For two weeks we are 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.

CAMBODIA – Like all expecting parents, Chan and her husband looked forward to the day their baby would be born with excitement and anticipation.

But when their son was born with a cleft lip, their excitement turned to worry about their little boy’s future.

Chan knew the societal shame that her precious son would face at school and even among their neighbors. It was unlikely that little Sokarn would be accepted in the community like other children.

Chan learned that surgery could correct the cleft, but as rice farmers, Chan and her husband simply didn’t have the funds to pay for the procedure.

Then Chan was told about Operation Blessing’s cleft lip and palate program and she brought her little boy to meet the OBI team in Phnom Penh.

There, he received corrective surgery at no cost to his family.

Today, Sokarn has a beautiful smile and a bright future ahead of him. Chan couldn’t be more excited for her baby.

“Sokarn will live without shame as he grows up,” she said. “Thank you!”

Today you can begin having an impact like this on the lives of more children like Sokarn. 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.

CHINCHA & HUAYCAN, Peru – This year OB Peru held a special Christmas program to benefit impoverished children. With the help of volunteers from a local church, Operation Blessing provided more than 1,500 children with a Christmas breakfast, a show, food baskets for their families, and even special Christmas gifts. Additionally, the children were given a free dental check-up.

HAITI – About a year ago I had a chance to meet a little girl from Haiti, her name is Adianne.

Adianne was first brought to us because she had a severe bone infection and she also had sickle cell anemia. So, the combination of the two really put her at very high-risk for more infections and may possibly even lead to amputation of her arm.

Operation Blessing responded and through the collaboration of a local hospital here in Norfolk, VA, Adianne received intensive therapy and even surgery to clean up her infection and to help treat her sickle cell anemia.

I really had a chance over those eight weeks to go to the hospital almost every single day. And to also see her throughout the eight weeks that she was here.

Typically, we don’t bring kids to the United States to receive care. Typically, we go in and do things in country. So it really created a new experience for me personally–to get to know Adianne on a totally different level than I am normally able to with kids in other countries.

I actually helped fly them back home to Haiti. I remember being in the airport, taking pictures with my camera and showing her the pictures. It was just so cool to be able to see her change from the shy little girl who was sick, who was anemic, who was malnourished, to someone who had grown three inches in eight weeks and felt a lot better. She was even was speaking English to me.

Adianne’s life really was transformed by the care she received through these medical treatments. And even when she was able to return to Haiti, we were able to help transition her and her family, help provide him with a better place to live. We were able to help her go back to school and continue to learn English.

I’m just so thankful for the donors that have allowed us to impact people like Adianne, to really provide them with life transformations.

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.

HUAYCAN, Peru – A few months ago the beautiful smile of eight-year-old Esmeralda was overshadowed by the terrible headaches she endured every day. And as the headaches got worse, her academic performance dropped significantly.

“I couldn´t see very well,” she said. “When I was in class I had to stand and approach the board to see. I fell behind in my lessons and in the evenings I had to go to the home of a classmate to copy the notes I needed. But my eyes would burn and I often could not finish, so the lessons in my notebooks were always incomplete.”

Esmeralda lives in the city of Huaycan with her four sisters, Rosa (14), Dayana (12), Molly (7) and Ruby (3 months). Her father, Julio, works selling recycled copper in the center of the city. But what he earns is only enough for the basic household expenses, especially now that they have a new baby. Her parents had hoped to take Esmeralda to the doctor to buy her glasses, but they simply didn’t have the resources to pay for it.

“My mom promised me that she was going to buy my glasses,” Esmeralda said, “but then she explained to me that now they don’t have money because they are spending a lot on diapers and milk for my little sister.”

Then Operation Blessing held an eye clinic at Esmeralda’s school. At the clinic, an optometrist examined all the children and gave them new prescription glasses, absolutely free.

When OBI staff called her name, Esmeralda ran to get her glasses and put them on.

“Now I can see better,” she said. “My mommy will be very happy because I have my glasses and I can study and improve my grades. I love my glasses—they are very cute! Thanks, Operation Blessing.”

NIGER – As I flew into Niamey, I was excited about my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa and meeting the people that would forever after be a part of my life.

I was a bit shocked that we were preparing for landing and I still wasn’t seeing very many buildings that would normally surround an international airport—even compared to other developing countries I’ve visited. I saw sand, acacia trees, the Niger River, rice fields and then a few homes and buildings as we finally approached the runway.

Driving from the airport to my accommodations, that feeling of the smallness didn’t disappear. There was a sense of order and a degree of cleanliness there, largely because the main road leads you through all of the government offices and housing.

Just beyond that, the road becomes dirt and widens. The homes look nice and the vendors were setup in typical corrugated metal structures. If city life was this wide open, I was anxious to see what village life looked like. But I would have to wait until the following day to find out.

In the morning, Yacouba, Operation Blessing’s national director for Niger, and I had breakfast together and talked about the upcoming week. As we prepared to head out to Complexe de Sante Hosanna medical clinic, which Operation Blessing sponsors with medicine, the doorbell rang.

