Ronald Johnson has had a front-row seat to El Salvador’s remarkable transformation

With 20 years of service in the U.S. Army’s Green Berets (from which he retired as a colonel) followed by 20 years as a senior Operations and Paramilitary Officer with the CIA, Ron Johnson has seen his share of trouble spots in the world.

His CIA work took him to such hot zones as Iraq and Afghanistan, while he spent time in the 1980s among a small group of U.S. Army advisors on the ground in El Salvador during the country’s brutal and bloody civil war.

The injustices he has witnessed along with the many events and missions he is not at liberty to discuss publicly might harden an average person’s outlook on his country or the world. Yet, they’ve only made Johnson more determined than ever to do whatever he can to improve the future for everyone.

It’s one of the reasons Johnson was honored in February at The People Helping People Network’s annual Servant’s Heart Award Gala, at which Johnson was honored with the Servant’s Heart Award for Servant Leadership.

“I have great admiration for people who risk their lives and give of their time in service to our country,” said PHP Network founder Jeff Cardwell. “Here’s a man with 50 years of service to our country. He is very strong in his faith and honors God in all that he does.”

After retiring from the CIA, Johnson was named U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, a stint during which he became familiar with Cardwell and The People Helping People Network. Johnson also found a very different El Salvador during his service than he witnessed during the war-torn 1980s.

“It was an absolute blessing to have the opportunity to do that,” Johnson said of his ambassador days. “They’re good people. They’re just looking for a way to move their country forward.”

They’ve certainly moved forward with the help of organizations like The People Helping People Network. But nothing has paved the way for El Salvador’s ongoing resurgence quite like the government’s determination to put an end to gang-driven violence once and for all.

“El Salvador was the murder capital of the world in 2017, and just prior to my departure they started coming in with record-low crime numbers month after month,” Johnson said. “Now, arguably, they are the safest country in the Western Hemisphere right now in terms of violent crime and murder rates.

“When I was there, we estimated there were about 70,000 members of gangs in El Salvador, which is a lot,” he added. “President Bukele declared a state of emergency and locked up about 70,000 people. Since then, the crime rate has dropped extremely low.”

Before the crackdown, it was hard to convince outsiders to invest in a country known by so many for its violence.

“They had a pretty bad reputation — ‘murder capital of the world’ and home of MS-13, something that was in the news constantly — and they’ve moved that out of the news now,” Johnson said. “I know there are foreign investors that are considering investing money in El Salvador. And the Salvadorans who apply for work visas to come to the United States get looked at much differently than they did in the past.”

During his Servant’s Heart Award acceptance speech in February, Johnson encouraged everyone to look at the improved El Salvador with a fresh set of eyes. It’s a place that needs help, he said, but where help also goes a long way. Plus, he added, helping a country whose name in Spanish translates to “The Savior” seems a fitting endeavor for those seeking to put their faith into action.

“If you’re going to help people, what better place than a place named after our Lord and Savior?” Johnson asked rhetorically. “El Salvador is a place where you can give a little and do a lot. You can make such a huge difference in people’s lives.”

No one, though, is happier about the new, safe El Salvador than the Salvadorans themselves, he noted.

“You can see it in their faces,” he said. “I’ve talked to people in their mid-40s who told me that for the first time in their life they can get out of their house with their family, their children, their wife and walk to a restaurant, have dinner and walk home without fear. They’ve never had that feeling in their lifetime. That’s pretty significant to them.”

As ambassador, Johnson was part of making a huge difference when a food emergency struck during the Covid year of 2020 after Tropical Storm Amanda roared ashore from the Pacific Ocean on May 31.

The storm disrupted food distribution in the country at a time when the pandemic already had normal business in a headlock. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele reached out to Cardwell, who then connected with the U.S. Embassy and Ambassador Johnson. With families along the streets of El Salvador waving white flags to let others know they needed help, time was of the essence.

“When you’re shipping containers, it takes six to eight weeks,” Cardwell said. “That was not going to provide the relief they needed at the moment.”

Convoy of Hope stepped forward and told Cardwell they could get him as much food as he could deliver. Johnson used his military and government connections to secure a C-17 transport plane that could be loaded in Missouri with 40,000 pounds of food and relief supplies.

“One of the things that I like about People Helping People is that when they make a donation, it’s not the United States government, and they are much more agile,” Johnson said. “They just move quicker. We worked with their point of contact (Lisselot Troconis) in El Salvador to make sure it got distributed quickly and that it went to people in need, not controlled by the government.”

“The way that they responded, and the way that they worked in a crisis was just incredible,” Cardwell said of the U.S. Embassy staff and People Helping People’s team on the ground. “They were able to deliver the goods and kind of stand in the gap until the government could get food en route.”

Though he was there in an official capacity, Johnson felt more like he was representing ordinary Americans during that relief effort.

“Even as the United States ambassador representing the government, I was so proud to be there and say, ‘This is not from the U.S. government; this is from your neighbors — this is from people in the United States who want to help our friends in El Salvador’,” he recalled. “And I think that made a huge difference.”

Johnson believes that America is at its best when it is extending a helping hand to others, uplifting them while also bringing Americans together in a common, just cause.

“I talk to groups about the division that is occurring in our country and how we need to get back to our fundamental foundation and be Americans,” said Johnson, who is just as busy today in his roles as a well-traveled consultant, adviser and teacher. “We’ve lost sight of the fact that America has always been the most compassionate, most generous country in the world, willing to help any neighbor.”

He believes that America is not as visible around the world for its good deeds as it once was — and that rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, Russia and China are more than happy to see America’s reputation as a force for good in the world damaged.

“They want to push the United States to the side and see us in decline, and in some ways we are in decline right now,” Johnson said. “We have to turn that around, and we can.”

Retreating from the world stage, however, may not be the solution — especially in America’s neighborhood of the world.

“I worry about how we treat our neighbors,” Johnson said. “No nation can stand alone in the world today. We need the help and cooperation of our neighbors. There are a lot of neighbors, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, that we need to embrace a little more and help out a little more. And I don’t see that.”

More important than how the world sees America, however, is how our own people see their country, especially the younger generation. He has witnessed real civil war rip a nation apart, so he does not take any level of American division lightly and constantly preaches the need for our people to unite and embrace what makes them uniquely American.

“My hope for the world is that I still pray a lot, and I still try to talk to young people, in particular students and young business people who just seem naive about the ways of the world and evils that are out there and naive about things like how good and how generous the United States has been and continues to be,” he said. “But we lose visibility on a lot of that.”

We are a nation of individuals, he notes, but our strength flows from our unifying principles.

“There are so many people I see now, young people in particular, who want to be hyphenated Americans,” Johnson said. “Just be an American. American’s pretty good. Hang on to your heritage and be proud of it, but we’re all Americans here. People risk their lives and spend their entire treasure to come here. You’re here now, so be proud of it. We need to be Americans, and we need to come together because divided we’re in trouble.”

VIDEO: Ronald Johnson is honored by the U.S. Special Forces Regiment as a Distinguished Member of the Regiment

Vision Trip to El Salvador again inspires ideas and action

People Helping People Network Vision Trips to El Salvador feature a whirlwind of activity, sights and emotions, and the most recent trip in March was no exception.

The 11 participants visited — among other sites — the Center for Hope (headquarters of operations in San Salvador), Fuller Center housing communities in Ahuachapán and Nuevo Cuscatlán II, Giusseppe Angelucci en Zaragoza Home for the Elderly, San Vicente de Paul in San Salvador, King’s Castle, as well as hospital facilities for women and newborns. At various stops, they also distributed food, medical supplies, wheelchairs and a heavy dose of hope.

Participants first toured the Center for Hope, where a massive expansion that has doubled its size will exponentially magnify its impact is about 90 percent complete, according to PHP Network Founder Jeff Cardwell.

“It looks beautiful, and there’s lots of room,” said Cardwell, who noted that one of its most important expansions is a new blood lab that will not only help women already being screened for cancer at the facility but also will the first time be able to screen men for prostate cancer in a country where early detection of cancer and other diseases remains problematic.

The dental clinic has expanded from one to two chairs and has new equipment donated by Dr. John Yurkovich. The thriving culinary school’s expansion will allow it to instruct 20 students at a time instead of eight, as well as provide the opportunity for rotating classes.

After road construction detoured a planned visit to a Fuller Center for Housing community in Apaneca on day two, they visited two Fuller Center communities in Ahuachapán and distributed 18 wheelchairs, as well as food, while also meeting with King’s Castle Ministries’ Don Triplett at the site of a new church that will serve multiple functions for local residents.

“They were there putting on the roof panels,” Cardwell said. “That’s really important this time of the year because the rainy season is about to start. They need about $50,000 for windows, doors, pews, instruments and everything else to be fully complete, but it’s a huge church. It started out as just building a church, but Don insisted it needed to be more. It will also be a Christian education center, a community center and a building that can be used for the benefit of the community seven days a week. It’s going to be a great asset for the whole surrounding area there.”

Grace Assembly of God has pledged $25,000 to help finish the building, and participants on this Vision Trip will match that total to ensure it is finished as soon as possible. 

“It should be complete sometime this summer,” Cardwell said. “Hopefully we’ll be attending service there on our next vision trip in the fall.”

He noted that participants did a fantastic job of capturing and sharing powerful images from their other visits, including the hospital, the King’s Castle Prayer Tower, home for the elderly and the orphanage. The orphanage has typically housed 80 to 120 children at a time but now cares for 270. Much of that increase, Cardwell said, can be attributed to the government’s successful crackdown on crime and gangs. Some of the children now at the orphanage are children of those who have been incarcerated.

The visit to the orphanage also spurred a couple of participants to propose another idea for a program — automotive repair vocational training. Because children have to leave the orphanage at 18, the concept is to provide training years earlier so that children could be ready to immediately be employed upon leaving.

“If we can get them started, that would be a great trade for some of the kids in the orphanage,” said Cardwell, who noted that this is just the latest example of someone being inspired with a new idea to provide hope in El Salvador. “People ask how these programs get started. Every one was birthed on a Vision Trip. All we do is say, ‘Yes.’ And people help get them started.”

Cardwell closed by praising the efforts of Vision Trip participants to visually document and share their experiences. Some of the best images from the trip can be seen in the gallery below, while all of the photos taken during the trip can be viewed at this link.

GALLERY: Click thumbnails to see larger images

Jim Morris’ life of service began in Indianapolis, expanded to the whole world

People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell calls Jim Morris one of his heroes. Many in Indianapolis feel the same way, and Morris is recognized for his decades of service in making the city a thriving economic hub and a desirable place to live, work and play.

But there are millions more around the world — especially young adults who were once starving children — who also consider Morris one of their heroes. Unlike Cardwell and others in the Indianapolis community, those people may not recognize Morris’ face or even his name, but they intimately familiar with one of the many life-changing initiatives Morris has led since his early days in Indianapolis city government — the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP).

When Richard Lugar was elected mayor of Indianapolis in 1967, he brought on Morris as his chief of staff. He then spearheaded their “sports strategy” to revitalize downtown Indy. It would be hard to understate the impact of its success as Indianapolis not only has thriving pro sports franchises and top-of-the-line facilities, but the city also has become a regular host of such events as Super Bowls and collegiate national championships.

After leaving city government in 1973, Morris then spent 13 years as CEO of the Indianapolis Water Company for 13 years and 16 years as the President of the Lilly Endowment, where his philanthropic efforts helped raise funds for cultural staples such as the Indianapolis Zoo, the Indiana Repertory Theatre and the RCA Dome.

Morris eagerly accepted leadership positions and board postings over the next few decades, but it was his stint as the U.N. World Food Programme’s Executive Director from 2002-2007 that was one of the most challenging — and most rewarding — of his remarkable lifetime of service. He oversaw efforts to feed more than 115 million people in over 100 countries, including relief during the Iraq War and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

  “It was an awesome experience,” Morris said earlier this week after a busy weekend that including hosting the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. (Morris is Vice Chairman for Pacers Sports & Entertainment, owners of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and the WNBA’s Indiana Fever among other franchises and operations.)

“The World Food Program is such a remarkable agency,” he said. “It’s the largest humanitarian program in the world. It’s the largest piece of the United Nations. It does its work very, very well.”

Now headed up by Cindy McCain, the WFP continues to combat hunger around the world, a world that seems to grow more chaotic every year. But the mission of the WFP, Morris says, is critical.

“There’s nothing more serious, as sad, or more important than feeding hungry children,” he said. “A hungry child has no chance in life, but if you can get 2,300 good calories of well-balanced nutrition in a child, everything about their life changes for the better. It’s sad that at that time there were a billion hungry people in the world, and so many of them women and children.

“It’s the greatest health issue in the world,” Morris added. “A hungry child has no chance to learn or to school. But if you feed that child, everything about their life changes profoundly, all for the better. At that time, we could feed a child for about 19 cents a day. So little went so far.”

So little, though, can do so much.

“A small investment in feeding children changes their lives in powerful ways, and they then can take care of themselves, take care of their families and build communities,” he said. “There’s huge leverage in feeding a hungry child. Everything about their life changes for the better.”

Hunger Relief is one of the key components of The People Helping People Network’s holistic HOPE Equation — Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE. In 2023 alone, The PHP Network’s team on the ground in El Salvador distributed more than 144,000 servings of food to Salvadoran families, notably many staple items like rice and beans.

However, PHP also is focused on helping families and communities develop sustainable food resources. While there is a time for handing out emergency food supplies, food distributions are viewed as a bridge to food security, not the final solution.

“At the end of the day, their life is at risk,” Morris said. “Feeding the child is a moral imperative. It is such a right thing to do. Investment in development programs and help people and countries to have the technology and research that helps them improve food production and food distribution, that’s even more powerful. But you have to feed that child that is hungry who might die otherwise.”

While hunger is an issue in the United States, even in the city of Indianapolis, there are fewer obstacles to developing sustainability here.

“The United States has such a remarkable system of research and technology and distribution,” Morris said. “Most research universities and land-grant colleges have county extension systems. ... It’s a brilliant system because research institutions work on how to produce more food, how to produce better food, safer food, and they can share that quickly through their system. But most countries don’t have that.”

Because most countries do not have the food networks and systems readily available in the United States, emergency distribution of food to address famine and hunger emergencies is a constant issue. Images of hungry children in desperate situations, especially as a result of war, often spur generous people to send donations to address the crises. But Morris says hunger is far more prevalent than the crises that make the nightly news.

“If there’s a crisis in the world, money pours in to feed the hungry child,” he said. “But 90 percent of the people in the world who are hungry are off the beaten path somewhere. They’re hidden and out of sight. It’s much more difficult to raise money for those folks.”

No country, though, has done more to fund that work than has his home country — one of the many things he says makes him proud to be an American.

“The United States was the largest donor to the World Food Programme,” he said. “I’ve always been proud to be an American because of our country’s generosity both public and private. It has a chance to make a difference in the lives of so many people, especially women and children.”

And while no amount of money can solve the problem of hunger around the world, he has a good reason to keep up the good fight.

“It’s simple — because you don’t want children to die,” he said. “You have to focus on the child whose life is at risk and do the work to solve that problem.”

While Cardwell considers Morris one of his heroes, that admiration is hardly a one-way street. Morris knows Cardwell shares his drive for helping others in as many ways as possible.

“Jeff Cardwell is a remarkable guy,” Morris said. “He is very focused on helping others. The man is driven by his faith and by his sense of the opportunity he has to make life better for others. That’s the principle mandate of our faith. He’s a wonderful human being.”

While many people who have accomplished so many things and held as many leadership positions might consider a quiet life of retirement, Morris remains busy. He has served on the boards of The International Center, Indiana University, Indiana State University, the Boy Scouts of America, Riley Children’s Foundation, and the United States Olympic Committee, and he is the United States’ permanent representative to the Executive Board of UNICEF. He remains busier even than the young man who helped make Mayor Lugar’s administration such a success in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“I’ve had extraordinary opportunities,” Morris says. “I think the good Lord put us here to be helpful and to say yes and to be useful. The good Lord says you love me by loving each other. We’re a part of God’s community, and I like that. There’s plenty to do wherever you are, and that’s a gift.”

And sports remains a passion, as well.

“Nothing brings people together in a community like sports,” Morris insists. “Everyone who lives in Indianapolis — black or white, rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, young or old — they want the Pacers, the Colts, the Fever, our baseball team to do well. There are 80,000 people in Indianapolis who earn their living through hospitality, entertainment, sports, etc. It’s a huge economic impact. It enhances the reputation of our city.

“So much about building community is about attracting bright young people to want to come live here,” he added. “They want to come to a city that has a symphony, good education, good health care and good economic opportunities where life is enriched. It dramatically changes life and brings us together.”

New church to put finishing touch on community of hope in Ahuachapán, El Salvador

Tucked away in the beautiful rolling hills of El Salvador’s western coffee country just a stone’s throw from the border with Guatemala is the city of Ahuachapán, where more than 100,000 people live in a historic town founded by Mayans in the 5th century.

Amid the hustle and bustle of town, it’s hard to imagine that higher up in the surrounding hills is a quieter world, where the streets are narrow and muddy and where most families struggle daily just to survive as they raise their families in flimsy shacks of sticks and tin.

For all the progress in El Salvador in recent years, there are still pockets where Third World problems persist and hope is a rare commodity.

But that is changing.

The People Helping People Network and partners like The Fuller Center for Housing and King’s Castle Ministries have embraced these families and worked tirelessly in the past few years to build safe, new homes while providing a hand-up through educational and vocational programs that help families create better todays for themselves and brighter tomorrows for their children.

The transformation truly began to become visible and tangible in 2016, when People Helping People and Fuller Center representatives visited a remarkably flat, empty plot of land amid the hills, a short walk from one of these shack-filled rural slums. Local officials who had seen the dramatic change that new housing opportunities had brought to the community of Nuevo Cuscatlán more than two hours away wanted to know if that plot of land could be similarly transformed into a thriving community of hope.

Not only has that empty plot indeed become a thriving community, but another one has been added a short walk higher in the hilly area. Today, 148 homes now stand, and more are planned.

Children play together in the streets and a playground. Safe electricity lights homes inside and out. While most families still get much of their income from working in the coffee industry, some run businesses out of their homes, including pharmacies and food stands.

However, something was lacking — a church. Thankfully, Assemblies of God churches led by Grace Assembly of God of Greenwood, Indiana, and New Hope Assembly of God of Urbandale, Iowa, have teamed up with King’s Castle to build not just a house of worship but also a facility that can serve as a meeting hall, daycare and learning center.

“The community we built in Ahuachapán is a true testament to God’s love,” said Fuller Center President David Snell, who also serves on The People Helping People Network’s board of directors. “The families there have moved from shacks to simple, decent homes, which they own and can proudly raise their families in. There was just one missing piece — a place in which to worship. We are grateful to our partners at the People Helping People Network and King’s Castle for providing just that place.

“With the support of Grace Assembly of God and New Hope Assembly of God, a new church and school are being built, which will not only provide a sanctuary for worship but school classrooms as well,” Snell added. “The community will soon be complete!”

“The kids that are there will get church on Sunday, but all during the week they’re going to be getting education and really getting their lives saved because they’ll be getting an opportunity to grow and stay and school and grow up to be strong, healthy adults and help other people,” added Jerry Clark, who has been instrumental in promoting the build.

People Helping People Network supporters — including Grace Assembly of God Pastor Wayne Murray and King’s Castle founder Don Triplett — visited the site last month to check on the progress.

The church project will need about $82,000 more in funding to be completed, and you can help get this church finished by contributing to this special fundraiser by The People Helping People Network:

VIDEO: Wayne Murray and Don Triplett discuss the church project

PHOTO GALLERY: From an empty plot to a community to a church

Orphanage fosters joy & hope

Some might think the 240 orphaned children of San Vicente de Paul in San Salvador might be sad, given their circumstances. Yet, with caring leadership, a dedicated staff, many volunteers and the support of The People Helping People Network and other groups, it has become a place of hope.

The children have become their own family — a huge family that exudes joy and love.

That joy was on full display as People Helping People Network supporters visited San Vicente de Paul during the 2023 Vision Trip earlier this month to deliver shoes, clothing, food, supplies and, of course, gifts to the children. Squeals of delight echoed throughout the main dining hall as children proudly clutched new clothes and played with toys.

