We’re pleased to announce that our most recent Remedy Mission in Fallujah went extremely well!

This was our third mission to Fallujah, and spirits are still high. Doctors and nurses are learning, children are being treated, and there’s a lot of optimism among our partners about this program.

But most importantly: we’ve seen calculable growth.

On our first mission to the city, the team worked with Dr. Firas and his staff to perform 12 procedures in 4 days. On the second mission, they did 16 procedures in 5 days. And now 16 kids in just 3 days!

That means our children-to-day ration climbed from 3 kids per day to 3.2 kids per day to now 5.3 kids per day, and that kind of progress means everything to those who have been waiting years for their chance at a lifesaving operation.

Thank you for making this kind of progress possible—maybe next mission will see 6 children saved per day!

It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint, some new pictures, and a Bonsai tree can do to improve the look of a place. Sometimes the instability and frustrations of this part of the world leave us wondering whether or not we’ll actually be able to keep living here, and that uncertainty can make it hard to ‘dig in.’

So we see the paint and the pictures as an excuse to dig in and recommit to doing life here.

The next time you’re in town you should come visit—baklava and tea on us!

A few days ago, Kamar's mother watched our team perform a diagnostic procedure on her daughter. The procedure told us that Kamar's heart is dying and that she needs a lifesaving heart surgery.

This Mother's Day, will you help us save Kamar and make her mother's day?

When you donate on behalf of your mother, your money goes directly toward providing lifesaving heart operations for Iraqi children—to the joy and excitement of mothers all over the country!

Donate securely online anytime before Mother's Day and we'll e-mail you a photo of Kamar and her mother so that you can show your mom who she's impacting.

We love connecting you with the people you're loving!

Happy Mother's Day!

Reporting from our first-time mission in Tikrit is at an end, and the children are doing really well. The lead local cardiologist was giddy when he heard we are planning to come back.

Push play to see his reaction and the results of this historic mission!

And there wouldn’t be any celebration without The Haddock Family Foundation. As a family, they chose to underwrite the entire mission!

Haddocks, on behalf of the families, doctors, and nurses: thank you!

Help us keep up this momentum by making a donation!

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Some weeks, it feels like the whole world is on fire.

Earthquakes, coups, murder trials… I couldn’t believe the updates moving across my screen as friends at the Boston Marathon updated in realtime.

We just finished Remedy Missions in two of the most bad-mouthed cities in the country: Tikrit and Fallujah. The headlines from the last decade might lead you to believe these places are full of sad faces, in a perpetual state of despondency.

But the Iraqi and American responses to tragedy aren’t that different: in the midst of fire, they are banding together, pressing on, and overcoming.

At every juncture, we encountered positive people who had weathered storms. Troops at checkpoints greeted us warmly, families moved in and out of hospital rooms to distribute medicine and pray for each other, and, of course, doctors and hospital staff provided life-changing operations for sixteen children!

You can get caught up on stories from our last two missions in Tikrit and Fallujah here.

But I would love for you to share your own story with me. How are you seeing beyond ‘the fire’ and staying positive when faced with bombings in Boston and explosions in West, TX?

Email me at your convenience. I would love to hear back from you

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Her family thought she needed surgery. They waited and worked, wondering if their daughter’s heart would give out.

As she gazed at the image of her heart beating, her father shared how hopeful they were that their daughter would get well.

Minutes later, he got his wish. After years of carrying around the wrong diagnosis, his little girl had a healthy, defect-free heart all along.

We’ve introduced you to a lot of sick, blue children over the past 5 years, but we haven’t always shared stories of already-healthy children. Thanks to highly trained cardiologists like Dr. Kirk, Iraqi children are receiving top-notch diagnostics testing in the form of preliminary echos, TEEs, and diagnostic catheterizations.

“We don’t do as many diagnostic caths in the US as we used to because we catch most heart disease early, before we have concerns about operability. Internationally, the situation is much different,” Dr. Kirk explained.

Over a span of # years, Dr. Kirk has screened hundreds of children across Iraq, and they’re often well beyond the ideal age for diagnosing a heart problem.

“Many of the children we see are being diagnosed or considered for surgery at a time which is much later than what we see in the west. The diagnostic cath tells us if a child is appropriate for a surgery or if a child would probably live longer if we didn’t do anything. There are many children who we think are inoperable because of their age, but we take them to cath and find they are indeed a good candidate for surgical repair. In this case we’ve probably added years to their lives by getting them repaired.”

In short, good diagnostics inform decisions, illuminate the situation for doctors and in-the-dark family members, and they save lives.

“The diagnostic cath isn’t as exciting as an interventional procedure to most, because, even if the news is favorable for surgery, another procedure is still needed.

If we can get away from focusing on what’s done today and look at what was learned today and what is best for the child, we realize we positively change the lives of children with a diagnostic cath.“

“Diagnostic caths either allow children to be repaired safely, or they prevent them from being harmed by surgery.”