Our visitors were a mother and her seven-year-old daughter, Hannah. The little girl did not look well and hadn’t been able to keep food down. Yacouba called to his wife (who happens to be a nurse from Germany) to come and look at her. After hearing her symptoms and giving her a quick exam, she said that Hannah and her mother should ride with us to the clinic because Hannah has malaria.

This scene reminded me of my time in Haiti when Operation Blessing was responding to the early stages of the cholera epidemic and we met a young girl name Mejin. She also rode with us in our car to be rushed to a hospital that would save her quickly fading life. These thoughts and memories flooded my mind as I thought about the great position that Operation Blessing teams are in—we get to save lives because of the compassion of our donors and partners all around the world.

As we drove, I glanced around and saw how spread out all of the villages and people were outside of the city. The large distances between homes and properties were filled with beautiful old acacia trees, and each one looked as though it had a story to tell.

When we arrived at the clinic that was built and is staffed by our German medical partners, Humedica, Hannah was immediately examined. The medical team helped rehydrate her and gave her the medicine she needs. Hannah was even set up with a follow-up appointment to receive additional care.

As I finish writing this I rejoice because another 40 foot container of medicine and supplies is on its way to Niger to help more children like Hannah.

ERCIS, Turkey – Operation Blessing disaster relief teams are on the ground in Turkey working in partnership with Humedica, a German medical team, to bring relief to earthquake survivors.

Operation Blessing’s Japan Disaster Relief Manager, Don Thomson, shares his firsthand account of the relief efforts in Japan.

JAPAN – Media is a big part of modern Japanese culture, with just about every home subscribed to one of the national daily papers, owning a TV set, and having Internet access through fiber optic cable or by mobile phone.

NHK, the national public broadcasting corporation, is the largest media enterprise in Asia. Along with four other commercial media conglomerates, it dominates the flow of information to the nation. So, what have the Japanese media been saying about Operation Blessing’s relief activities?

OBI has been enjoying wonderful press, and our unique activities in providing free eye clinics to tsunami survivors on the Tohoku coast caught the media by surprise. It, along with our program to provide equipment to fishermen, has been reported in national dailies, TV news reports, and online news sites. Our programs have even been tweeted and blogged about by other organizations.

A Nikkei Financial Times article about our eye clinics was titled “Seeing Hope.” Another major paper said, “Tsunami survivors grateful to be able to see properly again.” A commercial network affiliate station news report showed a teary eyed fisherman who received an OB boat wiping his eyes, saying, “I am so grateful, I want to cry.”

Miyagi TV, the local affiliate for the largest commercial TV network in Japan, came to one of our recent eye clinics to tape a news report for their midday news broadcast.

Thank you, Operation Blessing partners, for making it possible not only to share compassion with survivors through our relief efforts but also to share joy to homes throughout Japan.

Ms. Masaki Kobayashi is one of our team members at the Tohoku Operations Center who is responsible for preparing press releases for the Japanese media and keeping our Japanese website up to date.

Operation Blessing’s Japan Disaster Relief Manager, Don Thomson, shares his firsthand account of the relief efforts in Japan.

MINAMI SANRIKU, Japan – Even though seven months have passed since the tsunami along the Tohoku Coast, Operation Blessing teams are still finding opportunities to help survivors in need of eye glasses. A recent request for eye exams came from the parents and coaches of the Utatsu Middle School Kendo Team.

Kendo is a traditional martial art of swordsmanship developed during Japan’s feudal days hundreds of years ago. Today it is a major sport offered in Japanese middle and high schools, using bamboo swords and protective gear. Team members like Nobuto Hatakeyama are survivors of the tsunami. In the disaster, Nobuto’s family lost their home and their seaweed cultivation business. And Nobuto lost the special glasses the he usually wore for Kendo. Without the glasses, Nobuto said that everything was a blur and it was difficult to compete.

Nobuto’s coach had heard of OB Japan’s eye clinic and asked if it would be possible for Operation Blessing to provide Nobuto and four others on the Kendo team with the special glasses, which are designed to stay secure during competition and absorb shock. So our team invited Nobuto and his teammates to attend our next clinic the following week.

Operation Blessing was able to deliver Nobuto’s brand new Kendo sports glasses just in time for a major competition to be held in the mountains of Yamagata Prefecture. To everyone’s surprise, Nobuto won each of his matches.

“The glasses have really worked well for Nobuto. The way he was competing, was national competition level,” said Nobuto’s coach.

Even though Nobuto still lives in temporary housing and his father, who lost his seaweed business, is now working part-time for a construction company helping in the cleanup effort, Operation Blessing was able to help provide this family with a glimmer of hope for the future.

Another “Kendo mom” we met was Utako Abe. Utako had also lost her home and her glasses and is now living in temporary housing with her son. Our Operation Blessing team was able to provide her with new glasses.

So far, Operation Blessing has conducted eye clinics at 21 locations along the Miyagi and Iwate coastlines and helped more than 2,500 people. Our recent clinics have reached as far north as Miyako where the highest wave of 120 feet was recorded.