“Having been here a year earlier, I had braced myself for the usual emotions that come with seeing all those sweet kids without parents and, of course, visiting the nursery,” Chris Johnson said. “However, I hadn’t planned for the sight of these beautiful little girls receiving baby dolls and holding them so preciously and lovingly. The dichotomy of that image — an orphaned girl with a beloved baby doll — that got to me. I had to step back for a moment and compose myself.”

Kelvin Garcia spent most of his youth at the orphanage, living there from age 6 to 14. In the video above, he remembers those years as happy times. Also in the new video, you’ll hear what other PHP Network supporters had to say about their experiences at the orphanage and hear from a young local volunteer about why she loves using her time to help the children grow, learn and thrive.

GALLERY: San Vicente de Paul visit

(Click thumbnails for larger images and captions.)

WHERE PRAYERS NEVER END

SANTA ANA, El Salvador — Jeff Cardwell has long cited a single moment in the Prayer Tower of King’s Castle Ministries where the seeds were planted for a movement he founded that would come to be known as The People Helping People Network.

That moment happened on June 17, 2000, while serving as a chaperone on his then 11-year-old daughter Sara’s church youth group trip to El Salvador. As he recounted in a story that you can read at this link, he felt he was too busy to be on the trip, yet his life was transformed, his eyes were opened and his priorities were shuffled immediately.

He began to prioritize spending time with his family and serving God in the world while continuing to excel in business yet without letting it dominate his life. To this day, Cardwell can barely contain his emotions when speaking about his experience at the Prayer Tower, which was one of the first stops on the recent 2023 Vision Trip by The People Helping People Network.

But he is not the only one who gets emotional upon returning to the site. We spoke to his daughter, Sara Marshall, about her return, and with son Jeff Cardwell, who made his first visit when he was 10 years old. They shared with us their thoughts about returning in the video above. The video also features King’s Castle founder Don Triplett, who talked about marking 25 years of continuous prayer in the tower — a milestone that was marked October 31, while 24/7 prayer continues today.

GALLERY: Vision Trip 2023 Prayer Tower visit

(Click thumbnails for larger images and captions.)

 “Millard would be proud”
of David Snell’s housing ministry stewardship

AMERICUS, Georgia — Millard Fuller not only launched the world’s affordable housing movement with his wife Linda back in the 1970s, but he also revolutionized the concept of philanthropy with the hand-up approach to charity with which the Fullers founded Habitat for Humanity in 1976 and then The Fuller Center for Housing in 2005.

A passionate Christian, Millard Fuller captivated millions of people with his boundless enthusiasm and unbridled determination delivered with an unapologetic Southern drawl from his tall, lanky frame. When he unexpectedly died from an aortic aneurysm on Feb. 3, 2009, the loss was felt across the United States and around the world.

But nowhere was shaken to its core quite like rural Sumter County, Georgia, where Millard and Linda met radical theologian Clarence Jordan at historic Koinonia Farm and where they would learn the concepts of uplifting people by partnering with them to build homes and stronger foundations for families and future generations.

Fuller was laid to rest in a simple wooden box in a still-unmarked grave on the farm on one of the coldest days — figuratively and literally that the community had ever endured. Even native Coloradoan David Snell, who had worked alongside Fuller in the 1990s at Habitat and since The Fuller Center’s founding in 2005, was freezing. Fuller had been more than just a colleague in a worthy endeavor — he was a friend.

Some wondered if it would be fitting for The Fuller Center for Housing to call it quits. For People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell, that was not an option. He was a Fuller Center board member at the time (as he is again today), and The Fuller Center was The People Helping People Network’s primary housing partner in its HOPE Equation. 

Cardwell also considered Fuller to be a mentor and friend, and he knew that the last thing Fuller would have wanted was for the ministry to which he had dedicated so much of his life to cease to exist. He wrote about the difficult time in his recently released book “The HOPE Equation”:

David Snell was Millard’s right-hand man at The Fuller Center, and they had worked together since the early 1990s when David organized a couple of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Projects for Habitat for Humanity. They again worked together from the first days of The Fuller Center in 2005. We unanimously chose David to be the new president of The Fuller Center.

Millard would be proud of how David has guided the ministry with a steady hand while staying true to the principles upon which The Fuller Center was founded, principles shaped decades earlier at Georgia’s historic Koinonia Farm with the inspiration of Clarence Jordan. They are simple, grass-roots, Christian principles, and, most importantly, they work. The PHP-FCH partnership is natural and permanent.

“That was a terrible blow to have Millard gone,” Snell said. “I often wonder, given his personality and his drive, where we would be today if he were still alive. I know we’d be different, but I’m proud of where we are. We’ve managed to maintain it and grow and are in great shape. I think he’d be pleased.

“It was a shame. It was untimely. But we’ve survived.”

The Fuller Center has done much more than survive in the nearly 15 years that Snell has been at the helm of the affordable housing ministry, with more than 8,000 families helped into simple, decent housing — including more than 1,000 new homes in El Salvador in partnership with The People Helping Network.

It’s all the more impressive considering that Snell came into the affordable housing ministry by accident more than 30 years ago after a successful career in the insurance industry. It was not Snell’s interest in housing issues that first got him involved but his fluency in Spanish.

“I got into housing by accident,” Snell recalls. “I’d sort of retired from corporate life and was living in the mountains in Colorado. A friend of mine that I had worked with in California stopped by. He was heading up the Carter Work Project in Tijuana and San Diego. They were having trouble communicating back and forth across the border, and I speak Spanish. He asked if we could come down, so we did. We moved to Mexico, lived in Tijuana and helped them put the project together.

“We thought it was a lark — a little six-month adventure,” he added. “Yet, here we are.”

Snell honed his Spanish skills during what he labels his “student of life” days, during which he lived in Mexico for a while.

“That’s the way you learn a language — go and be immersed in it,” Snell said. “I had a great time down in Mexico. It was different then, too.”

His Spanish skills will be quite appreciated in a couple of weeks as he joins People Helping People Network supporters once again on PHP’s annual Vision Trip to El Salvador. The Fuller Center also works in such Spanish-speaking countries as Nicaragua, Peru and Bolivia, as well as the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

“I use it more than you’d think,” he said of the language. “We have some great projects in Latin America, so I’m able to keep up with them and help get things done that would be more difficult otherwise. It makes it easier, too, when you’re visiting just being able to be a little closer to the lives of the people.”

Cardwell in particular appreciates Snell’s fluency in the language.

“That is particularly helpful for me because despite all of my travels in El Salvador, my language learning skills have proven to be woefully inadequate,” he readily admits.

From the 1990s to today, Snell has seen many changes in the affordable housing ministry, not the least of which is that the “affordable” part gets more and more difficult to facilitate.

“Costs have certainly changed,” he said. “We were building houses for $25,000 to $30,000 in the early days, which was a lot of money then. But the costs now are disproportionate to incomes. The biggest factor impacting building new homes — particularly in the United States — is cost. Costs have risen overseas, too, but not as much.”

Another difference is that the faces of the volunteers are looking a little older as the years go by.

“The whole notion of volunteerism seems to be shifting a little bit,” he said. “Of course, older folks are more likely to be retired and have the time. But I think they also have a stronger notion of volunteering than younger folks coming up do. We keep striving on our end to do a better job of engaging youth in our work because we are going to have to pass the torch at some point.”

Snell has accepted each new challenge as The Fuller Center’s ministry has evolved through the years and has no interest in backing down from leading the work.

“Part of it is that I just get bored too quickly,” he said. “A four-day weekend drives me nuts. But I like what I’m doing, and I can still contribute. So I figure, why not keep doing it? I don’t have any reason not to. And the alternative to me is unattractive. I like this.

“It’s compelling stuff,” he added. “I’m very attracted to the notion of charity that it embodies where we’re not giving stuff away — we’re helping people to help themselves and to lift themselves up. I think it’s very elegant. And it’s a very tangible ministry. We’re building houses — a very durable form of ministry.”

Snell also finds the synergy between The Fuller Center and The People Helping People Network to be compelling and something that he wants to see grow and flourish well into the future.

“The relationship with People Helping People is unique, but it also demonstrates the power of collaboration,” he said. “The things that we do and the things that People Helping People does fit together so nicely. It really elevates people. It’s not something we can do every place, but we’re blessed to be able to do it in El Salvador. It’s just perfect.”

Fuller Center Vice President of Communications Chris Johnson will be joining Snell, Cardwell and the others on this year’s Vision Trip. He has known both men since joining The Fuller Center in 2011 following more than two decades in journalism. In addition to telling The Fuller Center story, he also assists The People Helping People Network with its communication efforts. He is in a unique position to see how Snell and Cardwell and the organizations they lead have worked together through the years.

“David and Jeff personify the way these two organizations work hand-in-hand,” Johnson said. “Their skills — particularly Jeff’s ability to marshal resources and David’s pragmatic leadership — really complement each other and make them a formidable pair of do-gooders who get things accomplished. Just as important as their complementary skills, though, is their shared motivation as they are both inspired by faith and the biblical mandate to put that faith into action.”

You can learn more about The Fuller Center for Housing at their website, fullercenter.org.

Jamison and Kathy Carrier excel at ropin’ people into the joy of sharing God’s love

When People Helping People Network supporters Jamison and Kathy Carrier corralled a 50-person team to pack meals on the floor of Gainbridge Fieldhouse during last week’s Million Meal Marathon, it was about more than simply feeding families in need of sustenance.

It was also nourishment for the souls of those packing the meals, filling themselves with the spiritual nourishment that the Carriers and their many friends have found time and time again when sharing God’s love with others through service.

“That’s one of our big events of the year, for several reasons,” Jamison said. “Number one, you know you’re making a difference because it is actual food that is going directly to people to feed them. Number two, it’s a great time of fellowship. You get to enjoy the time you spend together. The other thing, for us, it encourages people to give back and serve, and they have fun doing it.”

People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell was excited to work with the Carriers on the Million Meal Marathon because he enjoys being around those like him who love to serve others and who strive to make a difference in the world.

“Jamison and Kathy are both great examples of leadership, and they each have a servant’s heart,” Cardwell said. “They are extremely generous with their time, talents and treasures. However, they also are very compassionate and humble. They put their faith in action serving those in need. They are doers. The fruits of their labor are many.”

Kathy says the motivation for serving is really quite simple.

“For me, I just want to see lives changed,” she said. “I want to see people make it to Heaven. That’s my ultimate goal. That’s what drives me — eternity. God gives us all a purpose, and we all need to be serving.”

“It’s just something that we love to do,” Jamison added. “I love to make a difference and help people who are less fortunate.”

Among other passions for Jamison and Kathy are rodeo and horse events — a love that is shared throughout their family. Unfortunately, most of these events occur on weekends, including Sundays.

“When we were taking our grandkids to rodeos, we just went to the Saturday portion,” Jamison said. “Sunday was family day, our church day, and we didn’t really make exceptions to that.”

However, there was a movement afoot called Cowboy Church. Cowboy Church is common at these types of events, though the Carriers found them to be less like church and more like quick devotions with few in attendance. When Jamison asked at other rodeo events why they had no Cowboy Church services, he was told they had no one to lead them. He had inadvertently walked right into the next question:

“Why don’t you do it?”

The answer from Jamison was a hard “no.” Sundays, as he had insisted, were for his family and his church. Yet, the question kept gnawing at him.

“Then I started talking with Kathy about it,” Jamison said. “God dealt with us, and we felt like it was something we needed to do to share our faith, rather than just keeping it to ourselves.”

“We just saw a lot of people weren’t being fed spiritually because rodeos are on weekends, meaning they are not in church on Sundays,” Kathy added. “So, we felt like God was leading us to bring the church to them.”

And bring it, they did!

They started small. Jamison would bring his guitar and sing, and Kathy would serve coffee and help organize the services. Attendance steadily grew at the 26 or so Circle C Cowboy Church services per year. More musicians came — bands, too. Where they held church, it was no quick devotion but more like a full service — perhaps with a few more neigh-sayers in the arena.

“It’s just grown and grown, and the attendance is crazy,” Jamison said. “It feels like everybody on the rodeo grounds shows up.”

“My gosh, I love love love Cowboy Church,” Kathy added. “And through that, we’re getting fed. Watching the changes in people is just awesome. We’ve had so many people start with Cowboy Church that are now going to church at home when they’re not at rodeos.”

At least 20 have been baptized at their services, and many more have made decisions to get baptized or join their local church as a result of their experiences with Circle C Cowboy Church.

“Our goal is to lead people to Jesus, and we want to see them get involved in a local church where they are,” Jamison said.

Last fall, the Carriers joined The People Helping People Network’s annual Vision Trip to El Salvador. It was their first visit to that particular country but hardly their first experience with mission work.

“We’ve been on a lot of mission trips and led mission trips, all different types,” Jamison said. “I’ve been involved in missions ever since I was mowing yards as a young kid and giving to missions.”

This trip, though, would be memorable for the many aspects of The People Helping People Network’s HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education) that they were able to witness in action during a whirlwind few days.

“The primary reason we went is because of Jeff Cardwell, and I’ve learned that when Jeff Cardwell asks you to do something, you do it,” Jamison said with a laugh. “I’d heard from several people about the work there. We wanted to go see it and see how we can get further involved. I know that when Jeff Cardwell does something, he does it with excellence. That was our expectation, and that’s exactly what it was.”

“It was emotional for me,” Kathy said. “We’d been to Haiti and other third-world countries and seen how other people live, but it’s a big reminder of how blessed we are. It makes me want to bless others.”

That is one of the reasons they wanted to bring along grandchildren Owen Schlageter and Maci Applegate. They were able to put their faith into action as they distributed food at housing communities, assembled and fitted wheelchairs for those in desperate need of mobility, visited with orphans, and more.

““I wanted them to see how blessed they are.”

The wheelchair event was the first major event of the trip and perhaps the most emotional for Kathy.

“Our daughter has a genetic disease, and she’s in a wheelchair a lot of the time, so it really hit home for me,” she said. “It made me realize more and more that we have everything we need. To be able to work together and bring that to them means a lot to me. We take it for granted.”

The Carriers continue to be ardent supporters of The People Helping People Network for one of the most basic reasons of all — it works. Specifically, The HOPE Equation delivers lasting change that is tangible and empowering.

“I think a lot of it is that it’s a strategic approach,” Jamison said. “It seems to simple, The HOPE Equation. Of course that’s what it is. But how many organizations actually take that approach? It would be hard to name a dozen organizations around the world that we are aware of that actually take the whole approach. I think it really sets it apart. It’s a holistic approach.”

It’s an approach, he says, that requires the right person to administer it. He believes Jeff Cardwell is the right person.

“It’s great to see how God is using him,” Jamison said. “When people say the words People Helping People Network, I never really understood the significance of the word ‘Network.’ Now, I’ve been able to see that. What Jeff is a master of is bringing people together to accomplish something.

“It’s great to have an organization where the leadership is in a position where they don’t have to draw anything from it,” he added. “Jeff Cardwell is actually giving into this organization. He’s not taking from it. Now you have a trustworthy source for distribution and partnership, and that’s the power of what Jeff is able to do. People with money are looking for places to give it. So, when you see somebody that you trust and it’s an outlet that you trust, it adds to the effectiveness of it.”

Kathy insists it all comes back to sharing God’s love, something that the Carriers and The People Helping People Network are all about.

“There’s so much love,” she said. “You can just feel the love that The People Helping People Network conveys. It’s spreading the love of God in a practical way with compassion. That’s what I see from The People Helping People Network.”

Jeff Cardwell shares how he was inspired to dedicate his life to spreading HOPE

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell announced today that his new book — “The HOPE Equation” — is now available for purchase from the Amazon bookstore for $12.99 with all proceeds going to support The People Helping People Network’s nonprofit work.

With co-author Chris Johnson (Vice President of Communications at The Fuller Center for Housing), Cardwell talks about his early days in business and charity work and how all of his experiences and inspirations would unexpectedly come together in a single moment to plant the seed for The People Helping People Network.

“I don’t know how I was able to squeeze all of the history, the success stories, the inspirational people and the many different voices together in less than 100 pages in a way that makes sense, but that’s probably where Chris with his journalism background factors in,” Cardwell said. “Amazingly, there will be something in this simple book that even those who’ve worked closely with People Helping People over the years will read about for the first time. I got emotional more than once recounting some of these stories and people that I’ve gotten to know through the years.”

“Jeff won’t brag on himself, but it’s his unique set of skills that got The People Helping People Network off the ground and busy changing lives through The HOPE Equation,” said Johnson, who has been contributing to PHP’s communications efforts since 2021. “I learned things I didn’t know in the process of working with Jeff on this book, and I think the story is going to inspire people to make a difference — a real, lasting difference.”

“The HOPE Equation” explains how Cardwell’s years in business prepared him to develop The People Helping People Network and the inspirations and reasoning behind The HOPE Equation itself (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE). It also includes dozens of images captured through the years, including many by visual guru and PHP supporter Todd Scoggins.

The book costs $12.99 at Amazon, with free shipping for Amazon Prime members. All profits from these book sales will support the work of The People Helping People Network.

As Honorary Consul of
El Salvador, Jeff Cardwell
sings country’s praises

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — In 2019, People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell received the highest honor the Salvadoran Congress can bestow upon a noncitizen when he was honored as Noble Friend of El Salvador.

Last week, he was honored with one of the highest honor the Salvadoran president can bestow upon a noncitizen when President Nayib Bukele named him Honorary Consul of El Salvador in the United States.

It happened during the first Congress of Honorary Consuls, at which honorary consuls from 48 nations gathered to learn more about the government and efforts by the Bukele administration to tout major achievements, ongoing projects and future initiatives so that the consuls will have a wealth of information as they promote the country.

“Basically, you go out and tell the good story of El Salvador,” Cardwell said. “You’re an advocate, an ambassador for El Salvador.”

Cardwell has been telling the story of El Salvador for more than 20 years, and The People Helping People Network has been one of the factors in helping the country make great strides over the years. He also has been an honorary consul before — during the administration of President Tony Saca, who left office in 2009.

Of course, Cardwell was touting the positive changes in Salvador long before President Bukele took office in 2019, but he notes that those improvements have rapidly accelerated under the Bukele administration.

“The transformation in the four years Bukele has been in office really has been amazing,” he said. “They’re open for business. In 2015, it was rated as one of the most dangerous countries in the Western Hemisphere. Today, they are the safest country of all the Americas in the Western Hemisphere. The economic development opportunities are tremendous. They’ve got a great workforce. The country is beautiful, and tourism is exploding with the mountains, scenery, beaches and Surf City. The sports scene is expanding. Tourism is up more than 300 percent since Bukele took office.

“It is a new El Salvador,” Cardwell stressed. “If somebody came to me and asked why they should go to El Salvador, I’d tell them they need to see the new El Salvador. It’s safe. It’s beautiful. If you’re looking for tourism, there are lots of fun activities. There are international business opportunities there. They’re on the U.S. dollar system, and they have a strong banking system and stable political environment today.”

While he was not exactly sure what the first Congress of Honorary Consuls would entail before leaving for El Salvador with friend and PHP supporter Todd Scoggins, Cardwell found the updates from Cabinet ministers helpful. However, getting to know the other 47 honorary consuls was a highlight of the trip.

“I’m really, really glad I went,” he said. “It was very rewarding and very well put together. … They had people from Germany, Morocco, Australia, Romania — from all over the world. It was incredible. I just met the best people in the world. Everyone was so friendly. And I’ve got all the contacts for the other 47. That was the neatest part of the whole experience.”

Revisiting Giussepe Angelucci Nursing Home

During the trip, Cardwell and Scoggins were able to visit the Giussepe Angelucci Nursing Home and its 47 residents, most of whom had been utterly abandoned or alone before coming to the facility. The People Helping People Network first visited the home in March of this year and found the staff working hard to take the residents with very little resources.

Since March, however, PHP has been able to provide a new refrigerator, freezer bedding, pillows, TVs, washers, dryers and much more. Next on the agenda are converting a storage area to a medical and first aid supplies area, as well as a new bathroom area with showers so that residents may be bathed with privacy and dignity.