Diagnostics take dollars—help us make it happen by donating below!

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That’s her up there with that soul-perceiving, Mona Lisa-gaze. You might be surprised to hear I wasn’t initially affected by her cute intensity (cutensity?). In retrospect, this was not the first time I’d simply snapped a photo of a child and moved on, emotion-free. Children that would have previously melted me on the inside had become… dare I say it—objects of charity.

Of course, I still want them to get well—I work for it every day—but the thrust of my compassion has taken a serious hit.

Attending six Remedy Missions, seeing waves of sick children held by desperate parents, and a dispiriting amount of post-operative death has taken a toll on my soul.

Our teams are now helping save more children then ever. But with every death, my emotional kevlar got a little thicker, and even the cutest kids like Israa couldn’t pierce it.

Is that really what we are aiming for? Hundreds of children whose lives are being saved by people who are barely affected as they serve? And, on a practical level, how can I do my job and connect you with these children if I’m not even connecting with them?

This is not the preemptive love we talk about, and, thankfully—while we do struggle at times—it isn’t a typical characteristic of our team.

But that’s just it—it’s a struggle. It has to be. Preemptive love takes risks for the sake of another. It stays vulnerable in the face of inevitable pain; it keeps compassion personal. And this applies to a lot more than just Iraqi children. Whether it’s your marriage, a friend struggling with addiction, or a tribe in the African bush, keeping compassion vulnerable takes work.

So back to my question: how do you continue to be vulnerable, emotionally present, and affected by those you’re seeking to love?

For my part, I’m committing to a few things: spending more time at the bedside of kids (without my camera), learning more kid-friendly Arabic phrases, and stuffing my bag with more play-things, like bubbles, Angry Birds and coloring books—and I want you to hold me to it!

And you? How do you keep from going numb, activating the defense mechanisms, or just giving up? What measures do you take?

Either comment below or email me—I’d love to hear from you!

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It’s that same compassion, though, that had us crammed into an echo lab/storage closet at midnight last night, looking at children’s hearts, and it’s that compassion that kept admitting one more family for screening.

“Please, just help one more.” is a hard request to ignore when it’s shouted from a waiting room packed and pleading. In this case, the request came for a little boy named Abraham.

Scratching his chin, Abe’s uncle tried to remember when it started: “For about two months we were basically living in the hospital.”

The entire family rallied around this little boy as he spent nearly two months in the hospital, struggling to breathe. The doctor in Abe’s hometown told the family he had a lung problem, and that Abe might need ‘new lungs’—something the family didn’t really understand and something they certainly couldn’t afford.

When a friend told them about our Remedy Mission in Tikrit, Abe’s family decided to get a second opinion. Unfortunately, Abe missed the cut and was scheduled for a check-up on the next mission. It was nearly 1am last night when both the list and the doctors were exhausted, and they decided to pack up for the night.

But the local doctors pleaded, “There’s just one more little boy. Will you please see him?” Dr. Kirk relented.

Abe’s family carried him in, and Dr. Kirk was shocked by what he found.

Abe had huge amounts of fluid in his chest that was pressing on his lungs and making his heart work too hard.

Dr. Mary, the interventional cardiologist on the team, worked with local doctors to successfully drain the fluid around Abe’s heart. “I don’t think he had more than 2-3 days to live—I think he’s the reason God has us here this week.” she said after.

On behalf of Abe and his elated parents: thank you. You’re saving lives.

Give now to bring hope to more children like Abe!

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Ten years ago Saddam fell, and everything changed in Iraq.

Not overnight in every place, of course. But it was obvious that former favorites were out of luck. Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, was one of these favored cities that benefited under the former regime, but people here are now experiencing something like reverse discrimination as other cities to the south and north receive more patronage.

But you’re helping us change that this week. Omar, a seven year old boy, just became the first child to have his heart fixed locally, barely having to leave home.

While Omar rests, we’re sitting down with his father to hear a little more of their story. A lot of parents dream of their children becoming exceptional, but Omar’s dad is just grateful that his son will now be ‘normal.’ He can finally do things kids are supposed to do, without the risk.

Keep reading, we’ll have more updates for you from Tikrit coming soon.

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He was shaking with excitement after finishing!

The lead interventionalist, Dr. Mary, handled the lion’s share of the teaching, and she can now add “Tikrit” to her list of groundbreaking procedures. She has performed similar ‘first-evers’ in Fallujah, Mongolia, and Kosovo, in addition to the work she does in the United States.

We talk a lot about children who don’t have options for surgery, but the same is true of many Iraqi doctors. Dr. Mohammed shared told us, “There is no way for me to do this without teams coming to Tikrit. I am very happy to have the team here.”

So thank you for sending tremendous teachers like Dr. Mary to train Dr. Mohammed—they’re making history!

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