the region.
Like many other families in the town of Jenkins, Chasity’s was already struggling financially. But the flood that hit them was far worse than the rising inflation. A friend gave them a place to stay, but Chasity didn’t know how to begin cleaning up the destruction the flood had left in its wake.
You gave a single mom hope in the aftermath of a historic flood.
“We lost everything,” she said. “Our furniture. Our appliances. …We lost clothes. We lost food.”
But when she prayed for God’s help, you came to their aid! The very next day, Operation Blessing arrived to help families in the community begin the process of cleaning up. Together, we provided cleaning supplies,
Just look at the incredible difference between Magdalina’s old house and the new one that friends like you helped give her!
Picture your grandchildren coming to live with you. You just can’t wait to see their sweet, smiling faces. But when they arrive, you welcome them from the doorstep of a tiny mud hut your neighbors built for you in their spare time. That’s home. And it will be for the foreseeable future. How would you feel about that? Would you be grateful? Amazingly, Magdalina was— but as it turned out, God had bigger things in store for her.
At 82 years young, she devotes herself to her five grandchildren— whose parents, sadly, had died— but they often had to stay with other family members because of the incredibly poor condition of
Continued from page 21 Magdalina’s house.
You see, on one fateful day eight years ago, Magdalina’s house collapsed. Thankfully, kind neighbors went to work and built her a temporary one-room shack. She truly was grateful for the makeshift shelter. But for eight years, she and her grandkids piled into a single cramped room— about 100 square feet in size—and tried to live without adequate personal space, a water system, or proper ventilation. Before long, however, heavy rains and storm winds damaged this “house,” too. Without warning, the mud walls began to crack.
Magdalina lived in constant fear for her family’s safety. She recalled, “We were cold, and the rain would rain on us. There was a day I prayed for a house until I cried!” Though she dreamed of doing more for her grandkids, she only earned a small income from a few farm animals, and it all went to providing their most basic needs like food and water. There was nothing left over for a house. But hope was waiting around the corner, and it looked a lot like YOU. Seeing Magdalina’s need, generous Operation Blessing supporters stepped in and built her and her grandchildren a brand-new home—one where
The story of Magdalina's life has been rewritten thanks to friends like you!
they can safely and comfortably be a family together.
Instead of cracked and crumbling dirt walls, there are now sturdy brick walls capped by a galvanized iron roof that will protect the family from the rain for a good long time. In place of the damp, suffocating single room, there is now a full home complete with new bedrooms, a living area, and a separate kitchen featuring a fuel-efficient wood stove.
When the house was done, however, the blessings still weren’t finished. Operation Blessing was also able to provide Magdalina with a hygiene-friendly latrine separate from the house and a rainwater harvesting system that lets her access water right outside the door.
Before the compassion of friends like you came to the rescue, this
elderly woman used to carry heavy containers of water from a nearby river to provide for her family’s needs. But her new system features collection gutters, piping, and a filter for a new 3,000-liter water storage tank. Now, Magdalina and her grandchildren can easily get water from a faucet right at the bottom of the tank.
This generous help has blessed Magdalina and her family in ways they never could have imagined were possible. “I am so happy and consider it a blessing that people can come from far away to assist me and my family,” she shares. “I am grateful to everyone that has made it possible for me to get this house. May God richly bless you.”
With God’s grace and love from friends around the world, this family has a hope and a future.
