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Answering the Call Visit the massive Good Samaritan warehouse in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and you’ll find pre-packaged response modules stationed on giant pallets ready for loading onto cargo air- craft.


Including garage and office space, it spans


202,000 square feet across 22 acres. High above, the metal storage racks stretch five levels up. Tarps, chain saws, water purification gear,


medical kits — one glance at this beehive of ac- tivity and you begin to appreciate what being ready to serve as “the hands and feet of Jesus” anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice tru- ly entails. Because medical equipment and supplies


must meet precise standards, warehouse work- ers are pulling pallets off the racks to run inven- tories, check bar codes, and replace anything whose “use by” date has expired. All equipment returning from use in the field


— the tanker explosion in Liberia, the earthquake in Turkey, food distribution to millions of refu- gees in war-torn Ukraine, shipping trauma equip- ment to Israel after the Oct. 7 attack — must be checked, inventoried, and replaced, if necessary. As the base of operations for U.S. disaster re-


lief, the facility is also home base for five Disas- ter Relief Units — tractor-trailers stocked with tools and relief supplies. Each crisis of course is unique, but one thing


they all have in common is the need to act fast. “At Samaritan’s Purse,” Graham says, “we


focus on taking the wars, the famines, the pesti- lence, the pandemics, and we reach out to a hurt- ing world and help them in Jesus’ name.” After a crisis breaks, every hour is critical. Sa-


maritan’s Purse has thousands of trained volun- teers on call and ready to respond. Some are renowned medical professionals in


their specialized fields. Others stand ready, will- ing, and able to climb a ladder, swing a hammer, fire up a chain saw, or do whatever else it takes to bring a disaster-stricken area one step closer to recovery.


Samaritan’s Purse coordinates closely with


emergency officials and local first responders to get the job done. “We try to be on the move right away, not al-


ways in 24 hours, but possibly 48 hours, to have somebody on the ground assessing,” Graham explained after Newsmax toured the warehouse. “Then within a day or so after that, if it’s re-


sponding to a tornado or hurricane here, we’ve got trucks that we would dispatch. “If, for example, we’re going into Hawaii dur-


ing the wildfires, we have our own airplanes so we can take the appropriate equipment. That’s your airlift capacity, your overland capacity, your trucks — that’s how we can move quickly. “It’s just something over the years God has al-


lowed us to do,” Graham adds, “and he’s given us the people and the structure to do it.” It takes a volunteer army to beat back the


chaos spawned by natural disasters. Distribut- ing food and emergency supplies, knocking on doors to check on residents, erecting emergency field medical tents fully equipped to perform vital surgeries — all these endeavors require ex- traordinary coordination. It’s not unlike the logistical challenges en-


countered by a rapid deployment force in the military. Domestic disaster response is managed by


the Samaritan’s Purse rapid-response arm of North American Ministries (NAM). Just hours after the tornado mauled Mayfield, for example, NAM issued an alert to all Samaritan’s Purse staff informing them a team would be mobiliz- ing to help. NAM also ordered the immediate deploy-


ment of a tractor-trailer stocked with tools, supplies, and equipment from the Samaritan’s Purse Southwest Ministry Center in Coppell, Texas. Other equipment and supplies were soon on their way from North Wilkesboro. Next, NAM issued a text alert to its army of


volunteers nationwide, inviting them to join the relief operation getting underway in Mayfield. Three days later, Samaritan’s Purse volunteers


Continued on page 62


MARCH 2024 | NEWSMAX 61


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