Fox News host Dana Perino spent her Thanksgiving doing something quite different from many other Americans: she went abroad to serve people in desperate need.
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Perino, who partners with Mercy Ships, an organization operating hospital ships around the world, was in Africa over the holiday to help ensure people could receive surgeries and special care they can’t get in their home nations.
Her work with Mercy Ships began after she received a request years ago from former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush to interview them for an event arranged by the organization.
“It was a kickoff to the capital campaign that raised the money to build this new ship,” Perino said. “Mercy Ships is a surgical hospital ship. … It was started by Don and Deyon Stephens, a couple from Texas, and they had this goal of helping the people who feel hopeless and the forgotten poor … and this was a Jesus-based mission.”
Perino said the couple wanted to bring surgeons to parts of Africa, where there are generally fewer physicians available to serve the needs of many. Tragically, some suffer without medical intervention or surgical care — something Mercy Ships remedies.
“In America, we have one surgeon per 10,000 people or something like that,” she said. “They have one surgeon for like 2 million people.”
Today, Mercy Ships offers these traveling hospitals filled with volunteers. Some surgeons come for a week or two, and others stay longer. Perino is among those who help out; she spent her Thanksgiving doing just that after having served at various locations in the past.
But even more powerfully, she uses her position at Fox News to tell the stories of people aboard these ships — moving stories of medical assistance, love, and compassion.
“They don’t waste a dollar ever,” Perino said of Mercy Ships. “I’ve been several times. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They’re very good stewards of the donations that they get.”
The experience of serving with Mercy Ships has inspired and reinforced Perino’s faith.
“I grew up in a Lutheran church,” she said. “My parents were very strong supporters of the refugee program in Denver, Colorado. So we spent our weekends when we were kids helping resettle refugees either from Vietnam or from the former Soviet Union.”
This experience, she said, instilled an understanding of what it looks like to help others.
“It reconnects me to my early years, my formative years,” Perino said, noting she’s grateful to work at a place where she can openly talk about her faith.
The TV host added that people will sometimes thank her for being so open about God.
“I’m always like, ‘Oh, well, yeah, sure, of course.’ But then I remember Jesus said, ‘You’re going to be challenged this way. It’s going to be hard for you to talk about it,’” Perino said. “And, so, in a small way, if I can add to people’s confidence to feel that they can talk about how they feel and to profess God’s love, then I mean, that’s the good stuff of being able to work [at Fox].”
