The Ultimate Valentine: U.S. 5th Grader Provides New Hearts to Dying Children Overseas

U.S. Boy with Heart Condition Raises $8,000 to Provide Mongolian Kids Life-Saving Heart Surgeries "I know what it's like to be a heart patient - it's scary to have a heart problem." -10-year-old Garrett Ferguson

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 12, 2008—Suffering from a congenital heart defect since he was born, Texas fifth-grader Garrett Ferguson knows firsthand what it means to receive life-saving heart treatment. So when Garrett learned about the Samaritan's Purse Children's Heart Project, he immediately took action to help kids overseas that have no chance for treatment in their homelands. Now two Mongolian boys will receive the ultimate valentine gift -healthy hearts.
 
"I know what it's like to be a heart patient," recalled Garrett of his own heart problems. "Now I want to give something to hurting kids like me overseas so they have a chance to live."
 
For six months, Garrett wrote letters to his friends and family, talked to members at his church and even placed an ad in the local newspaper ultimately raising $8,000 to give to Samaritan's Purse's Children's Heart Project to help bring hope to kids overseas with heart defects.
 
That hope has become a reality for Choijilsuren Dorj and Baljinnayam Sukhbaatar. The 16-year-old boys were born with life-threatening heart defects that, while routinely treated in the United States, could not be corrected by doctors in their home country of Mongolia. Through Garrett, Samaritan's Purse, Methodist Children;s Hospital of South Texas, Calvary Chapel of San Antonio, and a San Antonio host family, these boys and their mothers were brought to the United States, giving them a chance to have healthy hearts and a new lease on life.

Samaritan's Purse, headed by Franklin Graham, has brought more than 475 children from nine countries to North America through their Children's Heart Project. The relief organization identifies children overseas who need heart surgery, matches them with hospitals and specialists willing to donate their time and services, places them with a local host family, and arranges international travel. San Antonio's Methodist Children's Hospital of South Texas is donating hospital services for these two surgeries. Hospital surgeons and caregivers are donating their time and expertise to make this possible.

The boys, their mothers and an interpreter will stay with a local "host family" before their surgery and during the recovery period until they are healthy enough to travel home.

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