For five minutes, Janet Thomason sought shelter in a broom closet as an EF4 tornado passed through her neighborhood. The 190 mile-per-hour winds devastated her community—destroying six of the seven homes on her street. Janet and a friend had immediately gone into a closet as the sirens began to sound. Then they heard the wind…
Construction Projects
New Homes for Kentucky Storm Survivors
While Hurricane Helene was bearing down on the Southeast, dozens of families in Kentucky were moving on from the disasters that they survived over the past three years. On Thursday, Samaritan’s Purse completed construction in New Hope Acres, a 60-acre subdivision in the town of Mayfield, Kentucky, which was devastated by a tornado just before…
Construction Projects
Franklin Graham Dedicates New Homes in Flood-Ravaged Kentucky
Family, friends, and local community representatives stood on a blanket of snow in the mountains of eastern Kentucky on Friday, Dec. 5, to dedicate 18 new homes built by Samaritan’s Purse in Jesus’ Name. “This is a great day—a day we have been praying for,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, to the crowd…
Discipleship, Education & Training
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…
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…
Discipleship, Education & Training
Thanking God for Military Couples Saved in Alaska
On the eve of the 17th anniversary of 9/11, ten U.S. military couples gathered by the glacial waters of Lake Clark to spend a restorative week (Sept. 2-8) in the Alaskan bush for the penultimate session of Operation Heal Our Patriots 2018. And much like the nearly 140 couples that had already come to Samaritan…
Celebrating God’s Work in Our Military Couples
Army Specialist Shawna Watkins and Army Sergeant Jesse Watkins started dating after serving on combat deployments in Afghanistan. They’d been on the same mission together in 2011 when their convoy was struck by an improvised explosive device, and Shawna was sent flying from atop her vehicle’s gun turret. Next thing she knew she was in…
Discipleship, Education & Training
Military Couples Strengthened by God in Faith and Marriage
Corporal Derrick Sharpe said he joined the U.S. Marine Corps because he wanted to “be the best of the best, be the first to fight.” “I don’t have a very good, happy kumbaya story. I grew up really poor and all I knew how to do was fight and take a beating, so I joined…
Hope for Wounded Lives and Marriages
As his unit rolled out on regular patrol that day, Army Specialist Marco Fernandez took his position in the mounted gun of a Stryker armored vehicle. They were transporting an officer to another base and then checking out Iraqi villages to look for potential threats. As Marco’s convoy sped past a town on that sunny…
Discipleship, Education & Training
Former Vice President Mike Pence Encourages Military Couples in Alaska
Former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, joined Franklin and Jane Graham to support wounded veterans and their spouses at Samaritan Lodge Alaska this past week. “To be some small part of simply saying thank you, thanking them for their service, but also encouraging them to grow in their faith, to strengthen their…
