Operation Blessing International - Bill's Blog

Breaking the Cycles of Suffering

Several years ago while in Haiti, I attended a funeral service for five children who had died from cholera the day before. During the service the preacher said something I will never forget. “These children died of cholera — but it was poverty that killed them.” He explained that the...

Beauty in the Brokenness

I’m on a 13 hour flight headed home from Tokyo after spending the past few days in Japan attending the annual OB Japan board meeting. OBI had never worked in Japan until March of 2011 when the historic triple disaster of a magnitude-9.0 earthquake, resulting tsunami and eventual Fukushima nuclear...

No Fly Zone: Tackling the untold suffering caused by common pests

In much of Latin America, low income families live in homes with open windows and no screens. In these tropical rural areas, people survive without reliable electricity or fans, so only the breeze provides relief from oppressive heat. Open windows and doors allow for maximum air flow, but mosquitoes, flies...

Changing the Trend with Safe Water

People caught in the midst of famines, wars or shipwrecks often survive for weeks without food, shelter and medical care, but the human body is only equipped to last a few days without water. Although most of us take this precious resource for granted, for many around the world water...

Nineveh: In the Eye of the Storm

I’m writing this from the city of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Northern Iraq. I am deeply troubled by what I’ve seen and learned here. The impact of our efforts to assist displaced and persecuted Christians is significant, but so much more is needed to help our brothers and...

The Rain Came Down

2016 was an extraordinarily wet year, and our U.S. disaster relief team has been hard at work for eight continuous months in eight different places, helping flood victims in communities suffering from historic floods. In Robert, Louisiana, a rural village with only 20 streets and one stop light, the local...

Bill’s Blog: This is the Way, Walk in It

My job requires a lot of travel, so two questions I often get are, “Where have you been?” and “Where are you going next?” The first question is easy to answer, but I don’t always know where I’m going next. My travel could be triggered by a disaster, crisis or...

Bill’s Blog: Breaking the Chains of Poverty

As we approach Thanksgiving — a time of plenty and a season of feasting — I am reminded of those around the world struggling just to survive, especially hungry children and desperate mothers. Imagine a nest full of baby birds with the mother bird perched on the edge of the...

Bill’s Blog: Loving Our Neighbors

LOUISIANA – We were surrounded by water the color of chocolate milk; it felt like we were on a boat, but we were riding on the back of a six-wheel drive Army surplus truck across flooded roads in the drowned neighborhoods of Livingston Parish, La. There were five of us...

Zika: The “Mysterious Disease”

LATIN AMERICA – My wife Laura and I live in a house next to a wooded park here in Virginia. Mosquitoes from the woods are so thick after dark that we have to stay indoors, usually with the air conditioning running, or behind open windows with tightly fitted screens. For...

Louisiana Floods: “Worse than Katrina”

LOUISIANA – In the wake of historic flooding, the devastation in Louisiana is nothing less than catastrophic. As each hour passes and the water recedes revealing the damage—we see the scope of the disaster is getting even bigger. The local pastors we are talking to all say the same thing:...

Loaves & Fishes: Multiplying Your Donor Dollar

Three hundred years before the birth of Christ, a Greek scientist named Archimedes explained the power of a lever this way: “Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth with it.” A lever amplifies input force and provides greater output force. OBI’s platform hinges on a...

Connecting “East” and “West”

Rudyard Kipling once said, “East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet.” For an ever-increasing number of low-income families, access to modern medical care is about as distant as Kipling’s east and west. New vaccines and medical breakthroughs happen regularly, but massive numbers of people...

Zika: Defying the “Impossible”

I am on a plane high over the North Atlantic as I write this, on my way home from the International Zika Summit held in Paris. It was a full house with attendees from all over the world. Speakers were renowned research scientists, professors and medical experts. Most presentations were...

Report from the Frontlines: The Fight Against Zika

Newscasts are buzzing with Zika stories—like a baby born recently in New Jersey who was affected by the virus and diagnosed with microcephaly, a deformity of the head and brain. Preventing more cases of Zika means taking out the mosquitoes that carry the dangerous virus. It’s time to put an...

Mosquitoes: A Deadly Insect

The deadliest animal in the world is not a Great White shark or a poisonous snake, but an insect so small that 10,000 of them weigh less than one ounce: the mosquito. Bill Gates recently compiled statistics that rank the causes of death worldwide and found that 50,000 people a...

Bug Busters II Launches to Fight Zika

When Hurricane Katrina tore into New Orleans in 2005 and the levees burst, the city flooded. Over 1,000 residents, most of them elderly, were desperate to escape rising waters and climbed into darkened attics where they were trapped and drowned. Later, when levees were repaired and the city pumped out,...

No Fish to Eat in Haiti

Haiti is a place with lots of sunshine, water and hungry people, but as I discovered when I first visited in 2009—a place with almost no fish to eat. The ponds, lakes and reservoirs have been fished out by generations of poor people desperate for food. As a kid I...

Christ in Distressing Disguise

I was on a plane the other day and the person sitting next to me asked what I did. I explained that I lead a Christian humanitarian organization. He then asked: “What is the difference between a Christian humanitarian effort and one conducted by a secular organization?” I started by...

