An overview of our work in 2011 as captured through the lenses of our staff photographers.
Millions of children around the world never see the inside of a classroom. In places like Vietnam (pictured), Samaritan’s Purse is building schools to provide children with an opportunity to receive an education and change their lives.
Three-year-old Tugs-Erdene had a heart defect that couldn’t be repaired in his home country of Mongolia. Through our Children’s Heart Project, we arranged for him to fly to the United States for life-saving surgery in Ann Arbor, Michigan. While staying with a Christian host family, his mother accepted Christ as her Savior.
Samaritan’s Purse provided cleft lip surgery for dozens of patients in South Sudan this summer. We used a Samaritan’s Purse plane based in Africa to transport people from remote villages to the nation’s new capital.
In parts of Africa, people believe that cleft lips are caused by sorcery. Nine-month-old Marai won’t have to spend his life as an outcast, now that his cleft lip has been repaired by a medical team coordinated by Samaritan’s Purse.
School supplies in shoe box gifts are a special blessing to children around the world. “Education is the only way out,” said Marlon, pastor of a church in the Philippines that distributed boxes at one of the schools. “OCC will make a difference for them.” Literacy will not only help them overcome poverty but also to discover the riches of God’s word.
Franklin Graham flew into a remote area of South Sudan to visit a makeshift refugee camp where Samaritan’s Purse provided life-saving aid to more than 20,000 people who fled fighting in Sudan. Six days later, the camp was bombed, but Samaritan’s Purse has continued to assist the refugees in the Name of Jesus Christ.
At a refugee camp in Yida, South Sudan, our staff members measured and weighed children to check for nutritional development. Samaritan’s Purse distributed hundreds of tons of food staples with material support from the UN’s World Food Program.
When thousands of refugees from the Nuba Mountains were stranded in a swampy region of South Sudan inaccessible by truck, Samaritan’s Purse used our DC3 cargo plane to airdrop tons of desperately needed food. Aircraft are also vital to our ministry in places such as Alaska, Liberia, and Haiti, where we used a helicopter to rush medical teams into towns threatened by an outbreak of cholera.
The crew in our DC3 prepare to drop bags of food to refugees in South Sudan. Refugees worked diligently to clear hundreds of yards of brush to make the airdrop possible, and within weeks they had carved out a landing strip so that relief flights could land.
For years, Samaritan’s Purse has been helping to feed hundreds of thousands of people across Africa. For many, like these nomadic farmers in Kenya, this food can mean the difference between life and death.
The resurrection power of the cross is evident at African Bible College in Yepeka, Liberia. Destroyed by years of civil war, the chapel and other campus buildings were rebuilt by workers from Samaritan’s Purse, and the college is once again training pastors and Christian leaders to serve in West Africa.
Samaritan’s Purse supports dozens of missionary medical facilities through our medical arm, World Medical Mission, which provides doctors and medical supplies. This child is being treated for malaria at Adi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Ethnic fighting and raids by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army have caused great suffering for people who live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo near the borders with Uganda, and South Sudan. Samaritan’s Purse has built or upgraded several missionary hospitals in this part of equatorial Africa.
Eight-year-old David Carreno receives his first Bible after visiting Samaritan’s Purse medical boat, the Ruth Bell, named in memory of Billy Graham’s late wife. The boat travels along the Mamoré River in the Bolivian Amazon to reach isolated communities with medical care and the hope of the Gospel. World Medical Mission is sending teams of doctors on the boat to treat people, many of whom have never received medical care.
The dry climate of the Altiplano in Bolivia threatens the livelihoods and health of families who depend on their herds or crops. As Samaritan’s Purse works with church partners to dig wells, we also have opportunities to tell people about the “living water” of Jesus Christ.
Nearly a billion people in developing nations don’t have access to clean water. In Bolivia and a number of other countries, Samaritan’s Purse has installed BioSand water filters in over 150,000 households to give families a safe, sustainable source of drinking water.
Chickens can provide impoverished families with eggs to eat and sell. In places like this one in Bolivia, Samaritan’s Purse staff are not only providing chickens but also teaching people how to properly care for them.
It was a day of great celebration in the town of Arboleda, Peru, where 40 young graduates of “The Greatest Journey” discipleship program were honored in May. The students received Spanish New Testament Bibles and personalized certificates. Many of these children are now actively involved in the local church and are sharing their faith with family and friends. “The Greatest Journey” is a 12-lesson Bible study developed by Samaritan’s Purse especially for Operation Christmas Child shoe box recipients.
“The Greatest Journey teacher training was precious to me to help to reach out to many children,” said Rodger, a pastor in Madagascar. “It was very clear, the message of the Gospel.” Of the 40 children in Rodger’s first class, 38 have already come to faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Samaritan’s Purse deployed Disaster Relief Units to North Carolina, New Jersey, and Vermont after Hurricane Irene devastated communities along the East Coast. “Getting involved with Samaritan’s Purse goes with the heartbeat of our church—to be active in the community,” said Rob Townsend, the pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Vermont. “This was right in line with what we do.”
Samaritan’s Purse mobilized volunteer teams of Japanese and American Christians to clean out and repair homes damaged by the March 11 tsunami. We have completed over 255 mud-outs and over 135 rebuilds, and our goal is to complete 300 homes by March 2012.
In September, Samaritan’s Purse partnered with USAID to charter a jumbo jet to carry more than 80 metric tons of emergency relief supplies across the Pacific to North Korea, where many children and families faced a shortage of food due to severe flooding.
Nurse Taryn Lepp cares for a cholera patient at a makeshift clinic in Haiti set up by Samaritan’s Purse. Samaritan’s Purse provided life-saving treatment for more than 20,000 cholera patients in Haiti over the past 15 months.
