Christian Organization in War Zones

Today I'm on the line with Kevin Turner, President of Strategic World Impact. Now, Kevin, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your organization, Strategic World Impact. We are a Christian ministry that works and responds in three areas of the world.

We work in war zones, disaster areas, and areas of Christian persecution or human rights violation. And we go into these areas with an active witness of the gospel, as well as bringing in every type of humanitarian assistance possible, whether that's medical, whether that's food, whether that's shelter, whether that's clothing. And we respond to those three areas of the world and basically get on the front lines, acting as the tip of the spear, providing disaster and humanitarian assistance to people who are suffering incredibly.

Why don't you tell us maybe some of the most recent places that you've been? Well, we've worked in everywhere from Iraq, Afghanistan. We've recently had teams in Pakistan. I'll be heading out to the Middle East in about three days, where I'll be stationed.

And then from there, launching out to different areas of the Middle East. But we've responded in Sudan. We've worked in Sudan for the past 10 years to the humanitarian tragedy that's happening there.

We were in Indonesia for four months after the tsunami hit. And I think the important thing about what we do is, as a Christian organization, we not only provide physical or humanitarian assistance, but we also proclaim love and truth to reach out, touch people's hearts, and, in effect, maybe even change their worldview and empower them to overcome some of the circumstances, the poverty, or the other things that they face. And, Kevin, Strategic World Impact is mainly comprised of specially trained disaster assistance response training teams.

Tell us a little bit about how these teams are trained. Well, we have what are called DART teams, Disaster Assistance Response Teams. And for the last, oh, nine years now, I've been actually teaching for the United States military through the Command and General Staff College.

And we've done these joint partnerships where we train each other. But, basically, what we do is we take short-term and long-term missionaries, or those wanting to do humanitarian aid, and we train them how to work in disasters and war zones. Now, that means we take them through everything from anti-terrorism training.

We take them through landmine course, improvise explosive devices, in other words, so you can stay alive in very dangerous situations. We also teach them culture. We teach them how to understand the cultures of the different areas of the world.

We teach them how to do disaster assessments and then the logistics to actually carry it out. That's a one-week training program that we've been doing now for nine years. And it's been phenomenal.

We've trained up lots of people to go, who then go, like we've had people at Ground Zero during 9-11. We've had people in Aceh during the tsunami in Indonesia. We've had people in northern Pakistan after the earthquakes there.

And so it's our way of sending out highly trained individuals. We were actually audited by a defense threat reduction agency as one of the best civilian training courses that's available in the United States right now. And, Kevin, can you give us some contact information for our listeners who would like to learn more? I sure can.

There's several ways you can be in touch with us. One, you can email us at team, T-E-A-M, at S-W-I dot O-R-G. Or you can go to our website, which is W-W-W dot S-W-I dot O-R-G.

Or you can call us toll-free at 877-RUNTELL, 877-R-U-N-T-E-L-L. All right. We've been speaking today with Kevin Turner, president of Strategic World Impact.

Kevin, it was a pleasure speaking with you here today. And we look forward to hearing more from you again very soon. Thank you very much.