Of all the items, including food, that PHP and the local leaders at Gente Ayudando Gente have been able to provide, the biggest hit with the residents was not exactly what you might consider a pressing need.

“The thing they love the most out of all the things that were delivered — Lisselot Troconis got it for some entertainment — was a new karaoke machine,” Cardwell said. “They just absolutely love it. They just did it for fun, but it’s been a super-big hit!”

You can help the residents of the nursing home or support our many other uplifting programs with a gift today!

Students’ spring break
in El Salvador eye-opening
and perspective-altering

FRANKFORT, Indiana — Crossing School of Business & Entrepreneurship teacher Zach Golden had two main things he wanted the eight students from the school’s Frankfort campus to bring back with them from their spring break trip to El Salvador in late March with The People Helping People Network.

No, not souvenirs, suntans or a few more Spanish words in their vocabularies — but an understanding of what joy is all about and a sense of gratitude for everything they have in their American communities.

“I think that goal was achieved,” Golden said of the trip that included visits to slums, new housing communities, medical facilities, a senior-care home, an orphanage, King’s Castle Ministries and more. It was a visit that presented third-world life in a way no book could illustrate.

“Even where we are, we see poverty, but our level of poverty is not the same as when you go to a third-world country,” he said. “Our worst days, our bad days, our storms, our struggles don’t compare to the struggles that people face in a third-world country.”

And, yet, everywhere they visited, there was joy.

“God provides in ways we take for granted here,” Golden said.

Campus Administrator Marissa Mills, who joined the trip, was impressed with the relational focus of The People Helping People Network and the human touch.

“Everything we did was about people,” she said. “We went from one location to the next where we could just hug people, talk to people and encourage people. For me, that was very impactful. Love is a language, and we were able to connect in that way. I really enjoyed being able to pray in different spots. I don’t feel like we do that in the United States very well.”

The third administrator on the trip, teacher Angel Dickerson, noted that the students were so moved during the trip that they are now using the campus’ student run snack bar — The Sweet Stop — to raise money for the senior home they visited, a church-run site with very few resources.

(Those resources have been greatly supplemented since the trip thanks to funding from The People Helping People Network. After the photo gallery at the end of this story, see the list of supplies that have now been delivered to the Giusseppe Angelucci en Zaragoza Home for the Elderly.)

Senior Kylie Field was particularly struck by the living conditions of some of the youth in El Salvador, including many much younger than her.

“Those were things that I’d never imagined seeing,” she said. “I can’t imagine my friends or family living like that. It was an awakening for me. It made me have a lot more gratitude and be more thankful.”

One of her most perspective-altering memories was at an orphanage when Mr. Golden used a English-to-Spanish translation app to talk to an 11-year-old boy. He asked the boy what he would want if he could have anything in the world. He replied that he would ask God to remove evil.

“When I was an 11-year-old girl, I never would have said that,” added Field, who said she is more determined than ever to share her faith.

“When I first got back, it was real hard on me because a lot of the people around here in Indiana, they didn’t understand what I saw, and trying to communicate it was really hard,” she said. “I just wanted to spread the word about God so much. It was hard because a lot of my family isn’t like me, and some of my friends don’t know who God is. So, any chance I get I’m talking about God, and the old me didn’t used to do that.”

Sophomore Kianna Golden was amazed by the love that was shown to them by the Salvadoran people.

“The lovingness from everybody is not like it is here in America,” she said. “I was surprised to see how many people believed in Jesus and had a relationship with Him. It was just nice to be with people there. It felt good.”

Like Field, she experienced a faith boost.

“The thing that has changed the most is my faith,” she said of the weeks since the trip. “I feel like I should be a lot more grateful for things, and I feel like I should be less selfish and love on people more.”

Senior Jaden Ball also was impressed with the joy and gratitude for every little thing.

“The one thing I remember the most is definitely how happy the people were to see us,” he said. “I don’t think I saw one person without a smile when we went someplace. They were just grateful we were there and really appreciative.”

His teacher’s hope that they would see the “needs” here in the U.S. was realized.

“It’s definitely made me a lot more of a humble and grateful person,” Ball said. “A lot of people here are guilty of thinking that they have it really bad when in reality they really don’t. I’ve seen the difference between what they think is really bad and what I saw.”

“The hospitality down there was a foreign concept,” senior Matt McDaniel said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. They were just so nice. … They didn’t take things for granted.”

He came back with a determination to change the world … or at least parts of Indiana around him. For now, though, a few more weeks of school remain.

“I have made small changes,” he said. “It’s crazy how much we take for granted and the little things that we get upset over. I feel really out of place in Indiana. That’s the only way to put it. El Salvador was just so eye-opening. It gave me a whole new perspective on what I could be doing versus what I am doing in Indiana.”

“I’m a lot more grateful,” added senior Samuel Fearnow, who also now believes there are so many more ways for him to contribute to his community. “I just don’t feel like I’ve applied myself as well as I could. There is so much more we can do.”

(Note: Fellow students Andrew Prather, Abigayle Dickerson, Jazmine Hale also were on the trip but were unable to chat via Zoom … for good reason: They were at work.)

ITEMS PROVIDED TO HOME FOR THE ELDERLY BY PHP

1 TWO-DOOR REFRIGERATOR WITH DRAWER FREEZER • 1 FREEZER • 1 MICROWAVE OVEN • 1 DRYER (20-KG CAPACITY) • 9 TRANSFER BENCHES (USED TO BATHE PATIENTS) • 50 PILLOWS • 20 SHEETS • 2 SMALL TABLES • 6 GALLONS of CLOROX • 2 GALLONS OF CRÈME FOR BEDSORES • 10 GALLONS OF FLOOR DISINFECTANT • 2 GALLONS OF BODY CREAM • 2 GALLONS OF SHAMPOO • 2 GALLONS OF CONDITIONER • 2 GALLONS OF HAND SOAP WALKER • 4 PAIRS OF CRUTCHES • 6 CANES • 1 WALKER • PAMPERS • CLOTHES • 12 BOXES OF RICE AND SOY

* 3 55-inch televisions donated to the home by Siman Foundation

Dr. John Orthodontics
team all smiles after
serving in El Salvador

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. — For years, Dr. John Yurkovich has heard many stories from his friend Matt Gillette about the great work The People Helping People Network was facilitating in El Salvador. He strongly encouraged “Dr. John” — as he is known by friends and colleagues alike — to see for himself.

But Dr. John said it had been a long time since he had drilled into a tooth and performed such dental work that he figured would be of most use on a service trip to a third-world country. However, if his skills as an orthodontist could ever be of use, he was ready.

Fortunately, PHP’s Center for Hope in El Salvador has had a full-time dentist for more than a year — Jose Mixco, who happens to be the son of PHP’s director of operations in El Salvador, Lisselot Troconis. When he first began addressing dental needs, Mixco found that about 70 percent of children ages 6 to 9 had a cavity in their first permanent molars, including some that needed extraction. He made it his mission to promote dental health, and in 2022 alone, he saw more than 800 patients at the Center for Hope in addition to taking free dental clinics to various communities.

His office at the center is modern and bright. Families are grateful for the service. Now, he is able to take dental care a step further thanks to the likes of Dr. John.

“There was a need for braces and an ability to continue treatment, so the stars aligned,” Dr. John said of the opportunity in March to take three of his team members with him on a People Helping People Network mission to provide orthodontic care at the Center for Hope while also delivering thousands of dollars’ worth of orthodontic supplies to keep the work going.

Dr. John and clinical assistants Cassie Tester and Meggin Sponseller fit seamlessly into the Center for Hope’s operation.

“They were so helpful, and we kind of just came together as a team,” Dr. John said. “Usually it takes about an hour and a half or two hours to do it, but with all of the teamwork, we were able to put braces on in an hour. We were able to do 22 people. It was a pretty incredible experience.”

The families they assisted thought it was pretty incredible, too.

“They were unbelievably grateful,” Dr. John said. “They were so excited to pick out the colors of their braces. Some people got teary after they saw them. Some of the parents couldn’t say thank you enough.

“It definitely gave me a sense of perspective of just how different life is here,” he added. “It gave me a sense of gratitude and a sense of excitement — excitement to go back and excitement to see how the treatments are progressing. Overall, it’s just gratefulness.”

Joining clinical assistants Tester and Sponseller from the office on the trip was patient coordinator Susie Blain. While the other three colleagues were primarily focused on activities in the dental office, Blain was able to join PHP leaders, supporters, and a team of high school students as they witnessed other aspects of The People Helping People Network’s HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE) in action.

As with most people who witness the work during these whirlwind Vision Trips, it was a life-changing and perspective-altering experience.

“It was breathtaking and awe-inspiring,” Blain said. “It was all I could do to take it all in through the whole experience. It was just unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before. It was emotional and sometimes emotionally exhausting but in a good way because I could see something that I’d never seen or experienced before.”

She was with the group as they distributed wheelchairs at a mental hospital and a home for the elderly — two places that PHP had never visited before this trip. It felt very different to her than being in similar American facilities.

“Because of HIPPA and what-not and different belief systems, here we’re not able to go into a hospital and pray over people and be welcomed,” Blain said. “People are skeptical, and there they were so grateful and just welcomed us. There were tears and people singing and grateful prayer. It was just something like I’ve never seen before.

“It was really incredible and life-changing for sure,” she continued. “It’s something that I couldn’t have imagined. I came away with a renewed sense of faith and renewed sense of hope in humanity that has been kind of lost here in the States over the last few years because of all the things that our country has been going through.”

Blain was especially touched by the children of El Salvador.

“We learned a few Spanish phrases while we were there, and one of them was Dios lo bendiga, which means ‘God bless you,’” she said. “Every child that I said that to responded ‘amen’ in English, even the littlest ones. I thought that was just incredible. Hearing a 5-year-old say ‘amen’ was just mind-blowing.”

One child in particular sticks out in her mind. Her family had very little, yet when she saw the group come into her community, she rushed to give Blain a flower.

“To be given a flower by a little girl in a village when we went to hand out food that she picked was amazing,” she said. “They lived in a house with a dirt floor and a wash bowl. They are so grateful.”

When she toured communities of houses built in partnership with The Fuller Center for Housing, she felt as if she had stepped back into time, into a hippie-ish era of peace and love.

“Walking through the community was like I’d gone back in time to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” she said. “It was like it was 1965. I’m walking down this perfectly lovely street, and the people are loving. It was surreal.”

Dr. John said he and other members of the team were similarly impacted by the overall experience, one that was extended three days by flights delayed because of bad weather in the United States. (They wound up being put up during the three extra days at a beautiful resort-style hotel on the coast. As Blain put it, they were “stuck in paradise.”)

“I was searching to fill some sort of void I didn’t know I was missing,” said Dr. John, who noted that the experience proved to be a bonding experience that he believes will foster better understanding and appreciation for each other in their work environment. “It left me with a sense of wholeness.”

It also left him with an appreciation for The People Helping People Network’s holistic approach to uplifting families and communities.

“In all areas, what was most fascinating me was that they’re trying to build a middle class — taking people from squalor and giving them opportunities and actually making a change,” Dr. John said. “With braces, you’re changing people’s lives. But what they’re doing is not just changing lives — it’s changing generations.”

GALLERY (Click thumbnails for larger images)

  Salvadorans’ joyous spirit impresses visiting Americans

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — In December of 2022, People Helping People Network supporters visited multiple Fuller Center for Housing sites — including the largest community, the 131-home Nuevo Cuscatlán II in the San Salvador metro area.

Over the next two days, they would meet homeowner families in the 50-home Juayuá community and the 145 homes in the Ahuachapán I & II communities, each of them two hours west in the rural highlands of the country. Their homes were not only sturdy and safe, but the families had the pride and empowerment of home ownership that most did not have while renting shacks in slum areas.

In each of these new communities, supporters found smiling faces, festive music and happy children playing. Families were friendly, welcoming and exuded joy.

Before that, however, they visited the slums of Nuevo Cuscatlán. Streets were dusty and muddy. The hillside was crammed full of shacks pieced together with tin, plastic and pieces of wood. It was an extreme example of poverty housing.

In that poor community, the supporters found smiling faces, festive music and happy children playing. Families were friendly, welcoming and exuded joy.

As shocking as the poverty housing conditions were, the visitors seemed more taken aback by the joy. Where was the despair? Where was the hopelessness?

More than 200 families have escaped the slums of Nuevo Cuscatlán to start new lives in the Fuller Center communities of Nuevo Cuscatlán I and II. Though the conditions of the shacks they left behind would horrify many Americans, some Salvadoran families actually moved into the vacant shacks that they considered an upgrade from their previous poverty housing.

Encario, who lives with his nephew, was one of the first residents to greet visitors as they strolled the narrow, uneven dirt path between dozens of shacks. He invited them to tour the dirt-floor shack he called home. He apologized for just one thing — he had no treats to offer his new American friends.

It struck the mostly American delegation as a strange dichotomy — poverty housing and joy. Many of them knew plenty of people back home who lived in modern American homes with two stories, pools, large yards and every modern convenience. Yet, many of their neighbors did not have the same sense of joy they witnessed in every part of El Salvador.

“People can still have joy whether they have a lot or a little,” noted Pastor David Hull. “They’re very appreciative of every little thing we do for them. Then we come to America and sometimes we’re not as appreciative of what God’s blessed us with. It’s a joy to bless them because they appreciate everything. They have a very joyful spirit.”

“I can’t believe how friendly and nice everyone is,” Jodi Lewis said. “They’ve been unbelievable. There’s joy and happiness here that we don’t have in the United States. They’re very appreciative, and I love them.”

“They’re happy to see us, and they have joy even though they know their living conditions are not good,” Kathy Carrier said. “It tells me that it’s not things that give us joy — it’s peace and family and God.”

Her granddaughter Maci Applegate echoed the sentiment.

“We’re always focused on what we don’t have, and everyone here is just focused on living and being happy,” she said. “There’s such joy and contentment here that we don’t have in America.”

The joy in the slums seemed to be a little less jarring to those who have traveled to such places before.

“I’ve done a little bit of traveling to other third world countries,” Steve Wolff said. “It always gives me that perspective of how people with nothing treat each other much better than people who have everything.”

“I think it’s the same throughout the world — we don’t know what we’ve been denied or what we don’t have,” added Rich Van Paris. “We gain an appreciation for every little thing.”

Fuller Center for Housing Vice President of Communications Chris Johnson, who also assists with some People Helping People Network projects such as the 2022 Vision Trip to El Salvador, also has witnessed such joy in other third world countries.

“The culture shock of these kinds of trips, for me, is coming home to — um, how shall I put it — a less-than-generous overall spirit and definitely less joy,” Johnson said. “I know folks back home in standard 2,000-square-foot homes that would be considered mansions here and, yet, are focused on the few things they don’t have or are envious of those who accumulate more things. Maybe their joy is hidden under all that stuff in their homes. Maybe they keep it in a box in the closet.”

Johnson was quick to add, though, that joy does not mean the slum-dwellers of Nuevo Cuscatlán do not understand their situation.

“They have joy but not necessarily satisfaction,” he said. “They know that not far from here are people living in sturdy homes with safe electricity and water — and they know that those people also were once in their shoes. While they have joy, they also hope for a better future. And they understand that these people visiting are committed to helping manifest that hope into reality. They’re not here to gawk. They’re here to help.

“When the people on this trip see these conditions and see that these good people have so much joy nonetheless, it just makes them even more determined to help.”

MaryAnn Kolb was one of those for whom witnessing the joy amid such poverty further steeled her determination.

“I think the fact that we’re able to give them hope and give them safety and security, and running water and safe electricity, that changes their lives forever,” Kolb said. “With all that we take for granted in our country, people need to come here and witness what true poverty is. Then they’ll have a sense of gratitude for everything that we have in our lives.”

One of the main purposes of The People Helping People Network’s Vision Trips to El Salvador is giving supporters an up-close view of the tremendous progress PHP has made in the country with their help. Another, though, is to show that there are many more opportunities to spread more hope.

“I think this is a very humbling experience,” Van Paris said. “You don’t necessarily go back to the United States and be so grateful for what you have; you just wish you could be part of giving more down here and El Salvador and giving to the people so that they can move up socio-economically and do better for their children and their families.”

“It is heartbreaking to see what is out there — how blessed we are and how many of these people don’t have anything,” Lewis added. “My prayer is that more people would donate and give. This is just heartbreaking. I am blessed to have been able to be here. It has been an honor to be here and serve these people. We’re definitely coming back.”

Perhaps no one on the trip had a perspective quite like Pastor Hull, who was on just his second trip to El Salvador. The first was 32 years ago.

“It’s great to see the progress in the country, and, yet, there’s so much more that needs to be done,” Hull said. “It’s great to see such a great vision. We’re grateful for what God’s already done, but there’s so much more to do.”

Dental clinic adds more reasons to smile in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — One of The People Helping People Network’s most impactful health initiatives in El Salvador is the gynecological clinic at the Center for Hope, where hundreds of women receive basic screenings such as mammograms and pelvic ultrasounds to detect problems and cancers in early stages.

Early detection is critical for successful intervention, and such screenings are commonplace in the United States. However, they are far more rare in El Salvador, and the Center for Hope’s clinic has become a precious resource for hundreds of women who receive those basic services — including many women whose lives have been saved thanks to these screenings and subsequent care.

One of the people who was inspired by the successes of the gynecological clinic, though, is not a woman but Jose Mixco, a dentist. His mother, Lisselot Troconis, is a testament to the importance of early detection and prevention and is now a breast cancer survivor. (See Lisselot’s story here.) She also just happens to be the director of The People Helping People Network’s work in El Salvador.

Mixco set out to follow in the footsteps of the Center for Hope’s gynecological clinic by providing basic preventative care and treatment in the dental arena. Again, while such basic dental services are a regular part of growing up in the United States, it’s not so commonplace in El Salvador.

“People really need it,” Mixco said. “I’ve worked in rural areas, so I know that people here do need a lot of dental work. I even did a study with kids ages 6-9 and saw that at least 70 percent have a cavity in their first permanent molars — a cavity that might lead to an extraction or at least a root canal.”

Through his now well-equipped office at the Center for Hope, he is working to change that. In 2022 alone, the dental clinic helped more than 800 patients. Free dental clinics have helped reach communities that never would have considered dental care a priority compared to such daily needs as getting enough to eat and finding safe shelter.

Even in the U.S., a dentist’s office is not exactly a child’s preferred place to visit, but Mixco and assistant Sarai Linares have made the office bright and comfortable. The equipment looks as modern as any in the U.S., and the office will be able to expand along with the entire Center for Hope to make it even more comfortable.

“It’s pretty normal for kids to be scared, but I try to be as calm as possible and make them as relaxed as possible,” Mixco said.

Today, the only people who emerge from the dental office with bigger smiles than the children are their parents.

“The parents are very grateful,” Mixco said. “When one of their children has a lot of pain or when they themselves have a lot of pain in a tooth or need a complicated treatment and you help them alleviate that pain, it’s a great feeling. And the happiness they have is amazing.”

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  Culinary school sets table for new economic opportunities in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — When The People Helping People Network launched a culinary school program a few years ago as a unique addition to its education and economic advancement opportunities, no one imagined just how transformative the program would become.

“Some of the people in our housing program were looking for new job opportunities and new job skills to improve their income for their family,” PHP founder Jeff Cardwell said. “We thought it could be a good opportunity, but it has exceeded all of our expectations. There’s no way I would have ever imagined this.”

The program is hardly just a way for people to brush up on some cooking skills. It trains people for careers in the culinary industry. And it must train them quite well because it has a 95 percent job placement rate for its graduates.

Restaurants and hotels are now jumping at the opportunity to work with the culinary school’s students through a new program that adds a fourth month to the formerly three-month course in which students get hands-on practice in a commercial environments.

“In the culinary school right now, we’re talking to the biggest restaurants in El Salvador,” Gente Ayudando Gente Program Director Marco Castro said. “They’re really interested in getting scholarships for our students for a fourth month, giving them an opportunity in their kitchens so that they can practice with their staff and after that being hired. We’re talking to hotels, restaurants and chain restaurants.”

