Over the next two weeks we’ll be sharing a series of inspiring stories and videos as part of our annual partnership drive. As you reflect on these stories, consider joining our efforts and renewing your support as an Operation Blessing Monthly Partner.

HONDURAS – Four times a day, Yenny descends a steep mountain slope from her village to collect water from their only source—a natural spring. But it isn’t the trip down the mountain that is so grueling; it’s the climb back up.

Yenny lifts a heavy 5-gallon bucket of water onto her head before she makes the climb. Over time her task has caused back pain, headaches, and soreness in her feet and arms. But Yenny had no other option—her family needed water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and more. Her brothers worked all day to provide for the family, and her aging mother could no longer make the trek, so the task fell to Yenny.

Her village had collected water at the same source for more than 100 years. Yenny thought that someday her children would have to do the same.

But all of that changed when Operation Blessing came to her village.

The team from OB Honduras offered Yenny’s village an innovative solution—a pump system to bring the water up the mountain to the village. Even better, the team installed faucets in each house in Yenny’s village—bringing running water right into their homes.

“That day, I jumped for joy,” Yenny said. “It made me so happy. Thanks, Operation Blessing, you’ve made our dream come true.”

Today you can begin having an impact like this in communities like Yenny’s around the world. Will you to live your faith in 2012 by partnering with Operation Blessing and committing to bless the poor in the coming year?

HAITI – Two years ago, a devastating earthquake ripped through the nation of Haiti—changing it forever. Since then, so many of you have made such a significant impact in these communities that we wanted to share just a few of the things your support has accomplished over the last two years.

• Clean Water – At the height of our relief efforts, 35 water purification units provided safe drinking water to more than 100,000 people…every day. We also drilled more than 30 wells and have been producing and distributing enough chlorine to hospitals and orphanages to disinfect millions of gallons of drinking water each day.

• Medical Care – When the quake hit, you helped us ship millions of dollars worth of medicine to Haiti. A few months later, we were among the first responders to the deadly cholera outbreak. We also distributed more than 3,000 wheelchairs to those in need and constructed a new surgical unit and emergency facility at St. Luke’s Family Hospital.

• Food Distribution – Immediately following the earthquake, we shipped cargo containers of emergency food supplies to feed hundreds of orphans, children, and families in need. Today, we are giving poverty-stricken families a source of income and high protein food source through fish farms.

• Orphan Care – We joined hands with Partners in Health to open Zanmi Beni Children’s Home for orphans and special needs children. Today we are continuing to improve the home through a new dormitory and even growing tilapia to provide a source of protein for the children.

In 2012, we are looking ahead to even more exciting initiatives for Haiti including being able to significantly increase the number of wells we can build each year thanks to the purchase of a new well drilling rig.

We humbly thank you for your compassion for the people of Haiti and the suffering around the world.

Haiti – I’ll never forget the day I met Nastalie.

Our team had just arrived to her village of Luben, Haiti, which is in the heart of the region where the deadly cholera outbreak started.

The village is surrounded by rice fields, which just two months before had been flooded with cholera-contaminated waters, surrounding the village with disease and basically cutting them off from any aid or hope of help.

Nastalie’s mom told us how she had heard the warnings on the radio to not drink from the river. But the river was their life source—the place where they bathed, cleaned clothes, and collected water for cooking and drinking.

For four days, they went without drinking water.

The mom was desperate and cried out to God for help – and the very next day an Operation Blessing truck loaded with Lifesaver jerrycans arrived, which would provide them with purified drinking water and protect them against the cholera.

As we’re walking through the village and talking, this precious 5-year-old, Nastalie, reaches up and grabs my hand, and with her other hand begins to softly stroke my arm and presses it against her dirt-stained cheek.

I don’t speak Creole, so I couldn’t really communicate well with Nastalie, but her tender touch said everything that words could not.

Nastalie is alive and healthy today because of the compassionate efforts of our supporters who enabled us to send relief to her village…just in time.

On behalf of Nastalie, her family, and all the villagers of Luben, thank you for your compassion, and merry Christmas.

