Edward Graham, grandson of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, to speak at Alaska Governor’s Prayer breakfast

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Edward Graham, grandson of famed evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, is set to speak at the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Anchorage on Saturday.

Graham is the Chief Operating Officer of the Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse, which provides disaster relief and other ministries in Alaska, the U.S., and around the world. Graham will be speaking at the breakfast on Saturday, on the theme “go and do likewise,” and leading prayer for Alaskan national, state and local leaders.

“I’ll be praying directly for the governor here, your senators, your congressmen and women, but also the local state leaders,” Graham said. “Good governance is so important. My prayer is that our men and women that serve this state are seeking godly wisdom and godly counsel.”

One of the ministries that Graham leads, "Operation Heal Our Patriots," is based in Alaska, and Graham himself spent considerable time in the state growing up.

“I love it,” Graham said. “As a kid, I learned to fly up here. I mean, Alaska is about aviation. My father is a pilot. We have several planes that we keep here. We have an office at the airport in Soldotna where we keep and store aircraft that we use up here for ministry of various cargo planes and support aircraft float planes.”

Operation Heal Our Patriots operates out of a lodge near Denali National Park. Military and first responder couples from around the country spend time at the lodge while also receiving marriage counseling.

“That ministry has been going great,” Graham said. “It only continues to grow. We also started a first responder ministry. It started off with police, but this summer we’ll be doing firefighters as well from like the fires down in California, and we’ll bring them up to a place called Mystic Lake, Alaska.”

Graham, a U.S. Army Veteran and West Point Graduate himself, spends much of his time traveling as a part of the organization’s disaster relief.

“We have a massive volunteer army,” Graham said. ”Thousands of volunteers show up and work with Samaritan’s Purse — with our disaster relief and also Operation Christmas Child — which is a shoe box ministry where we go around the world sharing the gospel through gifts of toys."

Graham said the organization can deploy a field hospital in 36 hours. Currently, Graham said they are standing by for permission to deploy a hospital in Myanmar after a devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake has left over 1,000 dead, with the death toll expected to rise.

“We want to meet their immediate needs,” Graham said. “But more importantly, we want to know that God loves them and has not forsaken them. It is very bad there, and I’m hearing horrible stories from the team on the ground.”

The quake that has affected several southeast Asian countries happened to fall on the 61st anniversary of the Good Friday Earthquake, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in southcentral Alaska that killed 131 people in 1964.

“We know with disasters like this, and Alaska is no stranger to earthquakes, We know that’s (death toll) going to go up. We’ll stand ready once we get the approval, but we have to get approval to go in from the government to allow us to work there.”

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