Army Sergeant Omar Cortes served in the military for 15 years and was deployed twice to Iraq. He was medically retired in 2013 due to his combat injuries. After returning home to Puerto Rico, Omar and his wife Heidy started growing apart and desperately needed to reconnect—not only with one another but with God. Omar…
Love Restored, Hearts Made New
Nearly every day for several months of his deployment, Army Sergeant Jake Southern’s unit came under enemy fire or were blasted by a roadside bomb. “It was nonstop, every day. The violence was increasing,” Jake said of the wartime situation in Afghanistan during 2009. Back at home, his wife Susan was raising their baby boy…
Faith Restored
The two Army medics were ready to quit their marriage and had a hard time remembering why they’d bothered applying to go to Alaska with Samaritan’s Purse. Just a couple weeks before Army Sergeant First Class Jason Smith and Army Specialist Amy Smith were scheduled to leave for Operation Heal Our Patriots, they delivered the…
Alaska Pilots Are a Lifeline in the Wilderness
A deafening buzz nearly every summer morning fills the air, echoing through the trees and mountains surrounding Port Alsworth, Alaska. There’s a good chance that one or two Samaritan’s Purse planes and pilots are responsible for breaking the wilderness silence. “As a young kid I grew up next to an Air Force base, and I…
Celebrating True Freedom in Christ
We are grateful this Fourth of July for the many freedoms we enjoy in the United States of America. We praise God for the even greater freedom—true, lasting, eternal—that many military couples have experienced at Samaritan Lodge Alaska this summer through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Dozens of wounded military veterans and their spouses…
Samaritan’s Purse Christmas Concert 2019
Life More Abundantly in Colombia
Adelette faced a daunting decision. She could stay in Venezuela, her home country, and endure the escalating violence and political turmoil all alone with her children, or she could flee through the jungle to Colombia and meet her sister on the other side. She decided to go. The 33-year-old mother packed her life into three…
Helping to Prevent Child Trafficking and Abuse in Vietnam
Samaritan’s Purse recently taught sexual abuse prevention to children, ages 12 to 16, at six secondary schools in Lao Cai province, located along Vietnam’s northern border. With sex trafficking common in this area, boys and girls were grateful for the resources to learn how to guard against harm. During this training, a student named Quang*…
Offering Clean Water in Jesus’ Name
Haiti Livelihoods Projects Help Jumpstart Income Opportunities
Striking out on your own to start a business can be challenging, especially when resources are limited. Samaritan’s Purse is helping church partners and community entrepreneurs in Haiti to develop income sources that are making a difference in the lives of families. Guided by our in-country livelihoods team, a number of Haitian churches have been…