the Children’s Heart Project (CHP) to travel to the U.S. for treatment. She arrived at Mayo Clinic in Rochester earlier this year and underwent successful heart surgery on March 5. Nomin was the 1000th patient who has undergone this type of surgery in the U.S. since the Children’s Heart Project began. Otgonjargal Jijgee, Nomin’s mother, said through an interpreter that there are many changes in Nomin since the surgery. “First of all, she was really blue before just because of the amount of oxygen,” she said. “Now she is not blue anymore. Her hands were really cold, but now her hands are not; they are really warm. Before the surgery, she couldn’t even walk. Now she is walking and running and just [so much like a youngster]. She is completely healed, I would say.”
Nomin and her family traveled to Mayo Clinic in Rochester from the country of Mongolia. They live in a poor area with no running water on the side of a mountain in a tent made of wool. For the first four years of Nomin’s life, her mother often had to carry her on her back, Nomin being too weak to walk on her own.
Now that the surgery is completed, the family is eager to get back to Mongolia and also eager for Nomin to get back to life as a 4-year-old.
The children’s heart fixer In 1997, the Christian humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse was working in Bosnia at a bombedout hospital, a relic of the war that had recently ended in the region. A staff member met a young boy who needed heart surgery; in fact, medical experts believed the child would die without it. Because of the war and the damage to the hospital, it no longer had the capacity to perform the surgery. Samaritan’s Purse worked to get the boy to the U.S. so he could receive the life-saving surgery. Out of that experience in Bosnia in the late 1990s, the Children’s Heart Project (CHP), which is part of Samaritan’s Purse, was born. Now, nearly two decades later, the CHP works in Mongolia, Uganda, Honduras and Bolivia to “bring children with congenital heart defects and their moms, and we partner with children’s hospitals around the United States and Canada to provide the surgeries free of charge,” said Cindy Bonsall, director of the CHP. The project works with in-country
physicians to identify children who need life-saving heart surgery but can’t get the appropriate treatment in their own countries. The CHP screens “the children, and we provide a local host family from a local host church to host the children and their moms for about five to eight weeks while they are having surgery,” Bonsall continued. “We cover all the airfare expenses and get the visas and all of the documents that are necessary for them to come to North America.” To date, more than 60 hospitals in North America have participated in the Children’s Heart Project, including the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.— where Nomin was eventually treated. The CHP follows each heart patient closely for the first year after the surgery. However, CHP staff in-country develop close ties with the families of those who have undergone surgery and those relationships endure far beyond the first 12 months. In 2011, the CHP began heart camps as a way to connect those who have un-
dergone the surgery. “The kids over 5 years of age are invited to camp for four to five days,” Bonsall said. “They are discipled, they have games and lots of activities together. They pray together, they talk about their experience together because they share such a special bond with one another.” Some of the kids who underwent surgery in the early days of the program are now parents themselves. The work of the CHP is rewarding on any number of levels, not the least being playing a role in the Great Commission. “We are all called as believers to the Great Commission,” Bonsall said. “Children are very close to the Lord. Just being able to work with these special needs kids and know at the same time that you are doing kingdom work. And that you are doing your part to help fulfill the Great Commission, that is so rewarding.” Learn more at www.samaritan.org. May 2014 | REFRESHED
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