After Hurricane Patricia: An Answer to Prayer

Hurricane Patricia, the strongest Pacific storm in recorded history, fortunately came ashore in a sparsely populated area of the west coast of Mexico. The media reported that “Mexico dodged a bullet,” but the residents of small fishing villages like La Manzanilla did not dodge anything. Our Mexico City office monitored...

Syrian Refugees: A Human, Not Political, Crisis

The migration of refugees flooding into Europe is historic in magnitude, newscasts tell us that millions are fleeing from ISIS, but most of us do not fully understand what caused it all. We watch TV and see the suffering, but the victims are faceless strangers from countries we are not...

THE BOOK: Catching fish like me

Thanksgiving Day has very special significance for me. On Thanksgiving Day in 1984, I went in search of a new book to read and found the only place open was the local drug store. They had paperbacks displayed on a rotating book rack. I was turning the rack and scanning...

Fighting hunger every day of the year

World Food Day is observed on October 16th, as it has been every year since 1979. The day is designated as “a day of action against hunger,” with the hope that it will elevate public awareness as people the world over are reminded to do their part to end world...

Bringing hope to pastors in Cuba

CUBA – We are always looking for better ways to help impoverished people become more self-reliant and break generational cycles of poverty. One of the most effective strategies that we’ve found is promoting “microenterprise” and helping jumpstart tiny businesses. A few months ago, I was in Cuba and met with...

Not hopeless: Helping the people of Haiti

HAITI – Of all the places I have ever been, I’ve never seen greater suffering than in a country only 90 minutes by air from Miami. Haiti is a place where the average person is poorer and more vulnerable to disease and crime than anyplace in our hemisphere. But in...

Teaching a Nation to Fish

HAITI – I’ve been into raising fish all my life. As a kid I caught fish in Michigan lakes and hurried home to transplant them into the spring-fed ponds in my grandfather’s gravel pit. Years later, I raised feed minnows, crawfish, rainbow trout and other game fish there. When I...

Water everywhere and not a drop fit to drink

HAITI – The water in Haiti’s biggest lake is about 1/3 as salty as the sea, so it’s no good for drinking or irrigating plants. Lake Azuei (Oz-Way) is a picturesque and inviting setting, but the people who live around the lake are amongst the poorest of the poor in...

Our most important strategy to help the poor

Recently, a person sitting next to me on a plane noticed the OBI logo on my shirt and asked me what we do. It was a long flight, so I explained the many humanitarian efforts we are engaged in. Just before we landed he asked, “Of all the ways that...

Helping oppressed and persecuted Christians

Bill visits a region in Africa where Christians fled under heavy fire that created craters like the one seen here. In ancient times, Christians were often martyred as “punishment” for believing in Christ. Today, believers in an ever-increasing number of places are being oppressed, persecuted and even killed—just because they...

Transforming faith into effective action

Bill visits a project in Guatemala that trains impoverished women how to grow nutritious vegetables to eat and sell to help provide for their children. This month we celebrate a special day set aside to honor all mothers. It reminds me of one of my favorite Bible passages about motherhood...

Working hard to change the odds

Each week, millions of viewers watch a myriad of “reality” TV shows. Imagine a new series called “The Least of These,” where the contestants are children born into poverty, with the finalists being those who have survived the most horrible conditions. If such a show ever aired, the winner would...

Helping women escape the clutches of poverty

In my travels I meet hard working mothers all over the world who get up every morning and make herculean efforts to make life better for their children. But in spite of all their work, they still cannot escape the pull of generational poverty. These women usually can’t afford school...

Fighting the war on suffering

When watching the evening news we often hear the term “boots on the ground,” usually in reference to courageous American troops sent to fight the war on terrorism. Today, I would like to talk about a different kind of war … the war on suffering. Our teams are fighting this...

Sharing your blessings with those in need

You have likely already finished your Christmas shopping and chosen a thoughtful gift for each of the people you love. I urge you to buy just one more gift; this one for people whom you do not know and, most likely, will never meet.

Thankful for the opportunity to give

“Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we’ll go” brings back warm memories of childhood Thanksgivings; turkey with all the fixings, pumpkin pie and whipped cream and family, all gathered around a table. For me, Thanksgiving Day meant giving thanks for all that God had given me,...

Fighting Ebola: Chlorine the greatest need

LIBERIA – David Darg, OBI’s vice president of international operations, was recently in Ebola-plagued Liberia delivering crates of medicine and supplies requested by the Lutheran Church, which operates two hospitals there. The hospitals, open since the 1920s, have already lost many patients, as well as four nurses and five ministers.

Stopping Ebola in West Africa

LIBERIA – The image below is a photo of a banner hanging from a fence on a busy street in Monrovia, the capital of Ebola-ravaged Liberia. With utmost respect and compassion for the people of Liberia, I submit this photo as an example of the struggle for public health awareness...

Building lives of abundance

No one would dispute the fact that feeding the hungry is a righteous thing to do. It is, however, difficult for any charitable organization to feed large numbers of people long term, because all too quickly, full stomachs become empty.

Health care for rural communities

We have all made legitimate complaints about the high cost of health care and medicine, but can you image living in a place where there is no health care or medicine? Living in America, with hospitals open 24/7 and 911 emergency service available to anyone with a phone, it’s hard...

A pipeline to the poor: Blessing families in need

One thing that every man, woman and child has in common is that we all get hungry every day. There is, however, a major difference in how people satisfy their hunger. For many of us, a trip to the store or market does the trick, but if you don’t have...

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