Eggs for a Brighter Future: Our Impactful Presentation at the Iowa Hunger Summit In the heart of Des Moines, at the prestigious World Food Prize Foundation Hall of Laureates, Blessman International, in collaboration with key partners, recently took center stage at the Iowa Hunger Summit to shed light on an innovative approach to combating child malnutrition. The presentation, titled “The…
September 2023 – Focusing on Partners It has been an interesting, and sometimes trying, month for me. My wife and best supporter in all that I do has been in South Africa working with a team in the area of our Girls’ Empowerment programs. I miss her a lot and life’s usual routines are just not flowing for me. On…
August 2023 – In Honor of Fr Ray We are excited to report that we soon will be constructing a beautiful new brick Catholic church building in South Africa. This new church will be dedicated in honor of Father Ray McHenry who has led mission teams from his church, St. Francis in West Des Moines, IA every year for the…
July 2023 – Time in Iowa Beth and I are enjoying our time back in Iowa. This is the longest period of time that we have both been out of Africa in 20 years. We are blessed with some of the best bike trails in the world and we are spending lots of time riding them most every day. I…
June 2023 – You Are As Old As You Feel My 60-year high school class reunion is coming up over the Memorial weekend holiday. I graduated from Clearfield, Iowa high school in 1963. There were only 19 graduating together and most of us were in the same school for all 13 years. I have spent considerable time this week reminiscing…
May 2023 – Gala Update Gala Update: We just completed our 11th annual gala- it was a great night. We were so blessed that Dustin and Alex were able to make it back to the United States to help present at our gala. We were also blessed to have representatives from Convoy of Hope traveling all the way from Cleveland,…
Church Partnership – Lutheran Church of the Cross Lutheran Church of the Cross (LCC) has been a strong supporter of Blessman International for over two decades. In 2002, LCC sponsored its first trip to Mexico with Blessman International (then called Blessman Medical Ministries), the first of many trips. For several years, LCC continued to partner with Blessman International to go…
April 2023 – Feeding Children We are preparing to head back to the States after a productive three-month season here in South Africa. This month I would like to focus on our child feeding program. We first started feeding children 13 years ago with a generous grant from one our ministry partners. The grant was $250,000, and it made it…
Venda Pit Toilet Drowning On December 6th another child drowned in a pit toilet in South Africa. This time it occurred in the Venda tribal area of Limpopo. A three-year-old handicapped child, Bonginkosi Modike, died in the toilet located at his home. When the parents realized that he was missing they notified the police and it was twenty four hours…
February 2022 – Mission Teams and Outreaches February started off with a big surprise birthday celebration for me at Del Cramer Children’s Campus. The day started off with Beth and Dustin asking me how I would like to spend my birthday. I told them my first choice would be a nice long bike ride. Beth went with me and we…