Other recently established partnerships include one with VIVA to help students learn English, with Chefs for the World to enhance learning curves and wife USAID/Foreign Relations, which helps students get temporary work visas in the United States.

The People Helping People Network also has incorporated psychological support and counseling for students, many of whom have never had the opportunity to hold down a formal job.

Of course, you can’t have great students without a great teacher, and that is one of the blessings that helped catapult the school from a cool idea to a thriving program that changes lives. José Rodriguez is the master chef who commands attention with a reserved but demanding demeanor in the class kitchen at People Helping People’s headquarters in San Salvador.

“He’s one of the top chefs in El Salvador,” Cardwell said. “We originally started out working with him hoping he would just help us build a curriculum and help us get things up and started and maybe train a team to get going. But he’s enjoyed it so much, he continues to lead the program, and he loves teaching these students.

“He loves what we’re doing, and he’s got a passion for teaching people to be chefs and help people to get employment,” he added. “We’re very blessed to have him.”

Visiting the culinary school during The People Helping People Network’s Vision Trips to El Salvador has become one of the highlights of the whirlwind, days-long tour of HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE) success stories. The most recent visit this past December was no exception, and many of the trip participants enjoyed the opportunity to have a little fun decorating holiday cookies alongside students. Chef Rodriguez went easy on the visitors.

More memorable than decorating cookies, though, were the conversations they had with students as they heard directly about their gratitude and their determination to succeed.

“Both of the young men I talked to now have the dream of owning their own restaurant,.” Phil Watkins said. “I thought that was fantastic.”

Not far from the PHP office in the new 131-home community of Nuevo Cuscatlán II, participants met a new homeowner partner, Gabriela, who was in the first class of students at the school. Her training at the school has allowed her to cook tamales and other specialties from her home, where she takes care of a 16-year-old daughter, Andrea, who has a degenerative condition that keeps her confined to a wheelchair (provided by People Helping People a year earlier). Today, nearby residents come to the house to pick up orders, while 18-year-old daughter Stephanie delivers other meals.

“We’re very happy, but first we give thanks to God because it all depends on him,” Gabriela told the two dozen visitors who visited her. “And we’re very thankful for all of you because you made it possible.”

This business, the safe home and even the wheelchair that keeps Andrea mobile would not be possible without People Helping People Network supporters.

The culinary school continues to expand its operations, and it will soon have a larger training kitchen as the Center for Hope adds space for it and other programs at the center.

One way People Helping People Network supporters can continue to help the culinary school thrive is by sponsoring a scholarship for a student to attend the four-month course. At just $300, it is a remarkably affordable way to forever impact someone’s life in an uplifting and empowering way that a handout never could accomplish.

Brandon is one of those who benefited from a scholarship. Not only did he find work, but he even came back to the school for a brief refresher.

“I’d like to continue learning more about the culinary arts,” he said. “I’ve just started a baking business, and I’ve been doing cakes for a lot of people. But I want to continue expanding my knowledge in the culinary sector.”

He understand that his baking business and growing culinary skills began with a hand-up from someone else.

“I’d like to thank the person who donated my scholarship,” Brandon said. “It has brought opportunities for economic growth and expanded my love for cooking. It has had a life-changing impact for me and my family.”

If you would like to donate a culinary scholarship of $300, contact Jeff Cardwell at jcardwell@phpnetwork.org.

Click thumbnails to see larger images

Prisoners hone new skills, find redemption as they build homes for others

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — There are many reasons why The People Helping People Network’s work in El Salvador has taken off in recent years, and one of the main ones is the establishment of effective partnerships. One of those partnerships is with The Fuller Center for Housing, and with more than 1,000 homes built or nearly complete, that first component of PHP’s HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE) is one of the most striking to those who visit the country.

Salvadoran partner families have not only embraced the opportunity to contribute sweat equity in the building of their homes but also the integral component of repaying the costs of construction through zero-percent-interest mortgages that help others get the very same kind of hand-up into decent homes, making them givers themselves as they pay it forward. As homeowner keep making those repayments, the fund to build more homes grows like a snowball — even in warm El Salvador.

The government of El Salvador has enthusiastically embraced these housing efforts and worked hard to facilitate new projects and accelerate the approvals of land title transfers and permits. Much of that support can be attributed to Minister of Housing Michele Sol, who was once the mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, where she saw first-hand the uplifting impact Fuller Center homes had not just on hundreds of her constituents but also the community as a whole.

The government has further accelerated construction efforts with the use of prisoner labor where locations and situations are practical. Marco Castro, Program Manager for Gente Ayudandando Gente (PHP’s on-the-ground leaders), says this is a complement to — not a substitute for — family and volunteer labor.

“They help us move a lot faster in the construction process,” Castro said of the prisoners, whose efforts have helped with such large projects as the recent 131-home Nuevo Cuscatlán II community. “Of course, it’s important for families to be part of the sweat equity. The first month when we start a new project, families have to put in hours on the project so that they can see the challenges that the rest of the construction people are going to face. We want them to understand the difficulty of building a home so that they can take care of it afterward.”

As the prisoners help these large projects be completed at a faster rate, the families support them in many ways besides simply building alongside them when possible.

“When we incorporate the inmates, they’re able to help us out in moving way quicker in all the construction stages,” Castro said. “The families cook breakfast and lunch for the inmates, so that’s the exchange. Families are really conscious of the help they’re getting, so they really invest in having good food for the inmates.”

For each day the inmates work, they get another day reduced from their sentences. The more they work, the sooner they can get back to their families and a normal life.

“It’s an opportunity for them to reduce their sentence, to be out in the open, eat different food, interact with different people and, of course, not be locked up,” Castro noted.

Of course, the inmates who are presented with these opportunities are not exactly the most hardened or dangerous criminals. They come from a pool of prisoners who are still in a position where they can turn their lives around.

“They are in their trust phases,” Castro explained. “They’ve gone through a lot of psychological tests and have support. Inmates that had been related to gangs are not able to be in the trust phases or these types of programs just because we want to avoid having them in communities or spaces where they can get in trouble. They are aware of the consequences if somebody messes the opportunity up.”

Still, the team at Gente Ayudando Gente works hand-in-hand with the government to make sure that partner families and communities are safe when the prisoners are on a nearby site.

“The prisoners are assigned to specific areas,” Castro said. “There are guards looking out for the team, and they’re not allowed to move from that specific area. If somebody is causing problems like trying to sneak something in or have family members come into the construction spaces, they would change teams or lose their opportunity. But we at Gente are on top of that because that hurts us directly.”

Their work also is an audition of sorts as a handful may get the opportunity for gainful employment as they re-enter society.

“We are always looking for new employees,” Castro said. “When they finish a sentence and the construction is done, we usually give some a second chance of reinsertion into society as a productive member by hiring them.”

While acknowledging the practical benefits of utilizing prison labor, People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell notes there is a faith component to engaging those who are incarcerated and helping them turn their lives around.

“Redemption is one of the foundational principles of Christianity,” Cardwell said of the program. “This is redemption in action. It also makes sense from a practical standpoint. It’s a win-win-win-win situation — for the families in need of decent places to live, for us and our partner organizations as we seek to uplift and empower those families and communities, for the prisoners themselves and for a government that is committed to reducing crime and recidivism rates. Like so much of what works with People Helping People, it’s just good common sense.”

Wheelchair distribution
is life-changing for
recipients and givers alike

  SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — After a morning of assembling wheelchairs for about 40 people they had never met, The People Helping People Network’s 2022 Vision Trip’s participants tried to steel their emotions as the soon-to-be recipients of these transformative gifts were helped into the room at the Barcelo Hotel on the first of December.

It was the first full day of the Vision Trip, and participants knew that many more emotional experiences lay ahead. However, once they saw the joy on the faces of those who recognized their lives were about to change, the emotions gushed forth — in their own smiles, with prayers and hugs, and with their own tears of joy.

“In America, wheelchairs are accessible,” Matt Gillette said. “They’re everywhere. You don’t think twice about it. Here, getting a wheelchair is almost like hitting the lottery for someone who’s in need. Some of these people have never had a wheelchair in their entire life. Others had wheelchairs held together with rope and twine.”

For friend and fellow Vision Trip participant Maryann Kolb, the experience was personal.

“My father was in a wheelchair, and I know what it was like to give him mobility and a sense of independence,” Kolb said. “The fact that we were able to bring that to the elders and young children was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced before. For those people who’ve never had a wheelchair, it transforms their life, and I’m grateful to have been a part of that transformation process.”

“Having the families come and being able to bless and pray over them for this change in their lifestyle — not just their lifestyle but their family’s lifestyle — that was a really, really big deal,” Gillette added. “Being a small part of that, gosh, it’s pretty impactful.”

Monica Cardenas, an attorney and activist from Colombia, said it was a privilege to get to know so many of the recipients and their families. With her excellent English skills, she helped bridge the language gap in the room.

“It’s a life-changing tool for them and their families, as well,” she said. “I was very happy to be part of that life-changing moment for them.”

It was indeed a family affair, especially for Andrea and Miguel Garcia, whose son Miguel suffers from multiple ailments that keep him confined to a wheelchair. The one in which he was brought into the room, however, was woefully inadequate and unable to grow with him.

“It is a very special day because we’ve never been able to get a decent wheelchair for Miguel,” Andrea said. “His life is changed because he can move from one place to another. We had an old one that didn’t work, and it was too difficult to use. We’re grateful to have one that works.”

Ernesto also had an inadequate wheelchair, though it was not even one that he could call his own.

“The one I had in Ahuachapán wasn’t mine,” he said. “Someone lent it to me. For me it’s an honor for me to receive this chair because this chair work as my feet. I also thank all of you for having the great heart to help people with special abilities.”

Adolpho has even more reason to be grateful. This wheelchair was his first.

“I worry about falling down because I have no balance, but I’ve never had a wheelchair until now,” he said. “This is a great day for me, and I hope that God blesses you all for the help you’ve given us.”

The wheelchair donation program through The People Helping People Network began with PHP trying to repurpose used wheelchairs. Then, Free Wheelchair Mission came on board as a partner with brand new, high-quality wheelchairs at prices less the PHP was spending on used wheelchairs.

“It’s a great organization and a great operation,” said Jeff Cardwell, founder of The People Helping People Network. “The quality of the wheelchairs is just superb.”

Another key partner is Ahuchapán Sin Baarreras or Ahuachapán Without Barriers, which promotes and protects the rights of all people, especially the disabled. Its founder, Wendy Caishpal, also was there to organize the wheelchair distribution — and to inspire the entire room.

Caishpal was 14, she lost her mobility when gunmen attacked the car in which she was riding with a cousin who was delivering bread. Her cousin was shot in the head, while she was hit five times and was in a coma for two weeks. After a long rehabilitation, she furthered her education and got her law degree.

Today, she says she is grateful for the tragedy that befell her as a young teenager because it has led to a cause that has helped hundreds get mobility and independence. What started in Ahuachapán is now helping people in at least 24 communities across El Salvador. They help People Helping People distribute about 200 wheelchairs per year and would love to do more.

“It’s a great alliance between the organizations,” she said of Ahuachapán Without Barriers, Free Wheelchair Mission and The People Helping People Network. “And this is a day to feel useful. It’s an opportunity to change the lives of these people. It provides the opportunity for mobility and independence because in this seat they can actually move around.”

And, as much as anyone, she knows how important that is.

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the chair,” she said. “It’s given me independence. That’s what it means for all of these people, as well.”

MORE IMAGES FROM DECEMBER’S WHEELCHAIR DISTRIBUTION:

Uplifting Salvadoran
families by fostering a
true sense of community

AHUACHAPÁN, El Salvador — It was six years ago that representatives of The People Helping People Network and our partners at The Fuller Center for Housing first visited an empty field in the community of Ahuachapán, where local officials wanted the affordable housing ministry to do for its hard-working residents what it had previously been able to do for 77 former slum-dwelling families in the Monsignor Romero neighborhood of Nuevo Cuscatlán — specifically, help those families not only have simple, decent places to live but also have ownership in those homes and in the entire community.

Though many of the families lived in flimsy shacks with little access to clean water or the most basic sanitation, they were at first a little wary of the concept. For most of them, the thought of owning a home never crossed their minds. Yet, here was an opportunity to own a safe homes on terms they could afford as they would repay the costs on zero-percent-interest mortgages with those proceeds helping others in the community get that very same hand-up.

It sounded just a little too good to be true.

But after 91 families turned an open field into a thriving community of safe homes and happy families, another 55 families jumped at the opportunity to own homes in a nearby follow-up community atop a nearby hill. Ahuachapán I and Ahuachapán II are both thriving examples of whole communities with safe power, clean water, sanitation and, most importantly, healthy and happy families.

“On my first trip six years ago, we were able to launch that community and bless it and be a part of it,” said Matt Gillette, who was among two dozen People Helping People Network supporters on the 2022 Vision Trip that paid visits to Ahuachapan I and II, among other communities and projects, early last month. “The first time we were there, it was just a construction site, and the second time people were moving into their homes. Coming back over the years and seeing the progression of the community that’s been formed there, it’s really unbelievable to go from the blank slate of the community of the kids and the safety and everybody out playing.

“It just felt so cozy,” he added. “You look at the kids and look at the families, they’re happy. There’s joy there.”

Even Fuller Center President David Snell, who has made multiple trips to El Salvador and seen several of these community transformations, was impressed.

“Folks here are learning to love one another and take care of one another,” he said. “But, my goodness, it’s changed since I was here last. They’ve added on, fixed their houses up, and put in plantings — it’s quite something what they’ve done.”

“It’s a great neighborhood,” said Karen Patricia, whose family sells over-the-counter medications and medical goods from their home. “Everybody takes in and embrace everyone, and everyone gets along great. I like the way everyone here takes care of one another. It’s just a nice community feel.”

These homes have been going up in El Salvador since 2008, but the construction of large, multi-home communities has rapidly accelerated in recent years. Nuevo Cuscatlán I with its 99 homes was begun in 2016, and followed with Nuevo Cuscatlán II is wrapping up with 131 more. Juayuá I’s 14 homes were followed by Juayuá II’s 50 finished last month. Completed communities include El Espino with 64, La Bretaña’s 98 and La Herradura’s 30. Another 360 homes are under way in El Zonte, San Vicente and Ichanmichen, and 350 are planned soon for Apaneca, Santa Ana, Caluco and El Zonte II.

In other words, these communities are multiplying quickly. That is due partly to an influx of funding from supporters in the United States. But that just gets the ball rolling. It turns into a growing snowball — metaphorically, of course, in warm El Salvador — as partner families have embraced the concept of repaying the costs of their homes on terms they can afford into a fund to help others get the same hand-up. That fund simply keeps growing, allowing more families to be helped and more communities to spring up.

Iris Jacinto was a few days away from moving into one of the 131 new homes in Nuevo Cuscatlán II when we talked to her in December. She noted that it may sound like a lot of people in one community but that they are used to large numbers of families living in slums and other poverty areas. They are used to looking out for each other, but they are not used to having healthy homes.

“There are a lot of people, but we all know each other and we all get along,” Jacinto said.

Fuller Center Vice President of International Field Operations Ryan Iafigliola insists each community is still built one house at a time and takes shape one family at a time. The key, he says, is making each house whole with the very basics for safe and healthy living. When there are 131 whole homes in a place like Nuevo II, the community becomes exponentially more impressive than the house count alone.

“These might be things we take for granted in the U.S., but are not necessarily common around the world,” Iafigliola said.

It’s particularly reassuring for Dr. Michael Elmore, who has been volunteering in Central America and preaching the need for clean water and proper sanitation in communities.

“I’ve always said as a physician, if you get rid of the problems of the sewage contaminating water supplies and provide for them clean water, you can eliminate 90 percent of their medical problems,” Elmore said while walking down one of the streets in Ahuachapán I.

“You come here, and the people say, ‘I don’t live in a bario anymore; I live in a colonia,’” Elmore added. “It’s safe. They have electricity with lights at night. They have wells with decent water that they can actually drink. And they have a sewage system that takes their waste away.”

Many of the families in these communities have lived among each other in poverty-stricken neighborhoods and slums. They may be neighbors once again in the new Fuller Center homes, but the feeling is different as they each have real investment in the success of the communities as homeowners making affordable payments on their zero-percent-interest mortgages.

“It’s theirs, and they have to pay on a monthly basis, so they have some skin in the game,” supporter Jeff Raatz said during a break from touring the communities. “There’s a dignity that’s connected with this that really makes a difference. To bring these people up and out and make them part of the equation, to me, is incredible.”

“We don’t build just houses — we build dignity,” Elmore said. “That comes with the house. These people are very proud, and they feel very special that they’re going to own a home when before all they could do was rent. Having a home was never in the equation. So now they’re part of a community. They’re part of bigger than they are. They now have dignity.”

Also helping families retain their dignity is the fact that the houses in each community are similar. The only differences from house to house are usually paint colors, plants and decorations.

“It’s a big factor,” Snell said. “The houses are all the same. They’re all living in the same sort of place, so there’s no class system here. It’s all one group of people.”

The group made its way through the streets of Ahuachapán II as dusk fell on the final evening of the group’s December stay in El Salvador. Many were emotional after having visited both slums and thriving communities. In each, they had found joy. In each, they had been welcomed. This night, though, was exactly three weeks before Christmas Eve, and the holiday spirit was palpable.

Todd Scoggins, whose photography and video work in El Salvador has been seen by many who follow The People Helping People Network, lagged behind the group.

“The porches were adorned with Christmas lights, and they were blinking and flashing — it was just a beautiful, peaceful night,” Scoggins said. “It was dusk, and I was just walking by myself down the streets. I kept thinking about how peaceful it is here. What a sense of community there is. There were kids running and playing and laughing. Moms were holding their babies on their front porches and saying ‘hi’ to one another and to us as we walked by.

“I thought to myself, ‘I could live here, I could live in a community like this,’ because there was such a sense of peace and community,” he added. “And we hope for that. We pray for that. We pray that is the result for neighbors, especially with The Fuller Center for Housing with the neighborhoods The Fuller Center creates. We pray that not only is there safety and shelter — that basic need — but also the greater sense of community that develops from that. And then, from there, the Kingdom of God grows and thrives.”

And where the Kingdom of God grows and thrives, you will likely find a church — la iglesia in this case. During the visit to Ahuachapán I, residents and PHP supporters got their first look at plans for a church to be built on the same tract of land as the 91 homes.

This week, construction on the church began in earnest thanks to volunteers from King’s Castle Ministries, whose campus was another stop on the 2022 Vision Trip.

“Where the communities are built, the church goes along with it,” Raatz said. “That really brings life to the community. It teaches the kids so generations will flourish beyond.”

Hear directly from a few of the Vision Trip 2022 participants about the communities featured in this post:

Revisiting King’s Castle, where a mission was born
in a prayerful moment

SANTA ANA, El Salvador — This was perhaps the only moment that could come close to matching that day in the year 2000 — June 17 to be exact — when People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell was moved during prayer to launch a mission in El Salvador that has since transformed the lives of thousands of Salvadorans, along with their families and communities.

This moment was more than 22 years later, but it was at the exact same spot where that seed was first planted — at King’s Castle’s Prayer Tower.

“My life was changed here,” Cardwell says. “I feel like I’m standing on holy ground. I still remember the day — June 17th of 2000. I was here with my daughter who was 11 years old, and my life was changed through prayer right here at this prayer tower.”

It was a trip he never wanted to make in 2000. In fact, he insists that he went “kicking and screaming” because he did not think he could afford to be away from his thriving business in Indianapolis.

“I just really sensed Jeff was supposed to go,” said Kevin Stewart, then a youth pastor for the group at Parc-Way Assembly of God in Indianapolis and now serves in the same capacity in Askewville, N.C. “Jeff has always been a very giving person — very giving of himself and his time. I think when he saw the needs of the people, it transformed his life immediately.”

Don Triplett founded King’s Castle Ministries with wife Terri in 1989. Its overarching mission was to train missionaries to spread the Gospel — especially to youth — throughout Latin America. That outreach now spans dozens of countries around the world.

“Jeff came in here just willing to help, and then the Lord got hold of him,” Triplett recalls of that June 2000 visit. “God takes an event that happens in our lives and turns it into a cause. If we can discover our purpose, it’s unbelievable what the Lord can do. He got hit by a cause bigger than himself.”

