Trudy Petersen blogs from Yekepa, Liberia, where Samaritan’s Purse is working to expand the African Bible College University How many of us have overused the phrase, “I’m starving?” More accurately, how many of us have misused the phrase? Most people here have tea for breakfast, no lunch, and rice with a kind of soup poured…
50 Years of Ministry
Samaritan’s Purse Responds to Ebola Outbreaks in Africa
In December 2013, an 18-month-old boy in a village in Guinea was reported to have Ebola virus disease. One case quickly turned into an outbreak that moved through Guinea and Sierra Leone. The first case in neighboring Liberia appeared in the village of Foya in March 2014. By the summer, ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia’s…
Volunteers Transform a Neighborhood Street in Jesus’ Name
When volunteers clad in orange shirts descended upon Belmont Parkway in northeast Iowa, homeowners took notice. What began as just a few requests for help on the devastated street grew into nearly a dozen families asking for assistance. Disaster response vehicles, a skid steer, and a volunteer army running chainsaws and clearing debris became a…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Italy: Caring Hands Bring Comfort During Pandemic
“I felt weird, and I started coughing and coughing and coughing,” said Maria, a coronavirus patient at the Samaritan’s Purse Emergency Field Hospital in Italy. After several days of consistent cough, fever, and lack of appetite, Maria’s husband admitted her to the emergency room at Cremona Hospital, our partner facility in northern Italy’s Lombardy region.…
50 Years of Ministry
‘Let My Heart be Broken by the Things that Break the Heart of God’
Much of Bob Pierce’s work was in Asia. It was after a visit to suffering children on an island in Korea, he wrote this famous prayer in his Bible: “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.” In the late 1970s, Samaritan’s Purse helped refugees who were fleeing from…
Health & Medical Ministries
They No Longer Call Her Cursed
Editor’s Note: Joni Byker, Country Director for Samaritan’s Purse Liberia, recently visited ELWA hospital where Samaritan’s Purse surgical teams provided corrective surgery to cleft lip/palate patients in Monrovia, Liberia. She wrote this moving account. The work that we are able to do here in Liberia is not without its challenges. Daily we are faced with…
Our Ministry
Team Patriot
Samaritan's Purse Team Patriot Sign Up Join this Samaritan's Purse initiative to deploy alongside other Operation Heal Our Patriots couples to the front lines of disasters! In the aftermath of natural disasters, communities often look and feel like war zones. Survivors have been in a battle for their lives as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, and other catastrophic…
Health & Medical Ministries
“A Small Yes”
Ten years ago, Dr. Read Vaughan and his wife Suzie were empty-nesters who were nearing their retirement years and looking for a new adventure. They felt the Lord calling them to serve abroad—something they had planned to do for years—but they had no clear direction. “I was waiting for a voice from God telling us…
Operation Christmas Child
Colombian, Venezuelan Children Receive Shoebox Gifts at Easter
On Easter weekend, April 19-20, hundreds of children in the Colombia-Venezuela border city of Cúcuta, Colombia, heard about Jesus’ love for them through Operation Christmas Child. Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, joined one of our church partners in Cúcuta to present the Gospel and hand out Operation Christmas…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Desperate Venezuelans in Colombia Receive Food
Alexandra, her husband Juan, and their 6-year-old daughter have been in Cucuta, Colombia, for several months. They left Caracas, Venezuela, because the situation there had become unbearable. “It was awful,” she said. They lived quite close to the demonstrations that have been roiling the Venezuelan capital, and tensions between police, protesters, and residents had grown.…