Operation Blessing staff Lara Coleman shares the latest on OBI’s relief and development projects in Haiti.

MEDAN BELIZE, Haiti – Today we brought our water truck and another vehicle filled with food down the treacherous road towards Lake Azuei. We were able to deliver 4,000 gallons of clean water and nearly 1.5 tons of food to the 45 families living in the village Medan Belize.

There were enough supplies to help an additional 30 families living in the neighboring village called Canez.

The items we delivered included packaged military food supplies and “Manny Food” packs, which are a mix of rice and soy, packed with nutrients to help malnourished children.

KENYA – Today we visited a Masai village where Operation Blessing is building a new school. This building will prevent the need for children to walk over two miles through tall grasses where they have sometimes been trampled by elephants and attacked by lions.

For even more protection, large wooden posts will form a fence around the school.

Finally, we’re also drilling a deep well that will provide safe water and irrigate crops that we will teach the tribe to grow.

DEATH VALLEY – 5 days. 306 miles. 1 goal. Find out what’s driving Jason Lester, ESPY award winner and ultra endurance athlete, to run 306 grueling miles along the Badwater course through Death Valley to help raise $1 million for Operation Blessing’s clean water projects.

Read Jason’s blog:

This is a tough post to write. I don’t really know where to start. How does one stare into a coming trial, one that will test everything that they are and put that fear, trepidation, thrill, excitement, dread, anticipation, anxiety, nervousness, elation into words?

– Jason

Learn more or donate.

MEDAN BELIZE, Haiti – The rainy season has officially started in Haiti, and while the rains are needed for crop production, for many people the season spells trouble. Last year flooding from heavy rain spread cholera, resulting in the tragic death of thousands of Haitians. Operation Blessing played a major part in bringing the cholera outbreak under control in the Artibonite region through the provision of clean water.

Now Haiti is bracing for a resurgence of cholera and Operation Blessing is ready to respond with emergency water systems and disinfecting chlorine solution if needed. The rainy season will also bring misery to those still living in tent camps since the earthquake. Operation Blessing continues to operate 35 water purification systems to provide displaced families with safe water despite their unsafe surroundings.

For the villagers of Medan Belize, the rainy season is seen as a nuisance; the rain erodes their mud homes and leaks through their thatch roofs. But Operation Blessing is helping the villagers keep dry and make the most out of the rain. We distributed metal roofing materials to all 72 families in the village which will allow them to cover their homes and harvest the rain for drinking water.

Without the harvested rain water, the villagers would need to make a four-mile trek to collect water from a well. Operation Blessing distributed Lifesaver jerrycans to each family in the village, the jerrycans allow the families to filter the rainwater before drinking; it’s safe and effective and is making a huge difference.

As I write this a huge thunderstorm is raging outside and it’s pouring down rain. But tonight families in Medan Belize will be hearing these raindrops beating against their new metal roofs instead of leaking through the thatch and tomorrow they will have safe clean water to drink.

Our team had just arrived to the village of Luben. To get there, we had to abandon the narrow dirt road we drove in on and carve a rather erratic path with our SUV through the harvested rice fields. A group of children from the village were running excitedly in front of us, mapping out the best route and pointing out where we should drive so that we could avoid getting stuck in the mud and deep ditches. These were the same rice fields that only two months before were flooded several feet high with cholera-contaminated waters, surrounding the village with disease and effectively cutting them off from any aid or hope of help.

There in the dusty village of Luben with its mud-and-straw huts, we met Wilna, 24, and her two beautiful girls—Nastalie, 5, and Edna, 2.

Wilna remembered the exact day that cholera arrived to her village.
“On October 19, the water became bad,” she told us.

Wilna had heard the warnings on the radio to not drink from the river. But the river was their life source—the place where they bathed, cleaned clothes, and collected water for cooking and drinking.

Of the 1,500 people who call Luben home, 500 became sick with cholera. Two hundred people died—and more than half of those deaths were children.

Wilna was desperate to protect her children, so she heeded the warnings to not drink the water, but she faced another critical dilemma: the rice fields surrounding their village were flooded. They were trapped. And there was no water to drink.