Maria Mercedes de Cruz was a 15-year-old volunteer at King’s Castle during that visit and served as the church group’s translator. She, too, saw Cardwell’s eyes opened to a new opportunity to spread God’s love in tangible ways.

“I think when you look at things through God’s eyes, that’s when you fall in love with something,” she said. “I think that’s what happened with Jeff. He didn’t realize it at the time, but what he was seeing was something through God’s eyes. God sometimes just moves that veil from our eyes and we see something that we never thought we would see. I think that’s what happened to him on that trip.”

While the primary goal of King’s Castle Ministries is to train missionaries who can effectively inspire and bring children to the Gospel, it has a multitude of other outreach programs from feeding programs to health clinics to construction projects and much more.

Its sprawling campus rests on the picturesque shores of Lake Coatepeque, a crater lake formed by an ancient volcano’s eruption. The best view of this 10-square-mile lake is from the Prayer Tower a short hike up a hill from the main campus. It is a site of constant prayer — every minute of every day.

This is where Cardwell had his moment more than two decades ago. During a People Helping People Network Vision Trip earlier this month, the group returned to this momentous site. Some went to quietly reflect. Others went to enthusiastically pray.

Everyone felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

“To be honest, I really didn’t think a place like that existed in the world,” said Laura Hatton, who was making her third visit to El Salvador but her first visit to King’s Castle. “I know there are monasteries. I know there in which people pray 24 hours a day for years on end. I get that, and I know that it’s a very spiritual place for them.

“But I never expected to walk up the stairs and within two or three minutes feel the power of what they’ve created in the way in which I did,” she added. “For just normal people to walk up there and feel the presence of God and the Holy Spirit the way in which I did, I will keep that with me forever.”

For supporter Maryann Kolb, the entire Vision Trip was an opportunity to revel in the goodness of The People Helping People Network’s many positive programs in El Salvador while continuing to cope with a string of recent losses of beloved family members. All the emotions came pouring out at the Prayer Tower.

“I think the most impactful for me was being up in the prayer tower and just sobbing uncontrollably,” she said. “The amount of compassion and love and the presence of God that I felt in that moment from the team and the missionaries there … was just overwhelming. It’s something that will resonate in my heart forever.”

Something else that resonates forever in El Salvador is The People Helping People Network’s HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE). Triplett believes the seeds of that equation were planted at the Prayer Tower — on June 17, 2000.

“I think in those moments, God just comes and puts that mustard seed in your heart, and it grows into a great big tree,” Triplett said. “I think that’s what this is really all about.”

While housing, hunger relief, healthcare and education are the practical pillars upon which the HOPE Equation is built, it’s that final part of the equation — “multiplied by faith” — that Triplett says is the key component.

“I love People Helping People because there’s a place for people who have resources to be able to help people, but at the same time there’s a place for God to touch people as they’re helping people,” he said. “It makes all the difference.”

Cardwell agrees.

“All of those things are important, but there’s nothing more important than sharing God’s word,” he said. “Everything that we do is multiplied by faith. And the faith and God’s word is the glue that holds everything together.”

While the seeds of The People Helping People Network’s mission in El Salvador may have been planted at the Prayer Tower in 2000, this most recent trip has a similar purpose — watering and fertilizing the flourishing vision.

“Coming back here, I have the same feelings that I had 20-plus years ago,” Cardwell said as he surveyed the blue sky and the striking view of Lake Coatepeque for the final time in 2022. “It’s just an incredible place, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be here again.”

HOMES FOR CHRISTMAS:
The 50 families of Juayuá

JUAYUÁ, El Salvador — The tin roof of a nearby shack rattled, trees swayed and dozens of People Helping People Network supporters and partner families clung to their hats and protected their eyes from flying dust as a brisk wind greeted them on a hillside where they gathered to behold the scene of a remarkable transformation just below.

While stiff breezes are common some 4,000 feet above sea level in this highland area about 55 miles west of bustling San Salvador, these winds felt different even to those who face them on a daily basis.

They were the winds of change — real, lasting, transformative change.

PHP supporters and these same families had gathered one year earlier — in an empty field. Now, that empty field was full with 50 colorful new homes built by PHP’s housing partner, The Fuller Center for Housing. The houses are nearly complete, and the families will move in by Christmas.

“One year ago, this was an empty field,” Fuller Center for Housing David Snell noted. “There was nothing here. And, now, in less than a year’s time, all of this has happened. All of these houses have been built. It’s a miracle and it’s a Merry Christmas.”

PHP board treasurer Rich Van Paris has been to El Salvador twice — last year and this year. A lot has changed in 12 months.

“Last year was a wonderful experience in itself in that the residents that will be living in the houses came out to greet us and cheer us on,” Van Paris recalled. “They were looking forward to having shelter for their families as well as electricity and running water and sanitary systems.”

The residents had faith that the bold plan to build 50 homes so quickly would come true — even if the construction timetable seemed a bit overly optimistic.

“I believe they believed us last year,” Van Paris said. “But, now, seeing the tangible evidence of it, they’re getting more excited and more excited because this is going to move them up from an economic standpoint to a different level that they’re going to adjust to as parents. But for the children, this will be the foundation on which to build.”

Phil Watkins, an account manager with AES Indiana, who has been instrumental in helping communities (including this one) get access to safe electricity, also saw the open field last year. He was among those who thought turning that empty field into a thriving 50-home community in just one year seemed a little ambitious.

“I don’t think I can say I foresaw it,” Watkins admits. “It was just a big open field. They were talking about bringing homes to families that were literally living in the woods around here. I thought, OK, in a few years they might have a nice place to live. When I found out that in less than a year, these houses were built and before Christmas, I was amazed. I seriously did not think it could happen that quick.”

Snell, however, regularly sees the reports coming in from Gente Ayudando Gente — the El Salvadoran partners of PHP and Fuller Center — and is impressed with their effectiveness but no longer surprised by the huge numbers that have made El Salvador The Fuller Center’s No. 2 international building partner behind only Armenia.

“We have a construction team that can’t be beat,” Snell said. “They get the assignment, they go in and they do it. They’re the ones who make it possible. But the good Lord steps in and removes obstacles and helps us along the way.”

The team of volunteers on this year’s People Helping People Vision Trip not only celebrated this remarkable transformation, but they also delivered an extra dose of Christmas joy as they brought toys and soccer balls for the children and food packages for the families.

Marlon Ruiz, wife Carla and daughter Ashley were among those who expressed their gratitude and joy.

“We’re very happy for this,” he said through an interpreter. “We live about a kilometer away, but it’s not a good home, and it’s in a bad place. We’re happy because we know that Ashley will be raised in a good house.”

Marlon already knows most of his soon-to-be neighbors in the 50-home community, especially Rosana Ruiz. Rosana is his sister and is raising two children of her own, a boy and a girl.

“I’m happy because the house we’re in now is not good, and we want to raise our children in a decent house,” she said. “I didn’t think it would happen this quickly. It’s a big deal. We’re grateful to God first. These things come from God — and from you guys, as well.”

Not only will the new community have water and sanitation, but each home will have bathrooms with toilets and sinks. Reliable and safe power will allow families to cook inside of their homes.

Because families have contributed sweat equity as they’ve worked alongside Fuller Center Global Builders volunteers, local laborers and prisoners to build the homes, they have an extra sense of pride. And they are not charity cases but givers themselves as they will repay the costs of construction materials, over time, on terms they can afford with no interest charged and no profit made. Those repayments will be recycled to help others in their community get the very same hand-up into decent homes of their own.

“Instead of living on dirt floors, these families get a whole new opportunity at life,” said Indiana State Sen. Jeff Raatz. “Not only that, it’s theirs and they have to pay on a monthly basis, so they have some skin in the game. While that may seem harsh, the dignity connected with this really makes a difference in their lives. And then bringing the Gospel to them on top of it, I can think of no better way to do it than that.”

Jeff Papa, who is a member of The Fuller Center’s board of directors and The People Helping People’s advisory council, has become used to seeing remarkable progress in El Salvador and noted the stark contrast between the slums that the group visited in Nuevo Cuscatlán the day earlier and the new or established communities full of simple, decent homes.

“I think the constant increase in the number of houses that The Fuller Center has been building is really impressive,” said Papa, noting that he had been on at least seven of these PHP Vision Trips. “We usually go and look at who we’ll help next, and we’ll look at a project that’s being done or has been done. When you look at the places are that we’re trying to pull them out of, they live in some pretty squalid conditions. It’s very upsetting, so to see them the next year in their nice new Fuller Center homes is always really just touching and amazing.”

Mark Bowell noted that this new 50-home community is poised to become yet another shining example not just of a successful housing effort but a complete community.

“There are others that have been done here through The Fuller Center that have many of the same types of characteristics, but this is a special place,” he said. “These people are just wonderful, absolutely wonderful. … I just think it’s outstanding. The vision, seeing what was here a year ago and know the effort that’s gone into creating these 50 homes is really fantastic.”

Bowell is working with The People Helping People Network and other connections to add one more touch that he believes will help make the community complete — a church adjacent to the homes.

“God just laid it on the heart of the organization,” he said. “I’ve got some great Christian brothers that have built churches all over the world, and we’d love to show them the opportunity. If I can be a catalyst to make that happen, it would be a great opportunity. We want to build a house of worship and a place for these wonderful people to come and engage and meet Jesus.”

Bobby Dillehay, meanwhile, could already feel the spirit in the air and was brought to tears by his engagement with the families of Juayuá.

“What a beautiful sight behind us!” he exclaimed. “I feel like we’re in Heaven. Doors are opening right now.”

PHOTO GALLERY: Click thumbnails for larger images

People Helping People Network supporters deliver the goods — and hope — after Ian

Water had barely begun to recede into the Gulf of Mexico before a semi trailer outside the storage facility of Cardwell Do-It-Best Home Center was being filled with pallets of water, food, clothing and other desperately needed supplies destined for families impacted by Hurricane Ian.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Motorcycle Drill Team stood ready to deliver the help provided by a litany of People Helping People Network supporters with drivers Ron Metcalf and James Goddard ready to take the wheel of a big rig supplied by Palmer Trucks’ Scott Nichols. Items quickly filled the semi trailer thanks to many generous individuals and a usual suspects list of supportive groups like Midwest Food Bank, Zink Distributing and WIBC-Radio, which held a live broadcast to help drum up support for the relief mission.

“We knew that this community would respond because they always do when people are in need,” PHP Network Founder Jeff Cardwell said. “The outpouring of love and support is overwhelming but definitely not surprising. I’ve witnessed it time and time again, yet it renews my spirit every time. And we have a lot of uplifting to do in Florida. They’re going to need all the help they can get.”

With a track record of delivering relief directly where it needs to be, The People Helping People Network has developed a reputation for dependability and trustworthiness.

“People are generous, but they do not want their generosity to be wasted or misappropriated,” Cardwell said. “They know that we have a track record of delivering disaster relief and hope going back to previous natural disasters like the 2001 earthquake in El Salvador and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to more recent disasters like the tornadoes in Kentucky.”

To help him coordinate this massive relief effort, Cardwell turned to an old “Bud” of his.

  Ray “Bud” Probasco is very familiar with The People Helping People Network’s track record of success in delivering relief to victims of natural disasters. Probasco is a Methodist minister who is known by many as the man who comforted the family of Ryan White, a young man whose courageous battle against AIDS and irrational fears captured the attention of the nation. He euolgized Ryan at the funeral in 1990 that drew more than 1,000 people, including some of the most famous people in the world. After Ryan was ostracized by many people scared of a relatively new disease, Probasco was there to witness those who came to embrace the family and stand up for human decency.

So, Probasco knows a thing or two about people who fight for what’s right and people whose hearts are in the right place. And it was around 1990 that he got to know another man fighting to foster hope, Jeff Cardwell, as both men sat on the board of directors for Ambassadors for Children, a charitable arm of American Trans Air.

“We have just been wonderful friends since then,” Probasco said. “Whenever there’s a need, somehow, some way, God puts us in a position to do something about it.”

“There couldn’t be a better friend, and there couldn’t be any better person to help people. It doesn’t matter who they are or where they are, If there’s a need, Jeff will find a way to help.”

When Hurricane Ian struck the Fort Myers area in late September, the disaster struck close to home for Probasco and his good friend, retired Christian Church pastor Ron Mobley, as they each owned retirement homes in a Fort Myers condominium complex. While their properties suffered minor cosmetic damage, they saw many people around them who lost everything.

“Both of us, to be real honest, we were spared much destruction at all,” Probasco said. “However, we have friends who lost their home. They don’t even have a piece of their house at all. It just kind of got swept away.”

“It’s just a tragedy of enormous proportions,” said Mobley, who now lives full-time in Georgia. “I’ve been through several hurricanes, but this is the worst one by far.”

Mobley lived in Fort Myers while pastoring First Christian Church in the 1970s. It’s also the church he attends when he is in Fort Myers today. One of the first calls Probasco made was to Cardwell to see how they could help. Mobley then called the Rev. Gary Cox at First Christian to see if he could help them find a place to accept People Helping People Network relief supplies. Cox said to bring them directly to the church.

Just like that, relief supplies were on the way. By the time the truck arrived this week, the drivers found themselves in a convoy of other trucks from across the country on similar relief missions. They were redirected to another distribution site because First Christian was deemed to be in a no-go zone for traffic, and church members mobilized to help unload the goods. Probasco is used to handling the chaos that comes with a massive influx of relief.

“Jeff and I have done probably every hurricane that has happened in the last 20 years,” Probasco said. “God has somehow used us to get aid to the people who just lost everything — resources, supplies, materials, water.”

Like Cardwell, Probasco is not surprised by the outpouring of support from Americans across the country and especially from those who support The People Helping People Network.

“From what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard, it’s been pretty amazing,” Probasco said. “When we have found a need that truly exists that can be validated and verified, people have always responded, and right now is no different.”

However, with so many families lacking flood insurance in the affected areas, it will be a very long recovery process.

“There’s all kinds of aid coming in, but the need is just truly great,” Probasco said. “Primary homes have been lost, and you see them walking around in a daze saying, ‘I can’t believe what I don’t see.’ It will never be the same. There’s no way any amount of construction, no matter how good it is, that will ever bring it back. It’s very heartbreaking. You see people literally walking around in a daze.”

As a minister, Probasco has always heard and seen that, “With God, all things are possible.” He can’t help but laugh, though, when he recalls how his friend Jeff Cardwell tested that theory after Hurricane Katrina struck. Probasco was frantically busy helping families in their time of desperation and knew that Cardwell was doing his part from Indiana. He did not know, though, exactly what Cardwell was up to. Then ...

“I get this phone call from him and he says, ‘By the way, Bud, I’ve got a 747 heading your way filled with supplies,’” Probasco recalled. “I said, ‘Excuse me!’ I looked around and said, ‘Do you see an airport here?! Do you see anything?!’

“There was no power,” he continued. “We didn’t have forklifts or anything else. I had to find places then to put all these supplies. When you have that size plane filled with supplies, I couldn’t figure out what the heck was wrong with Jeff’s mind!”

But he did not have time to concern himself with Cardwell’s mind. He had a plane on the way. He contacted the University of Southern Mississippi, and they sent athletes from the football and basketball teams to help unload the plane. Two lines of vehicles with their headlights on provided makeshift runway lighting.

“I don’t know what he expected of me, but I wanna tell you this — and Jeff would say the same thing: God did it,” Probasco said. “That’s how we unloaded it and got it to the places it needed to be.”

Probasco was reassured that — some way, somehow — God would provide the resources when people are in dire need. And The People Helping People Network would be ready to help deliver those resources, by truckloads and planeloads.

“Jeff’s and my relationship has been absolutely phenomenal when it comes to helping people,” he said. “You can’t find a better friend or a better person to help you than Jeff Cardwell.”

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HURRICANE IAN RELIEF

  Dr. Michael Elmore: God changes hearts, and mission work changes lives

Dr. Michael Elmore has been volunteering his medical expertise in third-world countries for decades, and along the way he has inspired countless others to do the same.

It is something he is passionate about and something he encourages everyone to do — not just to spread God’s love as an expression of their Christian faith but also to enhance their own perspective about their own lives and blessings.

However, it was not always the case. In fact, he was once downright averse to taking his talents on the road.

“I had never really wanted to do mission work,” Elmore recalls. “I saw a lot of my fellow physicians who I didn’t think lived particularly faithful lives in service to God by their behaviors, but suddenly they would leave and land on foreign soil and — wham-o — they were missionaries. I had to ask God to forgive me for that.”

He still was not inclined to do international missions, but since he had asked God to forgive him for having judged others, he figured he should have an open mind.

“I basically told God, ‘Listen, I don’t want anything to do with that mission stuff. If you want me to be involved, you have to change my heart’,” Elmore says. “He’s all about that — changing hearts.”

His first mission work would be in Guatemala, but it didn’t start with a trip from Indianapolis to Guatemala. Instead, a little slice of Guatemala came to him. Elmore was working with the Christian Medical Foundation based out of Tampa, Fla., and they were trying to set up a regional meeting in Indianapolis. Through those efforts, he met a surgeon — Dr. Julio Fuentes out of Guatemala.

Dr. Fuentes wanted to see an endoscopy performed, and Dr. Elmore, a gastroenterologist, was happy to host the visiting doctor for a couple of days. Though Elmore did not speak Spanish, nor Fuentes any English, Fuentes’ wife was able to serve as translator. That helped the two doctors become fast friends, and her invitation at the end of their stay changed everything:

“Julio and I would like to invite you to Guatemala.”

“I heard myself saying that I’d love to,” Elmore remembers. “I remember crying, literally, on the way home and saying, ‘God, you tricked me. What have you done?’”

The next year, he took his 12-year-old daughter, his pastor’s daughter who wanted to be a nurse and a friend who was a pharmaceutical representative on his first trip to Guatemala. He did gastrointestinal clinics and performed 40 endoscopies. He left the equipment behind so that the work could continue.

“That’s how everything got started,” Elmore says. “So, every year I would go back. After three or four years of just going back and working with Julio, he came up and lived with us for two months while he did a sabbatical at Saint Francis. The year after that, Julio returned to work with a friend.”

As his friend from Guatemala became a familiar face, Elmore’s work in Guatemala also became well-known. Everybody started asking about his trips to Guatemala and how they could get involved. He and wife, Chris, began taking medical teams to do clinics in the country. The teams ranged in size from 15 to 56 people.

After his first trip to Guatemala, Elmore shared some slides from the trip at his Parc-Way Assembly of God. He noticed Jeff Cardwell nudging his wife, Cheryl, in the back of the room and saying it looked interesting.

“It was this presentation by Dr. Elmore at my church that planted the seed and inspired for me to do international missions,” Cardwell says. “I remember seeing the photos of the adventures during his travels and thinking that would be something I would love to do. I loved his adventure travel, but I knew I had no medical gifts to offer. You could hear the passion in his voice as he told the stories of his mission trip. He was able to merge his medical gifts of being a doctor by putting his faith in action serving those in need.”

Cardwell’s company was building custom homes in Indianapolis, and he had become involved with Habitat for Humanity. Elmore’s talk further resonated with him because he knew that Guatemala was Habitat’s first international affiliate.

It was another 10 years before Cardwell would himself go on a life-altering mission trip to Central America as his then 11-year-old daughter, Sara, dragged him “kicking and screaming” to El Salvador.

“I had no intentions on going at that time since it was in the peak of our business season, but God had other plans!” Cardwell recalls. “This trip changed my life. After seeing the needs in El Salvador, I found my place on the mission field where my skills could be used.”

Cardwell and Elmore lost touch for a while after a senior pastor left their church. Then, a few years after the trip to El Salvador, they reconnected when Cardwell’s then 4-year-old son was experiencing a medical crisis.

“We had taken him to several specialists and ended up at Riley’s Children’s Hospital,” Cardwell says. “It was a very difficult time in our lives when we needed help in dealing with all of the medical issues and that was when I reached out to my friend, Dr. Elmore, that I hadn’t seen in years.

“Like old friends he invited Cheryl and I to come over to his house that evening. To make a very long story short, I can honestly say he saved my son’s life. It is a long story, but it was a miracle.”

The two friends had reunited, both now having expertise in helping their Central American friends — Elmore on the medical front and Cardwell in housing. They may not have known it at the time, but the elements of The People Helping People Network’s holistic HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE) was beginning to take shape.

“We brought our passions for missions together,” Cardwell says. “In 2003, we chartered a 737 with 160 volunteers and hosted a mission trip to San Marcos, Guatemala, to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, host medical missions and distribute food with the World Food Program distributing food to the communities we were serving.”

Elmore is now a board member of The People Helping People Network and is proud of the holistic approach the nonprofit ministry has taken to not just help people but also to empower them to help themselves and their families in the future.

“In Guatemala I often wondered, ‘What did we really accomplish?’” he says. “Many times those people would say, ‘That was the best day of my whole life.’ That was hard for us to comprehend. I often wondered how does that really affect the family and everything as a whole. We’d go into a community that is perhaps destitute — people living in shacks made of tin and wood and plastic that they could scrape together, no running water, sewage everywhere, just awful.”

The partnerships on multiple fronts of nonprofit work — including with The Fuller Center for Housing, whose board of directors is chaired by Cardwell and has built more than 500 homes in El Salvador — are what Elmore insists has led to recent years of remarkable progress in the country.

“We’re now able to build communities in cooperative partnerships,” he says. “Now they say they don’t just live in a ‘bario’ — they live in a ‘colonia,’ a community. There are lights at night, they have water in their homes, they have septic systems. I’ve always said that if you want to solve 90 percent of the health care problems in those places, give them (bathroom facilities) and give them clean water to drink. Our housing projects have done that. And People Helping People has a variety of medical services that continue to expand.

“We’ve always said that from an education standpoint that hungry kids living in a bad situation can’t learn,” he continues. “So now they’re in their own safe home, and we’ve eliminated 90 percent of their health problems. Through the food program, we’re making sure they’re fed well, so now they can study and learn. When you look at the thousands of people who have moved into the homes, it completely transforms their lives. What has happened is sort of mind-blowing.”

Perhaps Elmore’s greatest ongoing legacy is the one that started when he first inspired Cardwell and a few others by sharing slides at his church — inspiring others to travel and serve. The greatest inspiration, though, comes when people actually join him on the ground in the mission field.

“When you start going into third-world countries and you start going into remote areas where the need is greatest, it changes everything,” he says. “The first phase when you first start going is just shock and awe about what the heck is going on in these countries — you can’t believe it’s that bad. The next phase is when you start taking teams. You’re over the initial shock. You’re used to seeing the poverty, the disease, the suffering. But now you’re taking people who are impacted by that, as well.”

He gets tremendous joy from seeing others have their hearts changed to the point that they follow in his footsteps.

“What’s cool about that is there are some, not all, who God taps on the shoulder and goes, ‘I want you to do this or that,’” he says. “So they get involved — sometimes with you, sometimes with their own ministries. I can’t tell you how many medical students I’ve taken down there who’ve started their own ministries.”

Elmore is looking forward to his next trip to El Salvador with The People Helping People Network later this fall.

“Now when I go down, I love seeing the work that we’ve done, but even more I love the challenge of the new stuff that we can still envision doing,” he says. “And I love watching the actions of the people on the trip. Some have been in these situations many times, but others are there for the first time. I watch how God impacts them and gets them excited.”

An international friendship that helped change the world for thousands of Salvadorans

Jeff Cardwell has told many times of how it was his then 11-year-old daughter Sara who dragged him “kicking and screaming” on a church mission trip to El Salvador in 2000 that ultimately led to The People Helping People Network’s transformative nonprofit efforts in the country that are thriving today.

But while it was Sara who first got Jeff to make that providential trip, it was another young lady who helped solidify his love for the country by guiding the youth group through an eventful stay while also striking up a friendship with Sara that continues today as grown women.

Maria Mercedes de Cruz was just 15 years old when she volunteered with King’s Castle’s ministry in El Salvador. She had moved with her parents to Canada when she was 6 years old to escape the country’s civil war before they returned to El Salvador five years later. As someone who had one foot planted in Central America and another in North America with both Spanish and English skills, she was a perfect fit to serve as a guide and interpreter with the Cardwells’ church group.

And she would have much to explain during the trip as several group members got sick, one was bitten by a poisonous spider and their bus itself was caught in a mudslide and even boarded by guerrilla fighters. Maria’s maturity and leadership proved to be the glue that held the trip together.

“At the time, I had no idea she was only 15,” Jeff says. “With Sara being the youngest on the team, Maria really took her under her wing and they became instant friends. The relationship between these two was the beginning of all that is happening today. The friendship of two little girls changed the world.”

“Sometimes you just hit if off with people, and you don’t know why,” said Sara (now Marshall), who is now 34 and serves on the board of The People Helping People Network. “She was that kind of person who just feels like family. I didn’t know how close in age she was to me because she just had a lot of wisdom and maturity about her. She was a natural leader with a big heart.”

“It was quite an experience for them, definitely life-changing,” Maria says. “Sara was just 11, and so much happened, but I think it was a God thing that made us feel close.”

Maria adds that Jeff’s falling in love with the country during that trip also was “a God thing.”

“I think when you look at things through God’s eyes, that’s when you fall in love with something,” she says. “I think that’s what happened with Jeff. He didn’t realize it at the time, but what he was seeing was something through God’s eyes. God sometimes just moves that veil from our eyes and we see something that we never thought we would see. I think that’s what happened to him on that trip.”

A tragedy the next year ramped up Jeff’s involvement. An earthquake struck the region, and he contacted Maria to see how he could help. When she told him that she had lost a dear aunt in a landslide, he insisted she come spend time with the family in Indiana and share her story.

“He was very passionate about seeing how he could help El Salvador,” Maria recalls. “That’s kinda when we began to work together. I had the opportunity to come up to Indiana and share my story.”

That time with the Cardwell family helped solidify her friendship with Sara through the years, although both “girls” are now busy working women and mothers. It’s still an international friendship as Maria has returned to Canada with her husband Mario and two children. She has lived in the Vancouver area for the past 13 years and works in the finance department for a local Christian school.

“My parents still live in El Salvador, and I tried to go back every year before Covid hit,” she says.

Her most recent trip back to El Salvador was last month after her brother-in-law passed away following a battle with cancer. During the trip, she get to reunite with Jeff for the first time in almost a decade. Jeff was there for a People Helping People site visit with his son Jeff, Fuller Center for Housing President David Snell and Lisselot Troconis, who leads PHP’s operations in the country. The group got to have dinner with Maria and Mario.

“We always stay in touch, and Jeff is like a dad to me, but I hadn’t physically seen him in like nine years,” she says. “I was so happy that I got to see him.”

She and Sara still have a few laughs remembering such events as when the guerrilla fighters boarded their bus and 11-year-old Sara was expecting to see gorillas — the animals, not the fighters. But when Maria reflects upon the eventful trip of 2000, she is most proud that it led to The People Helping People Network’s successful implementation of the HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE). She always believed that El Salvador would be every bit the fertile proving ground for the equation that it has, indeed, turned out to be.

“I think it’s a country that has great, hard-working, loving people,” Maria says. “I think because of situations that have happened like the civil war and natural disasters, that sometimes has set people back. But if you give them the tools and point them in the right direction, they are always willing to work. And they’re so thankful. I find that to be a quality in my people.

“It’s life-changing for them. From that point on, they can really launch and feel fulfilled in every sense. It all ties together.”

 Q&A WITH JEFF CARDWELL:
”Seeing is believing!” after latest trip to El Salvador

People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell — along with his son Jeff and Fuller Center for Housing President David Snell — paid a visit to operations in El Salvador last week, and all were impressed with the progress in the focus areas of hunger relief, healthcare, education, and especially housing.

Fuller Center Vice President of Communications Chris Johnson took note of some of the amazing photos that emerged from the trip and asked The People Helping People Network Founder if he would chat via Zoom about the trip. Here are excerpts from that conversation. You can also see a photo gallery and a full video of their entire conversation at the end of this update.

CHRIS: First of all, we talk a lot about housing and healthcare and food and education, but you brought back a lot of photos — and one thing I see consistently through a lot of the photos is a lot of smiles. How real and widespread is the joy that I’m seeing in these photos.

JEFF: Chris, I gotta tell you — it’s just a really exciting opportunity to be surrounded by people who are filled with a lot of joy. That’s what we see there in El Salvador. For many, many years, we went down there, and I know my attitude was to go down to work in the mission field and help these folks. After doing it for several days, you notice that these people are filled with joy. They’re all about family.

Coming from here in the United States, we look at some of these conditions and think, ‘These poor people.’ Then after you’re there for a while and you’re surrounded by them, you think, ‘Maybe they have something a little bit more valuable than what we have, and we put too much emphasis on the material things.’ For me, it’s just really renewing to go there. But you see that all around with the teams that we take down, the people that go, we’re all going with the intent of giving and reaching out and seeing what we can do to help others with kind of less of a focus on what we’re doing here at home. And I think that’s one of the reasons that you see a lot of joy and a lot of smiles.

We’re in the midst at The People Helping People Network of raising money to expand the Center for Hope down there. You had a chance to see this center in action again last week. What can you say now about the importance of the center and the need to expand it? Do we still need to expand this?

It’s just incredible. The growth and expansion is, again, just a sign of the great things happening all across the country there. But when we originally purchased the building, we thought we’ve got lots of room for expansion and growth for the future and we thought, ‘Wow, will we ever be able to use all of this room?’ Now, here we are just a few years later, and we’re busting at the seams. There’s the culinary school that we put it. We’ve got a state-of-the-art dental clinic. We’ve got a medical clinic. We’ve got a respite center there for some of the cancer patients coming through chemotherapy through the breast cancer center.

Then we’ve got the offices for The Fuller Center for Housing, for the operations of The Fuller Center and the accounting office, which is growing and continues to expand with all of the houses being built. It’s really just a joy to see and be a part of.

But, yes, we are out of room. We need expansion. We’re going to add to the facility. We’re going to add an eye clinic. We’re also going to expand the offices a little bit. We’re pretty quickly going to be reaching a 1,000-home milestone with The Fuller Center for Housing. You think about that: All these people are going to be paying for these houses. This is not a give-away program. All of these payments recycle back into the community to build more houses for others. You’ve got an accounting office there now that’s soon going to be managing a thousand mortgages going forward, and we need to expand that operation and bring in a couple more people to help us grow with that, as well.

There’s a lot of growth that’s happening there right now that’s very exciting, and it also provides a lot of opportunities to come down and be a part of. We have internships available, and people of all ages can be a part of it. If you’ve got a background in accounting, you can do that. You can work in the culinary school, the dental clinic, the medical clinic. We’ve got lots of opportunities for people to get involved and to join us in the growth.

Well, since you brought up housing, we talk at The Fuller Center about “Building a better world, one house at a time.” But it’s hard to see one house at a time in El Salvador the way they’re building left and right. This program is designed where the more you build, the more you can build as the repayments are recycled and build over and over again. But could you ever have imagined the scale and the way it’s taking off right now?

You know, really, I could not. It’s just so many good people coming together. I think what we’ve seen here is exponential growth by the partnership between The Fuller Center for Housing and The People Helping People Network. With Fuller Center for Housing being 100 percent focused on providing housing — the foundation for a family; you cannot have the growth within the family if you don’t have that firm foundation of a home — it all begins there with The Fuller Center for Housing. Then you bring in the energy and the opportunities with the wrap-around services of The People Helping People Network. I think we’re now seeing that exponential growth of community and neighborhoods within The Fuller Center as we bring in the hunger relief, the healthcare and the education programs.

(The People Helping People Network operates on the HOPE Equation — Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE.)

We find that when we are able to help people in crisis of food insecurity or healthcare needs or training programs, they really become better homeowners and are more reliable on their payments back to The Fuller Center so that we can recycle those funds within the community to build more homes. You’re taking the people living there now, and you’re making those people very connected within their community as donors to really pay it forward to help the next family of need. We’re really being blessed to see exponential growth by having that special partnership.

You’ve been going to El Salvador for a long time. Six years ago or so, you walked through these neighborhoods of shacks where people didn’t necessarily have smiles on their faces all the time. How stunning is it to walk through an established community like Nuevo Cuscatlán now where people have shops set up in front of their houses, they’re happy, their kids are playing in the street — how stunning is that transformation even for someone like you who has seen a lot in El Salvador?

I’ll use a term that Millard Fuller used to use all the time — seeing is believing. That’s one of the reasons that we do our annual vision trips. We take people down so that they can catch the vision. It’s never a hard sell. We don’t ask for anything from anybody. We just tell people to come along with us and be a part of the vision, see what we’re doing for yourselves. Again, seeing is believing. Once you see it, it’s incredible. It’s something that people just enjoy being a part of. It really warms your heart. … It’s really heartwarming to see the community thriving and growing.

We talk about all this serious business that we’re doing down there. But the culinary school has become something that is seriously successful, but also a lot of fun. You always come back with images and they put out images that look like they need to go straight into Bon Apetit magazine or an Instagram account. Could we have ever imagined the success of this place?

It’s incredible. There’s no way I would have ever imagined this. The instructor that’s leading the program there is one of the top chefs in El Salvador. We originally started out working with him hoping he would just help us build a curriculum and help us get things up and started and maybe train a team to get going. But he’s enjoyed it so much, he continues to lead the program, and he loves teaching these students.

We’ve just had great success with the program. There’s no way that I could have ever imagined that it would take off. To date, anybody that’s finished the three-month program, all of the students, we’ve had 100 percent job placement. We’ve been able to find them employment. Now you’re taking people who’ve never really had the skill set to go out into this environment and earn a living and they’ve got really good jobs. It makes them better homeowners. Many of these people going through this program are people that we’ve built homes for through The Fuller Center for Housing. Now, they’ve got a new home, but they’ve got a total new lease on life with the skills to start a new career. But, yeah, it is a lot of fun. We’ve had some great food and some great meals.

Another thing that’s brought a lot of joy down there is when we give away Bibles. (Spanish-language Bibles are provided by our partners at Mission Cry.) This doesn’t put a roof over their head. It doesn’t put food on the table. But these families seem all excited and joyous when these Bible giveaways happen. What does that do for your spirit, personally?

Of course, we need food for our human body, but this is food for the spirit. This is the most important thing that we do in all that we do. This is to really share the Gospel and to share God’s word with these people through our actions. We want to be the hands and feet of Christ, and we want to show the love of Christ through our actions — whether it’s building a home, whether it’s providing food, whether it’s healthcare or some of the educational opportunities on the construction site or the culinary school. All of those things are important, but there’s nothing more important than sharing God’s word.

The HOPE Equation is all about housing, hunger relief, health care and education — but it’s everything that we do is multiplied by faith. And the faith and God’s word is the glue that holds everything together.

Anything you’d like to add about what’s coming up or what you might need from supporters?

We just talked about adding on to the Center for Hope. We’ve got $100,000 campaign, and we’ve raised about $55,000 of that to date, so we’re about $45,000 short. That money’s going to be used to add an eye clinic and a blood lab so that we can expand our operations and complete a more holistic healthcare program within the Center fo Hope.

We’re always looking for sponsors for houses. We’re building houses every day — multiple houses. People can sponsor a house for $10,000 in El Salvador. And when you’re talking about a house, you’re changing the trajectory of an entire family. … We have many trips available for people that want to work on one of the houses through The Fuller Center for Housing.

We just invite anyone to come and join us. It’s something that’s really good for the heart, and you’re going to help a lot of good people that are in need.

ZOOM RECORDING: Full Q&A with Jeff Cardwell

PHOTO GALLERY (Click thumbnails to see larger images)

Dr. Rick Jackson: Helping people help themselves takes a little bit of harmony

Dr. Rick Jackson loves The People Helping People Network’s HOPE Equation, which brings four elements together — Housing, Hunger Relief, Healthcare and Education — and multiplies them by Faith to bring communities HOPE. Of course, he has a special appreciation for four-part harmony these days.

Jackson retired from daily practice as an orthopedic surgeon four years ago and now keeps busy serving others through his church, playing pickleball, keeping up with his 11 grandchildren, and singing in a barbershop quartet.

“Between the church and pickleball and the singing and 11 grandchildren, we stay pretty busy,” Jackson told us one afternoon after his barbershop quartet had performed at a county fair.

He knows that a successful quartet requires each singer doing their part to produce a sound that is greater than the sum of its parts. The same is true with the HOPE Equation.

“I’m a health care guy, but I’ve always enjoyed partnering and doing the other things, as well, with housing and hunger and education,” Jackson told us. “That’s a great equation to have. It doesn’t hinge on one thing.

“When you have all of them together, it makes it more comprehensive,” he added, noting that the HOPE Equation seemed revolutionary and simple at the same time when he first heard about it from People Helping People Network founder Jeff Cardwell. “I didn’t even realize that until Jeff came along and presented that. I thought it was a great idea. I could help with the medical part, and he was partnering with others to do the housing and other parts of it. But we all kind of work together, which makes it fun.”

MUTUAL LOVE FOR EL SALVADOR

While Cardwell and The People Helping People Network began working in El Salvador after his first trip to the country in 2000, Jackson has been helping Salvadorans since his first trip in 1987. Both fell in love with the country almost at first sight.

“I think it’s the people,” Jackson said. “They’re so friendly. They’ve very accommodating and very appreciative. We just fell in love with the people down there.”

Jackson met another doctor during that first trip 35 years ago, and they came up with the idea of returning to El Salvador to set up medical clinics and spread the Gospel at the same time.

“We’d take down some medical teams and go out into the country in some areas of El Salvador where they wanted to start a church, so they would have a pastor out there,” he recalled. “We’d set up a clinic and see about 2,000 people in a week. We’d present the Gospel to them as well as giving medicine and treatment. The next year we’d go down and there would be a church started there. The pastor would follow up with the people who’d come through. It was a good way to start a ministry down there.”

Like Cardwell, he has been to El Salvador many times since his first visit. He says the commitment shown by returning time and time again is one of the keys to success when it comes to partnering in another country.

“The first couple of years that we went down, we told the people, ‘We’ll be back next year,’” Jackson said. “They didn’t really believe us because they’d heard that so many times. Somebody comes out to help them out and is doing good things, but things come up and they don’t wind up coming back. ... So, they were surprised when we came back the second year, and then by the third year they started believing that we were committed to dong this and helping them out. They were just extremely grateful. They didn’t expect it or anything — in fact, they would pitch in and do as much as they could. They wanted to help. They wanted to help us help them.”

Cardwell added that their mutual love for El Salvador and efforts to help people help themselves multiply exponentially when they are working together in the country.

“Traveling with Dr. Rick Jackson is certainly an adventure creating memories of a lifetime,” Cardwell said. “He and his wife, Denise, have been serving on the mission field in El Salvador since the 1980s, during the Civil War, and provided medical care to thousands of people in need as they put their faith in action. Dr. Jackson is a world changer and has inspired many others to do the same. I am grateful for the opportunities we have shared together and look forward to our next adventure.”

Just as Jackson has seen the results of his own return visits take root, he has witnessed The People Helping People Network flourish with each year of commitment.

“Jeff’s got good people down there partnering with him and is building up strong relationships,” he said. “You can’t do that on a one time visit. You’ve got to keep going back. I think a lot of Jeff. I think he’s done tremendous work, and it’s been fun working with him. We always kid around that if you get to know Jeff, you’re in trouble because you’re going to be busy all the time.”

EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMETHING;
AND ANYONE CAN BE A HELPER

Very few people have the skills and ability to treat specific medical conditions in the way that Jackson can, but he insists that everyone has some ability to contribute to the overall mission of treating the whole person, something that he has preached to medical students over the years.

“I’ve always felt that God has given me the people to want to help people and to want to help heal them,” he said. “I would try to teach the residents that we want to take care of people. We don’t want to just take care of a problem — we want to take care of the person. A person is a lot more involved than just a broken leg or hip replacement.”

And when it comes to helping people, that is not the exclusive territory of medical professionals, he insists.

“I think it’s just a matter of helping people,” he said. “A lot of people say, ‘Well, I can’t do anything.’ Well, that’s not true. All you have to do is look around. Everybody has a need in their life. Everybody has problems. You’d never know it by looking at a lot of people, but everyone has their particular problems going on.