Time was running out for Nastalie and her sister Edna. For four days, they went without drinking water.

“My children would ask me, ‘Mama, Mama, give me some water,’ and I didn’t have anything to give,” she said. “I didn’t sleep for four days and prayed for God to protect my children.”

The very next day, Wilna’s prayers were answered when an Operation Blessing truck loaded with Lifesaver jerrycans arrived just beyond the flooded fields that surrounded their village.

Like a Biblical mass exodus, the villagers crossed the fields in waist-deep water to collect their jerrycans that would provide them with purified drinking water and ultimately, give them life.

Life. That’s all I could think about as young Nastalie reached up and grabbed my hand, softly stroking my arm and pressing it against her dirt-stained cheek.

I don’t speak Creole, so I couldn’t really communicate well with Nastalie or the others in her village, but this 5-year-old’s tender touch said everything that words could not.

I was moved to tears at the thought that this precious young girl had come dangerously close to death, but here she was today, alive and healthy because Operation Blessing had arrived to her village…just in time.

On behalf of Nastalie, her family, and the villagers of Luben, thank you for your support that is truly making a difference and saving lives.

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To help bring life-saving relief to a precious child like Nastalie, please click here.

GRANDE SALINE, Haiti – At around 7 a.m., we loaded the box truck with a boat, motor, fuel, and about 50 gallons of chlorine solution, picked up scientists Stacy and Gretchen, and headed up the road toward St. Marc.

Stacey is a chemist and Gretchen is a biologist doing her Ph.D. on cholera and copepods. Both are graduate research assistants at SUNY School of Public Health near Albany, NY.

The 2-hour drive along the coast was spectacular—crystalline waves lapped sandy beaches and coconut palms swayed in the breeze. What a startling difference in scenery between these coastal postcard vistas and the chaos of the city we left behind.

St. Marc is a medium-sized city where the first cholera victims showed up at the hospital. In the early days of the outbreak, doctors from Partner’s in Health told us they interviewed every patient to find out where they lived, and then drew lines on maps to track the source of the disease. All lines pointed to the Artibonite River and a canal that originates from the Artibonite and meanders through the lush patchwork of rice fields and small villages.

We turned off the paved highway and drove for about 30 minutes along a narrow, cratered dirt road that paralleled the canal. As we drove along, villagers with sunny smiles waved and shouted greetings in Creole. Eric said that they recognized our vehicles. OBI vehicles had been on that road during the first rain soaked days of the outbreak, using bumper-mounted winches to drag our SUVs through the deep mud in order to deliver life-saving water purification systems and jerrycans.

Finally we came to a spot on the main river where we could launch our boat. We backed up as far as possible through a wall of green thorn bushes, and then carried the boat, motor and supplies to the river’s edge. The water level had dropped about 5’ since Eric’s last visit, so we had to be careful not to slip down the steep, slick, muddy embankment. I was amazed at the power of the current as it swept and swirled, the water the exact color of chocolate milk.

We launched and headed downstream. It was a 45-minute ride to Grande Saline.  Between the current and our tiny 9.9 horsepower outboard, my GPS reported a speed of 8.3 mph. In spite of our slow speed, the bow of the boat was still throwing some spray because we were running so low in the water. The muddy water speckled my shirt and glasses.

Stacy and Gretchen warned us to keep our mouths closed when facing the bow, so that contaminated river spray couldn’t get into our mouths. They explained that cholera bacteria can only live when wet; once dried, it dies, but while waterborne… it is deadly. Hearing that, I turned around and faced the stern but kept sneaking glances over my shoulder because we had to watch for floating logs and debris. A bent prop or sheared pin would be a problem, since there was no coast guard or anyone to tow us in.

We arrived at Grande Saline and pulled up next to OBI’s water purification system. A group of smiling villagers ran to meet us. As soon as we verified that the system was functioning properly, we explained that we were there to do research and needed to get back in the boat to secure water samples. Gretchen wanted to pull water samples from multiple locations, starting at a point where saltwater was mixing with river water.