“As Christians, I think it’s our responsibility to do what Christ would do — find out where they’re hurting, find out what their needs are and try to help them with their needs,” he added. “And if we can’t do it personally, then find somebody who can help them. That’s where Jeff comes in a lot. He’s good at connecting needs with services.”

And there’s a greater connection that he says “anybody” is capable of facilitating.

“Whenever we take a medical team some place, it’s not just medical people who go along,” he said. “We need people to do a lot of the logistical stuff as well as present people with the Gospel — and anybody can do that.”

Dr. Chuck Dietzen joyfully
helps “Pint-Sized Prophets”
wrestle with big challenges

  Many people recognize Dr. Chuck Dietzen as a renowned pediatrician who practices maverick medicine, employing science and medical training with supplemental doses of joyful inspiration and humor as he helps children battle through illnesses, injuries and disabilities with a specialty in pediatric rehabilitation.

Others know him as the servant-leader who founded Timmy Global Health, whose goal is to help international communities who lack the healthcare resources many of us take for granted in the United States to empower themselves toward better health outcomes. It was named for a Dietzen’s brother who died in infancy, a brother he never met.

His work has garnered much attention and major awards. In February of this year, he was honored with the Servant’s Heart Award for Healthcare by The People Helping People Network, which counts Timmy Global Health among its partners in the HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE). That was followed this past Friday by Kiwanis International awarding him its World Service Medal, whose past winners have included the likes of Mother Teresa, Audrey Hepburn, Heifer International, Sir Roger Moore and First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Rosalynn Carter, among others.

“Dr. Chuck is a remarkable man of faith and a deep-rooted desire to serve those in need,” People Helping People founder Jeff Cardwell says of the doctor. “His heart for serving others often surpassing our understanding, exemplifying a level of servant leadership that is remarkably rare.”

That’s high praise for a man that many children know as “Dr. Doom” — a role in which he has suffered unprecedented consecutive losses in the wrestling ring as part of the Timmy Takedown.

“Someone once said to me that I’m like the Washington Generals against the Harlem Globetrotters,” Dietzen says with a laugh. “That’s a good way of putting it.”

Recently, though, he finally broke that string of losses. He did it the same way he loses in the ring — with complete joy. (Keep reading for the explanation.) But before you can understand the method behind the madness of the Timmy Takedown’s “Dr. Doom” you have to understand Timmy Global Health’s “Dr. Chuck.”

“PINT-SIZED PROPHETS”

The seeds of service were planted in Dietzen’s heart at an early age.

“The thing that my parents taught us is that we’re here to live for others and to share with others,” he says. “We had 150 foster kids over 20 years. Whenever people ask me if I felt cheated because there were so many other kids and my parents didn’t have all the time to pay attention just to me, I tell them I just learned to count my blessings. It was a great way to grow up. It was a great way to learn how to look after others.

“We were changing diapers and feeding babies bottles when we were 7 and 8 years old,” he recalls. “It was great, and I remember us almost fighting among ourselves who was going to give up their bed or bedroom or chest of drawers for a child that was coming in. We all felt that way. We didn’t feel cheated at all.”

His love for children made pediatrics a natural path to follow in medicine. Yet, he wondered if that love could be an obstacle and not allow him to properly confront the most difficult challenges children could face and health battles some might ultimately lose. Yet, as he relates in his book “Pint-Sized Prophets,” those little subjects of concern would become his spiritual leaders.

“When a child dies and gets resuscitated and looks at you and says, ‘I died and I met Jesus and He hugged me and told me it wasn’t my time to die,’ that gets your attention,” Dietzen says. “The irony is that was one of my great fears about becoming a doctor — how would I survive children dying. And, lo and behold, the greatest work I’ve done is to walk that edge of life and death with my heroes, my spiritual leaders.”

Moments like those have taken him from worrying that his faith might be tested to knowing that his faith has been validated.

“I’ve been very blessed to be the caregiver of my spiritual leaders,” he says. “Although they took me to a place that I feared, as I’ve said to many people, they’ve taken me from faith to fact that I’ll get to meet them again. I’ll get to see them again after this life. It’s been a very rewarding and life-affirming journey for me.”

Those affirmations are not just internal. They have come from those witnessing his work, as well.

“There’s a synergy that those kids and I have. I remember a mother of a child with cerebral palsy said to me, ‘Dr. Chuck, are you aware of the energy in that room when you’re with my son?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m very aware.’ I pray for that. I do sense it.”

It also helps him explain recoveries that others have labeled “miraculous.”

“When I was asked years ago by a reporter about recoveries that were considered miraculous, I said, ‘Well, I ask Jesus to round with me every day.’”

IN GOOD COMPANY

When People Helping People founder Jeff Cardwell informed him that he was to receive the Servant’s Heart Award for Healthcare, Dietzen was surprised. Then came news of Kiwanis’ World Service Medal. He says the timing seemed unusual considering how the Covid outbreak had slowed his international travels.

“I feel like I personally, out of necessity and limited by the pandemic, I feel like I’ve been doing less the last couple of years and all of the sudden these awards started flowing in,” he says. “If you’re living your passion and you’re doing what God put you here to do, these things just follow in your wake. I was very, very touched by the Servant’s Heart Award because founder Jeff knows what my true motive is for my work.”

Knowing that the Kiwanis World Service Medal also has been bestowed upon Nobel Peace Prize recipient Mother Teresa, whom he once had the honor of meeting, made this past Friday night’s presentation particularly emotional — especially since Timmy Global Health was founded 25 years ago in 1997, the same year this world lost Mother Teresa.

“When I read Mother’s name, I choked back tears,” Dietzen says. “It’s very, very important to me when I hear Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity — thats the kind of company I like to run with. I just think we need more examples and more spiritual mentors like Mother Teresa in the world.”

The People Helping People Network’s partnership with Timmy Global Health makes sense, Dietzen says, because both organizations are not just about helping people but about empowering them to help themselves.

“This world, this life is about empowerment,” he says. “I’ve joked with Jeff that I wish I’d named my organization People Helping People because people get locked into this idea of what a mission is, and I just like the idea of people helping people. It’s whatever I can do to help you, whatever resources I have, I’m willing to share them. What gives anything value is the ability to share it.

“Just as the children inspire me, there’s a synergy there, I think the same is true among organizations,” he adds. “Organizations are made up of individuals. It’s quite flattering, humbling and quite an honor to receive awards from organizations like that.

Dietzen has worked in a total of 27 different countries, and Timmy Global Health currently works in four countries — Ecuador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria. While some nonprofits parachute into a situation and try to dictate how best to help a community, Dietzen believes in going where help is asked for and where he can leave people pointed in the right direction to help themselves.

“When people ask how I end up there, I say I was invited,” he says. “It’s important to me that they want us to interact with them. But it is always about empowering the local people so that they can deliver the local services themselves. Of course, these are very, very limited resource locations.”

NOW, ABOUT “DR. DOOM”

Sports have always played a key role in Dietzen’s life. He was playing semi-pro football and had turned down a contract to play pro football in Europe when he continued his medical pursuits with a residency at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where UAB had started a club football team that would later evolve into a full-fledged competitive college football team. Dietzen was UAB’s first quarterback. He also has played the rough-and-tumble sport of rugby for 40 years.

But he has a special connection with wrestling — legitimate amateur wrestling and the professional spectacle. He was an amateur wrestler in high school, as well as on Junior Olympic and AAU teams. He then spent about five years in the 1990s as a “bad guy” on professional wrestling circuits.

Today, he stages Timmy Takedown events where he “wrestles” the very children he helps rehabilitate in spectacles complete with masks, wrestling ropes, referees and boisterous fans cheering on the kids. Wrestling as Dr. Doom, Dietzen has become quite used to losing in spectacular fashion.

How does he explain this event to people hearing about it for the first time?

“I say, ‘Well, we get the kids out of their wheelchairs, and we throw them around,’” he says with a laugh. “So, it’s impossible to explain this to people. I joke that we did the first one in Kentucky because the laws are a little more lax.”

He insists he has the best vantage point for these events, albeit flat on his back by the end of each match.

“We set the stage for children with disabilities to showcase their abilities,” he insists. “I have to admit that at some level I’m kinda selfish because all of the other doctors and young people that work with me to do that show, we get the best seats in the house. To hear what those kids say and to see them stick their chests out excited about putting on a show, it’s the greatest opportunity to see the human spirit and to see love personified. It’s just such a cool, cool event.”

It was bound to happen, though — Dr. Doom prevailing and, yes, defeating a young man with autism.

“This is not as well known because I’ve lost about 862 consecutive matches, but in the last one we did in Carmel, Indiana, this one kid, a teenager who has autism, he insisted, insisted, that I win — that I pin him and win,” Dietzen explains. “Afterwards, he came up to me and goes, ‘OK, you got what you want, now I need to get what I want — and that’s $25.’ I was laughing and actually took out $25 cash and gave it to him. I looked at his mom and dad and then looked back at him and said, ‘You understand the business, my friend!’”

The Timmy Takedown is just an extension of his love for children and his drive to make the world a better place to live for everyone.

“I have the greatest respect and love for these kids and their families,” he says. “It’s just a wonderful mission. I’m so thankful this is where God put me to make that visible to others. It’s faith, hope and love. It’s those three things. There’s just nothing better than to see a child who has a disability get their moment in the limelight. And it helps us who don’t struggle with those issues to realize how unimportant some things are that we put so much emphasis on in our lives.”

Watch Dr. Chuck’s TEDx talk on “Maverick Medicine” from 2016 …

PHP relief missions in Ukraine, Afghanistan led by retired general with impressive record and legacy

When the United States and allies pulled out of Afghanistan in chaotic mass evacuation scenes, many were left behind to face the wrath of the Taliban and even more evil groups. “Somebody should do something,” was a common refrain.

When Russians invaded Ukraine, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into western neighbors for safety, many were left behind in orphanages, senior homes and other under-the-radar situations.

Again was the refrain: “Somebody should do something.”

The People Helping People Network’s Jeff Cardwell was one of those wanting to do something. Another was retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. David L. Grange, who had extensive military experience and commanding roles from Vietnam through Desert Storm and the Balkans, with many other leadership posts — including leading Special Operations forces, commanding the 75th Ranger Regiment, and commanding the 3rd Infantry Division.

Their life missions have been about much more than wanting to help; their missions have been about finding a way to help. Together, they are doing something for those most at risk in each country. People Helping People’s Afghanistan Relief Project has undertaken treacherous missions to evacuate hundreds of Christians, those who helped American forces and others most at risk after being left behind following the official U.S. departure.

That mission is ongoing even as PHP also has launched the Ukrainian Relief Project, whose primary goal is to help orphaned children and those with special needs get out of harm’s way amid the Russian assault. Neither of those missions, though, are possible without the leadership of someone who has extensive connections, access to critical intelligence and wealth of military experience and a courageous track record.

Grange is the point man on these missions. Since retiring from the Army, he has lent his leadership skills to the private sector and nonprofit sector, including 10 years at the helm of the McCormick Foundation. He has made many television appearances on news programs over the years helping people understand military situations. He founded Osprey Global Solutions, a consulting firm and government contractor that offers logistics, intelligence, medical, security training, armament sales, financial forensics, construction and other services.

“We are honored to join forces with and support Gen. Grange,” Cardwell says. “He has a lifelong commitment to serving our country and helping people — whether it’s here at home or abroad. What I admire most is how he puts his faith into action.”

Grange says that working through a nonprofit organization like PHP is crucial to secure funding for humanitarian operations in way that others can see, verify and trust. And when that organization so well aligns with your priorities — namely helping people in need — all the better.

“When you’re working with a nonprofit, it’s more transparent,” Grange says. “Jeff already had efforts going on to help people, to help people in need. By adding this to it and having us execute it for him, it was a perfect match because he already had the infrastructure in place.

“We know how to do it, and the guys who are working with me are all Tier 1 operators,” Grange adds. “With People Helping People, they have a great program. Having run a nonprofit for 10 years myself, the McCormick Foundation, I understand philanthropy, the 501(c)3 stuff, how to file and all the requirements, etc. But we’re a for-profit company. It’s focused on security, health, medical stuff and logistics — mainly in remote areas — so it fits nicely with anyone who wants to conduct a mission for the good of mankind.”

Anyone who has seen news reports out of Ukraine in recent months has seen the long lines of refugees streaming out of the country and crowds packing train cars. Those are easily seen by cameras in western border areas. You won’t see Gen. Grange and his team in those scenes.

“What we focus on is the difficult missions,” he says, “such as an orphanage where you have a guardianship issue because of the laws on human trafficking and usually disability issues with most of the children because that’s why many were left there to begin with. We also have people needing special care in hospitals, such as paraplegics. We’ve also extracted an assisted-living type of facility that was near the front lines and under artillery fire. They were extracted to a pickup point for forward movement. Half of those elderly people had dementia and a good number were in wheelchairs.”

These extraction missions require advance planning and up-to-the-minute intelligence information. But Grange and his team know and expect plans to change when operating in war zones.

“When we’re not particularly evacuating someone or standing by to do another group, you’ve got to stay up on all the intelligence because if you don’t have good intel, you might not drive to the right place,” he says. “You don’t want to go through a Russian checkpoint as an example. It’s very difficult, and it’s life or death.

“All that planning’s done ahead of time — where they’re gonna go, where they’re gonna stay — but truth changes, and even if you have a plan, it’s gonna change.”

Among the life-or-death missions they face are tangential to the primary goal of extracting those in most need. For instance, they will soon be bring in supplies and responding to casualties near the front lines while helping diffuse ordnance and booby-traps left by Russian troops as they leave devastated villages behind.

“They have IEDs, terrible things in refrigerators and washing machines,” Grange says. “We’re having injuries to kids and women. Having been wounded by a booby-trap myself, it’s kind of close to my heart. That’s one of the examples of other things we’re going to do to augment our capacity because we know that we can also accomplish something else while we’re there. We don’t want to waste time if there’s some kind of stall in an evacuation.”

“The other thing we can help with is casualty support,” he adds. “We have a pretty good network of medical support. A lot of these casualties by the front lines are civilian and military. We can help with some of the trauma wounds. Our company did that in Kurdistan against ISIS and in the Mosul area. We make sure the trauma is taken care of and can then take them to a casualty collection point. And then they’ll go from there to a Ukrainian hospital.”

In the process of heading into harm’s way, the team finds other ways to help — and he would like to do more.

“We’ve been moving some stuff like baby food in, been moving some body armor in,” Grange says, adding that the team has the capacity to bring in more. “If we go in, we can take something in, not just take stuff out. Because we’re trained to operate in those environments, I know we can help do that.”

If the missions going into Ukraine sound treacherous, they are. However, Grange’s team has been working with PHP since last summer helping people get out of Afghanistan — after the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power. People Helping People counts at least 1,300 people who have been helped to safety.

“Once that ended, everybody kinda went away,” Grange says of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan that officially ended on Aug. 31, 2021, noting that in the wake of that withdrawal U.S. military veterans have further stepped up to play critical roles on his team, estimating 95 percent of whom are veterans. “We knew that there were still a lot of people to get out that trusted us, that depended on us. We have done some extraordinary rescues. What’s amazing to me recently with these last two, Afghanistan and Ukraine, I’ve noticed the increase in our nation of veterans stepping up to help these situations. It’s very difficult.”

As difficult as the Afghanistan missions have been, he feels that the people left on the ground deserve the effort.

“There are some people in the country that are so brave that I’m humbled by it,” he says.

The Grange legacy has long been solidified in Army history long before these post-retirement missions into Ukraine and Afghanistan. In fact, retired Maj. Gen. Grange is the son of retired Lt. Gen. David Grange Jr., for whom the annual Best Ranger Competition at Fort Benning, Ga., is named. His legendary father, now 97, served 41 years and fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He is among the few paratroopers in United States Army history to make three combat jumps — one in World War II into France and two in Korea.

David L. Grange says one of his main motivations for continuing to fight for what’s right is that he has witnessed so much of what’s wrong in the world.

“I’ve been a special operations officer for most of my life,” he says. “While serving, I saw a lot of the cruelty and badness around the world and persecution of helpless people, the abuses from human trafficking to exploitation, to setting conditions for starvation — whatever the case may be. So, I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff around the world.

“To solve these problems, it takes a combination of for-profit, nonprofit and government together — kind of a whole nation approach to accomplish these things,” he continues. “Having worked in all those three sectors in my life, I just can fit it in nicely and feel like I’m accomplishing something, so I’m still able to do that. I’m still mobile enough where I can operate overseas.”

The Special Forces motto — De Oppresso Liber (Liberate the Oppressed) — still echoes in his head. It’s also a matter of faith. He admits that seeing so much evil in the world can test one’s faith.

“Sometimes you see things and wonder why it has to be this way,” he admits. “How can this possibly be this terrible?”

But an indelible image helps restore that faith. Over and over, he has seen how the oppressed, especially children, respond to American troops by reaching up to their sleeves and touching the American flag patch. He feels faith flow through that flag and the way people respond to it overseas.

“It represents faith. It represents hope. It represents opportunity. It represents safety. That’s hard to beat,” he says. “So that goodness — and I’m just using the American GI as one example — that goodness is there. That reinforces faith — faith in our nation, what it stands for, In God We Trust and all those things.”

Anytime his faith is tested, it emerges stronger.

“The older I get, the more I probably believe,” Grange says. “I still question at times. But there’s a reason, I feel, why I’m an American. There’s a reason why I’m able to still do missions abroad, to make a difference with the people that we work with. I like the idea that we’re the executing arm of an organization like PHP and we can actually do that with a partnership with the trust that they have given us. Thank God that we know how to do it in harm’s way.”

Kevin Stewart has witnessed
life-changing power of faith
and his love for God’s people

The People Helping People Network promotes a holistic approach to helping communities help themselves through PHP’s HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE), and nowhere has HOPE taken hold and flourished more than in El Salvador. PHP’s work in the country has set the standard for how nonprofits can empower people, families and whole communities.

All that success may have never taken hold, however, had PHP founder Jeff Cardwell not been dragged to the country in June of 2000 — “kicking and screaming” as he recalls it today — during a church youth trip in which his then 11-year-old daughter Sara wanted to participate.

“I went there unwillingly,” Cardwell admits. “I didn’t want to go. Being in the lumber and the hardware business, June was our busy time. You’ve gotta make hay while the sun shines. It was a really difficult time to be going, and I was very reluctant to go.”

In fact, he was just fine letting Sara go by herself. His wife and Sara’s youth pastor at Indianapolis’ Parc-Way Assembly of God had other ideas.

“I just really sensed Jeff was supposed to go,” recalls Stewart, now a youth pastor at Askewville Assembly of God in North Carolina. “I called him into my office and said, ‘Jeff, I feel like you should go to El Salvador with us.’ He said, ‘I can’t — I don’t have any time in my schedule. I wish I could, but there’s no way.’”

Stewart knew that the busy Cardwell went nowhere without his calendar, so he came up with a deal:

“I said, ‘Jeff, let’s go out to your vehicle, but make me a promise before we walk out there: If those dates in your calendar are empty, will you go to El Salvador with us?’” Stewart remembers. “He said, ‘If those dates in my calendar are empty, that’d be a miracle, and I’ll go to El Salvador.’ He opened his calendar and those literally were the only dates all year he had a week empty.

“He looked at me and asked, ‘Did you talk to God before this?’ So he went and the rest is history.”

Well, it’s history as well as present and future. On his first international mission trip, Cardwell fell in love with the country, and the People Helping People Network’s work has been thriving there ever since. Thousands of Salvadorans have been uplifted to this day, and the work expands each year. It’s all because of a mission trip, but Stewart has seen such trips transform many lives over the years. He certainly was not surprised to see his friend’s passion for service grow by leaps and bounds.

“Jeff has always been a very giving person — very giving of himself and his time,” Stewart says. “I think when he saw the needs of the people, it transformed his life immediately. … Time after time after time, I’ve seen those kind of statements, ‘I didn’t want to go, but it changed my life kind of thing.’”

Indeed, Cardwell confirms.

“It was really a God appointment for me,” he says. “God just touched my life and just changed my life forever. I found my calling. This was something that has become near and dear to my heart. I consider it a second home today.”

El Salvador would become much more than a second home for the Stewart family in August 2005. Kevin was raised by his missionary parents in India, where they took him when he was just 6 months old. Missionary work was in his blood, and he felt called by God to become a missionary himself in El Salvador. Already busy planting a church in North Carolina and settled into the Tar Heel State with his wife and son, Samuel, he was hardly looking out for such a call. When he visited a preacher friend, he admitted that he was hearing a call that he had yet to heed as his wife, Stephanie, was pregnant with their second child, Noah.

“I knew that God had called us to the mission field in El Salvador, but it was difficult timing,” Stewart says. “I walked into his office and he said, ‘What are you still doing here? You need to be where God’s called you to be.’ It wasn’t a situation where things weren’t working. We were seeing success in planting the church and God was helping us.”

In August of 2005, they moved the family to Costa Rice for language school. One of their first true adventures in Central America happened when it was time for Stephanie to give birth. They went to the hospital when she was scheduled to have labor induced for natural childbirth. Instead, doctors discovered that the baby had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. An emergency C-section was ordered, and Kevin was told to get out his street clothes, put on hospital scrubs and rush to the operating room.

“I’m thinking, this is just great,” he recalls with a chuckle. “I’m 6-foot-3 and 350 pounds — I’m not sure they’re gonna have a whole lot to fit me in here, but we’re gonna hope for the best. I thankfully found a shirt that would fit me, but I could find no scrub pants to fit me.”

He found a way to hurdle that obstacle in a way that delivered some levity to an otherwise serious situation.

“My son was getting ready to be born, and I’m in a hospital where they’ve seen people in their underwear before,” he says. “So I put on the scrub top, took off my street pants and went walking down the hall in my underwear. When I opened the door to the emergency room, literally every head in the place turned to look at me and starts laughing. The doctor said, ‘You can go back if you want to and get your street pants.’ I said, ‘No, I’m already here. Let’s do this!’”

After seven years of missionary work in El Salvador, the family returned to North Carolina in 2012. Today, he and Stephanie are the “NextGen Pastors” at Askewville Assembly of God. It’s a position he holds in addition to directing AccuTrain Corporation’s Innovative School Summits and working as Vice President with the faith-based clean water nonprofit Water3World that he co-founded with a primary focus on delivering water-filtration systems to El Salvador and Honduras.

When he and Stephanie were asked to serve as youth pastors, he wondered if it was the right move.

“I’m just not your hip youth pastor,” he admits. “But the Lord reminded me of what He reminded me in El Salvador. We did a lot of work with gangs. I remember saying, ‘Lord, I’ve got nothing, nothing in common with gang members. You’ve spared me from it all, and I’m grateful for it.’ I just felt like the Lord then spoke to my heart and said, ‘Do you love ‘em?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I do. I love them because they’re humans. And I love them because You love them.’

“So, when we took this position as Next Generation pastors, He just reminded me of that — just to love them,” he adds. “That’s what I’ve got to give. I love people. I love kids. And I believe in people. I believe people can do things greater than themselves if you just give them something to believe in.”

He still promotes the value of taking international mission trips, especially for youth.

“It changes their world view,” he says. “They get out of seeing just how life is here in the U.S. — the comfortableness of it, the first-world problems. When they get there, they see the simplicity of a kid that’s excited because they got a toy that came out of a Happy Meal, the joy that overwhelms a kid because he was given a pencil. You get past your fairly narrow world view and see that life is so much different from what you know.

“You look at their simplicity in life and see the joy in how they live,” he continues. “So many times I’ve been in homes with dirt floors and a hammock to sleep in and, yet, they’re happy. It’s the thankfulness of what they get on a daily basis. It’s not based on what I’m going to obtain, how much wealth can I have. It’s ‘This is my blessing for the day, and I’m going to be happy about it because I don’t know what tomorrow brings.’”

He doesn’t know what tomorrow brings for the youth he and Stephanie help inspire and lead at their church, but he has faith that the future is bright — and that the kids’ are full of potential.

“I believe in them because I think — well, I don’t think, I’ve seen the giftedness and the talent they have if they’re just given the opportunity and have someone in their life to believe in them,” he says. “They need to have someone in their life to believe them and tell them, ‘Your life matters to God — you’re not just another number.’ The Bible tells us that your life matters so much to God. If given that opportunity, they will blossom and do incredible things.”

His advice for anyone wanting to inspire youth to get involved with building a better world and putting their faith into action in tangible ways:

“Believe in what people can do. Believe in a generation that is waiting for you to believe in them.”

In this 2021 video, Jeff Cardwell tells The Fuller Center for Housing’s Chris Johnson about how his first visit to El Salvador changed his life:

Fighting to save Ukraine’s
most vulnerable children

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1:27 (NIV)

INDIANAPOLIS (March 18, 2022) — The People Helping People Network has launched The Ukrainian Relief Project to help the most vulnerable children displaced by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Working through its operational partner on the ground — Osprey Global Solutions, which is led by retired Maj. Gen. David L. Grange — the mission’s primary focus is to rescue children from orphanages and special-needs children.

“Everything we’re seeing, it’s just absolutely heartbreaking,” PHP founder Jeff Cardwell said. “We’ve got a base set up in Romania, and we’re doing some things in Poland, as well. We’ve raised more than $110,000 for the operation so far, but when you’re renting warehouses, trucks and buses and buying fuel, it can get very expensive. Of course, you can put a monetary value on this crucial mission. Simply put, the more money we raise, the more children we can help.”

Cardwell said that in addition to navigating the usual government red tape, there is the added, unconscionable issue of child traffickers targeting these children in their moment of greatest vulnerability. Governments and agencies face a difficult balancing act in trying to protect children from those who would do them harm while at the same time facilitating the work of NGOs like The People Helping People Network who are trying to assist the children.

He said that it has been a tremendous help to have U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz advocating for agencies and NGOs like The People Helping People Network that are working so hard to help children in need. It’s an issue close to her heart as Rep. Spartz, who represents Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, is the first Ukrainian-born member of Congress. Having taken office in January of 2021, Rep. Spartz was born in what was then part of the Soviet Union.

The point man on the ground, though, is Gen. Grange with, whom PHP has had recent experience with an Afghanistan-related mission. In a mission that was understandably kept rather quiet, PHP and Osprey Global Solutions teamed up with strategic partners after last year’s Taliban takeover of Afghanistan to rescue Americans and persecuted Christians from the country. At last count, the operation had brought more than 1,300 people safely out of the country.

A veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, Operation Desert Storm, the Yugoslav War and other operations, Gen. Grange is described by Cardwell as “humble” despite his military credentials that include three Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts and multiple other honors. That humility, Cardwell says, comes from his understanding that the causes he fights for are much bigger than himself.

“The general is a very dedicated Christian,” he said. “They are doing their operations as putting their faith into action.”

After Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Cardwell was not surprised to hear from the general’s team as horrifying images emerged from the war-town land and refugee sites.

“The general called me and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to do something. We’re not going to sit still. We’re going to go in and get these kids.’”

And Cardwell’s response also was not surprising.

“I said, ‘Absolutely.’”

Inspirational survivor Lisselot Troconis leads early breast cancer detection efforts in El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — When People Helping People delivered an ultrasonography machine to its local leaders in El Salvador to aid their fight against breast cancer, Lisselot Troconis knew it would be a critical tool for early detection.

However, she never imagined how important a role the new machine would play in her own life. And it happened almost immediately after the machine arrived in November of 2010.

“I remember I was with a friend who told me, ‘The machine has arrived, and you and I have to be the first ones to try it out,’” Troconis recalled. “I said OK, but I wasn’t really paying attention. But when we were in the office the next month, my friend told the doctor, ‘Lisselot is the only one who hasn’t done the test.’ The doctor put her robe on and made me go into the room.”

While performing the ultrasonography, the doctor asked, “What’s this?” Troconis explained that she had recently fallen and injured her shoulder. “No, no, this is something else, and I want to see what it is,” the doctor said. “We need to do a biopsy.”

Troconis was not overly alarmed and felt she was too busy to get an immediate biopsy. Her daughter, though, was concerned and made her get the biopsy that very afternoon.

The biopsy results were negative for cancer — “I was so happy,” Troconis recalled — but the doctor wanted to re-check over each of the next three months to be on the safe side.

A couple of days before her January biopsy, Troconis had another ultrasonograph.
“It had grown like 50 percent,” Troconis said. “Then they did another biopsy, and it came out positive.”

It was not the news she hoped to hear, but she thought it might be divine intervention.

“I said, ‘God, if you’re giving me this so I will know how these ladies feel when they come in here, then I’ll take this,’” she said. Although, she gave God a little advice: “But don’t overdo it with me because I’m not that strong.

“Thank God it was very, very early,” she added. “I had a good treatment with no side effects from the chemo except that I lost my hair. But I had wigs.”

She already had been extolling the importance of early detection, but women listen a little more closely hearing the advice come from a survivor.

A major step in educating women about the importance of early detection is the annual Breast Cancer Awareness Walk and Run in San Salvador. After missing last year because of Covid, the event returns on Sunday, March 13. Troconis and her team are expecting another large crowd for the sixth such event after the last Walk and Run drew more than 1,000 participants in 2020.

(This year’s event has a virtual option, in which you can sign up and experience the walk live from afar. Click here for details.)

Clearly, awareness is growing, and their efforts are bolstered by financial support — with the majority of funds coming from friends in the United States. (If you would like to donate to the effort through People Helping People, click here.) Over the past decade, more than 8,600 women have been screened at no cost to them, and 106 cancers have been detected early. More than 2,000 counseling sessions have been provided, and 17 women have received reconstructive surgeries.

In addition to early detection, People Helping People and Troconis have been able to provide a crucial tool for early treatment — more than 500 ImmunoHistoChemistry kits. IHC is used to determine the exact type of cancer so that doctors can select the proper course of treatment and medicines.

“The ladies used to just start with a basic drug, do six months of chemotherapy, and then what happened?” Troconis said. “It came back. They need to know what kind of cancer it is so they know what kind of chemo they need. Otherwise, they just know it’s breast cancer. It was very sad to see some of the ladies who got there and they said they had no chemo there and they had to go home.”

Fortunately, the government has taken notice of the successful treatments made possible by the IHC kits.

“After we began providing kits, the government started getting their own,” Troconis said. “So we were able to make a start. Now the ladies have the ImmunoHistoChemistry kits and they’re able to know what kind of medicine they need and are not going back so often.”

Troconis noted that there is a disturbing trend being identified by the screenings.

“For some reason that doctors don’t know because there is no research here, most of patients that are screened and have positives are younger than 32,” she said. “That includes teenagers. The younger the girl, the more difficult it is because it’s very aggressive and often comes back.”

One of the younger women saved by a screening was Elizabeth, who was screened and diagnosed six years ago at the age of 32. The day she found out she had cancer, she also found out she was pregnant. Thanks to the early detection, doctors were able to effectively treat the cancer and ensure that her unborn baby remained safe. Today, Elizabeth is healthy with a beautiful 6-year-old daughter Jennifer.

“Her detection was so early that the doctor was able to do just a partial mastectomy,” Troconis said. “She was able to start chemo when she was seven months pregnant and was able to start radiation after she had the baby. Her life was saved by early detection, thank God.”

Carla, meanwhile, is just 26 years old and fighting breast cancer for the second time despite having had a double-mastectomy during her first battle. PHP provides her with her monthly cancer medication free of charge. Like many PHP initiatives, Carla’s life has been touched in more than one way by PHP’s holistic approach to helping people. She was sponsored to attend PHP’s culinary school on a scholarship and now supports her family by cooking and selling food from her home.

“She’s doing well,” Troconis said. “She lives with her 10-year-old daughter and her mother. Carla is the pillar of the house in every way. Being able to help her helps the whole family.”

Fostering economic opportunity and entrepreneurship in El Salvador

People Helping People founder Jeff Cardwell and Gente Ayudando Gente’s Lisselot Troconis were recently leading a group of supporters around the community of Nuevo Cuscatlán when a woman emerged from one of the homes with a guitar.

She was not there to perform but to show off the instrument crafted by her husband. It was just one of many examples of families who get a new outlook on life after moving into one of the homes built by The Fuller Center for Housing, People Helping People’s housing partner in the country.

Becoming homeowners rarely is the final stop in a family’s journey. Rather, it’s often the springboard to an even brighter future. In these communities, entrepreneurship abounds.

“His wife was showing us that handmade guitar because he loves making musical instruments,” Cardwell said. “He makes cabinets, and he builds hand-carved doors. But he loves making musical instruments, as well. He’s a great craftsman, and we were really inspired by some of the work that he was doing.”

While PHP’s HOPE Equation (Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE) addresses four basic needs to end the cycle of poverty, the elements of that equation can often be seen overlapping in tours of communities improved by PHP and its partners.

Seeing those seeds of hope flourish into something much bigger is one of the things that former Vice President Mike Pence noted in a recent endorsement of The People Helping People Network’s efforts.

“When you address those basic necessities, you provide the foundation people need to improve their lives and build a better world,” noted Pence, also a former governor of Indiana. “Better still, you provide tools for people to help themselves. And that is truly transformational.”

Many of the gifts people have provided through their support of The People Helping People Network over the years may seem small to us here in America — such as a sewing machine, a stove or a chicken — but it can be a huge first step toward a family building a brighter future.

“These are things that really are life-changing,” Cardwell said. “People just don’t realize that — and I heard some of the new people who were on our latest visit talk about that, how they really didn’t understand the context of investing in helping someone buy a stove or buy a sewing machine or a chicken, how important that really was.

“Investing in that stove and getting somebody launched into their own business with a one-time investment can now sustain that entire family so that they can pay their mortgage,” he added. “That little investment — whether it’s a farm or a beehive or a sewing machine or a stove or whatever — those are critical investments that are life-changing not only for that person but for their entire family.”

CULINARY SCHOOL IS THRIVING

PHP’s continuing efforts to provide families with tools to help themselves led to a larger-scale program that literally sets the table for success — a culinary school. It also was born from the aspirations of families living in Fuller Center homes.

“Some of the people in our housing program were looking for new job opportunities and new job skills to improve their income for their family,” Cardwell said. “We thought it could be a good opportunity, but it has exceeded all of our expectations.”

Visiting the school and its new barista training operation has become one of the new highlights of The People Helping People Network’s annual Vision Trips to El Salvador.

“We always get to sample the food, and it’s pretty incredible,” Cardwell said. “Our chef there is very talented and very well known across the country of El Salvador. He’s worked for some of the restaurants. He loves what we’re doing, and he’s got a passion for teaching people to be chefs and help people to get employment. We’re very blessed to have him.”

Of course, the delicious and beautifully prepared dishes that come out of the school are not the ultimate goal.

“We’ve got job placement of more than 90 percent of graduates,” said Cardwell, pointing out the school’s most important accomplishment. “It’s just been better than expected, and it’s been a tremendous hit.”

It also has spawned tangential economic opportunities in connected communities. In fact, PHP is promoting a program to help individuals get bicycles equipped with large baskets so that they can sell baked goods that are produced at the school.

“We have several people living in Fuller Center communities right now that we’re going to help launch into their own business by getting them a bicycle and get them connected with the Center for Hope and the culinary school,” Cardwell said. “They’ll make the bread at the culinary school, and then they can go out and sell the bread and pastries. The bicycle with the basket and everything costs about $175.”

Now, there’s only problem confronting the school … and it’s a good problem to have.

“Now our problem with the culinary school and our education programs is growing pains,” Cardwell said. “We have more students than we can handle, and we’ve got people on a waiting list. We really need to expand. We’re looking at opportunities to buy another building so that we can expand those operations. It’s something of great interest throughout the country, and we have the capacity to take in a lot more students if we could expand and grow our footprint a little bit.”

He believes that increasing support for and recognition of The People Helping People Network’s effective holistic approach to providing hope for Salvadoran families is a recipe for more success.

“That’s one of the things that we’re going to need help with for investment in the future,” Cardwell said. “There’s just so many good stories coming out of the culinary school. We’re just very grateful for those students and the opportunities that all of the donors and different folks have participated in to help us get this far.”

You can support The People Helping People Network’s expanding reach by taking a look at some of the amazing items up for bids in our online silent auction — including a private cooking class with a chef, autographed sports memorabilia, trips, dining experiences and more. Click here to see more than 40 items on the auction block!

GALLERY: Entrepreneurship and economic opportunity in El Salvador

(Click thumbnails to see larger images connected to this article)

The life-changing gift of a wheelchair

 To someone robbed of their mobility by injury, disease or birth defects, the gift of a wheelchair can be life-changing. This is especially true in countries like El Salvador, where health care systems often lag behind those of more developed countries.

Fortunately, People Helping People Network supporters have provided hundreds of Salvadorans with the empowering gift of mobility through the distribution of wheelchairs in the country. PHP Network founder Jeff Cardwell says that Free Wheelchair Mission has been an outstanding partner in this mission.

“It’s a great organization and a great operation,” Cardwell says. “The quality of the wheelchairs is just superb. And they’re able to do it now in such bulk and large containers that they’ve got the pricing down to where they’re pricing is better on brand new ones than on used ones that we were trying to purchase.

The assembly by volunteers and subsequent presentations of wheelchairs has become one of the most memorable aspects of The PHP Network’s annual Vision Trips to El Salvador, including during the most recent visit last month.

“There was not a dry eye in the place,” Cardwell recalls. “It’s incredible. Some of these people who received wheelchairs have lived all of their life being immobile and relying on people to carry them around. It’s a very emotional event. These people were extremely grateful and extremely happy to receive them. It’s an incredible experience, and once you participate in it you will never forget it. I know it’s meant a lot to me.”

Another valuable partner in the distribution of wheelchairs in El Salvador is Wendy Caishpal, an attorney in the community of Ahuachapán, where The PHP Network has a thriving presence, especially in the area of housing with The Fuller Center for Housing.

For Caishpal, this is a deeply personal mission. At the age of 14, she lost her mobility when gunmen attacked the car in which she was riding with a cousin who was delivering bread. Her cousin was shot in the head, while she was hit five times and was in a coma for two weeks. After a long rehabilitation, she furthered her education and got her law degree. But her primary passion is the organization she founded and directs, Ahuchapán Sin Baarreras or Ahuachapán Without Barriers, whichj promotes and protects the rights of all people, especially the disabled, in Ahuachapán.

“We met her in Ahuachapán,” Cardwell says. “When we were able to partner with Free Wheelchair Mission, it was really a match made in Heaven. She’s got a list of all the needs and has already gone through and vetted all of these people, and we have the wheelchairs and volunteers ready to assemble them.”

Remembering Eeileen

One of Cardwell’s most poignant memories of the wheelchair project in El Salvador came in 2019, when El Salvador’s Congress honored him with the title of "Noble Friend of El Salvador," the highest honor bestowed upon foreigners. It was a simple “thank you” from one of the member of Congress, though, that moved him most.

Eeileen Romero was born in 1974 with brittle bone disease, evidenced by seven fractures suffered during her deliver. She lost her father to El Salvador’s Civil War when she was just 8 years old, and she did not get the chance to attend school until she was 13.

She made the most of the opportunity and went on to further her education in college, ultimately achieving a law degree. The Supreme Court of Justice appointed her Lawyer of the Republic of El Salvador in 2008. In 2018, she was elected to Congress and served until April 30 of last year.

“She wanted to meet me,” Cardwell remembers of the day he was honored by the Congress in 2019. “She came up to me and said, ‘Hey, do you recognize this? This is one of the wheelchairs that you’d shipped down earlier. I’d never had a wheelchair, ever, in my life. I just wanted to say thank you to you and your team for providing wheelchairs. This wheelchair changed my entire life.’ Prior to this, I was homebound.’ She said that without the wheelchair, she would have never been able to run for Congress.”

Romero died of cardiac arrest on Oct. 25, 2021. Cardwell cannot help but get emotional thinking of her amazing life but says he is grateful that The People Helping People Network was able to be a part of her success story.

“It was all made possible by the generous donations of our People Helping People Network supporters,” he says.

Wheelchair presentations 2021

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