We motored to the river’s mouth and tested salinity with a device called a “refractometer,” but since there was an outgoing tide, the current of the Artibonite prevented any saltwater from flowing upstream. We were reluctant to go off shore because of the danger of being swept out to sea if the motor quit. Repeated refractometer tests showed no salt, so we eased offshore about a mile and found perfect conditions; about 10% saltwater mixed with 90% fresh. The scientists then dragged a tiny, funnel-shaped, fine mesh, seine net behind the boat with the hope of capturing some copepods.

Copepods are tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that generate minute quantities of sugar that cholera bacteria love to eat; so they hang around copepods. If someone drinks water that contains free-swimming cholera bacteria it’s very bad, but if the water contains any (almost invisible) bacteria-infested copepods, the unfortunate person gets a super dose of the disease-causing bacteria. Salt excites copepods as well as the bacteria, making for a powerful “witches brew” swirling in the mouth of the river. There is speculation in the scientific community that Grande Saline suffered an inordinate number of deaths because of this. 

We collected samples from different locations and the scientists were ecstatic. They said we had captured copepods and tried to show me. My aging eyes could only detect minute white specks flitting about the test tubes in erratic movement that reminded me of the flight of a bat.

The women explained that their research into how cholera bacteria relates to its environment could help open the door to better understanding of the origin of the disease. They told me that their research could result in a breakthrough in the fight against the disease, and thanked us, saying that OBI was now a part of their research effort.

After we finished gathering water samples, I met with village leaders to discuss how OBI can help the people of Grande Saline by providing ocean fishing gear. During my previous visit I had requested that the (41) fishing families elect two spokespersons, then make a prioritized list of items that would enable them to catch and sell more of the fish and shrimp that abound in the waters just off shore. I am confident that once the threat of cholera passes, that this village, situated on the edge of a sea teeming with fish, shrimp and lobster, can break the bonds of poverty and prosper. All they need is some gentle guidance and some gear.

The leadership committee presented me with a list written in Creole. Eric translated and helped me understand it. I asked some questions and promised to return to the U.S. and start gathering the items. The people are very excited about this development. Grande Saline will become the first saltwater model in OBI’s ever-expanding “Teach a Nation to Fish” program.

The sun was getting low, so we headed back up the river to our launch site. With five of us in the boat, our tiny outboard struggled against the unrelenting current and the trip took almost twice as long as it had earlier in the day. The river looked so peaceful, the banks lined with enormous mango trees just starting to fruit and drooping coconut palms. White crane-like birds glided gracefully along looking for an evening meal. So much beauty amidst so much suffering. As we passed scattered villages, I was aghast to see hundreds of villagers crowding the rivers edge, dipping multi-colored pails into the muddy water.

The villagers had waited until the cool of evening to go down to the river’s edge to gather water for drinking and cooking. The shouts of children laughing and splashing carried across the water as we passed by.

My heart ached as I thought about the agony sure to come to some of the families as a result of drinking the poisoned water of the Artibonite. There I was, safe and sound, swigging bottled water, worried about a few drops of river spray landing in my mouth, while whole villages bathed and drank from the river that had already killed so many. As I watched the villagers and my eyes started to ache, I experienced a powerful epiphany:

The people of Haiti are dying from cholera, but it isn’t the river that’s killing them… its poverty. Underneath it all, Poverty is the silent killer.

We must do more.

ST. LUCIA – Our two WMI water purification systems are now in St. Lucia and out of customs. The first system is in place and will begin pumping clean water tomorrow morning. It is in a town named Canaries (pronounced “Cannereez”) with a population of more than 2,000 people.

The town has been without water since Hurricane Tomas came through. Since then the townsfolk have been drinking from streams and rivers and setting up makeshift water spouts out of bamboo tapping into the mountainside.

OBI was asked to target Canaries because the government has no idea when they will be able to restore water to the area; the damage to the pipe infrastructure was massive. Our water system will be a lifeline. Tonight, as we were setting it up, members of the community were clapping with excitement.

Yesterday I attended a local press conference and was asked to explain how our water systems worked. I also gave a demonstration of the puritabs and water test kits OBI donated.

Our second water unit is destined for a community on the south side of the island and will arrive there tomorrow.