I ran an orphanage in Sudan. Trump killing USAID will cost many human lives | Opinion

The year is 2007, two years since the end of the civil war that devastated Sudan. A lorry rumbles through the gates of Cornerstone Children’s Home, an orphanage in the southern part of Sudan. Kids are playing soccer in a dusty field or studying in the shade of a church that stands in the middle of the orphanage compound. The truck arrives once each month, carrying a delivery for the home, so the kids don’t pay much attention as it drives slowly across the compound before backing up to a small storehouse.

I greet the driver as he hops down to the ground, and we set to work unpacking bags of sorghum, beans and maize flour. The sorghum will be mashed, mixed with sugar and made into porridge for the children’s breakfasts. The beans will be cooked in an enormous pot and added to lunches and dinners, and the maize will be used to make posho, a dough-like side dish that will accompany several meals throughout the coming month. Every bag that we stack inside the storehouse is stamped with the same acronym in bulky blue and red letters: USAID.

I was the co-director for Cornerstone for five years, and I know we would’ve struggled to feed the children if not for the monthly deliveries from the U.S. Agency for International Development. We received funding from evangelical churches in America, but our monthly budget wasn’t enough to purchase all the staple food we required for the kids.

As I’ve watched the Trump administration work to abolish USAID, I’ve been recalling how fortunate we were to receive the support of the agency. I have no doubt that the kids under my care would’ve missed crucial meals without the help of USAID.

If you’re a Christian who firmly supports President Donald Trump, you might be quick to suggest that God would’ve found a way to feed the orphans and abandoned children, even if USAID didn’t exist. Here’s the thing: I firmly believe that God was working through USAID to provide food and support not only to the kids at Cornerstone, but to people and places around the globe. Since its creation 60 years ago by President John F. Kennedy, USAID has done the sacred work of providing aid to communities in need. Then, in January, the Trump administration began the process of eradicating USAID, claiming the agency was wasting taxpayers’ dollars and advancing a liberal agenda.

90 million deaths prevented

There’s no such thing as a perfect government program. USAID certainly could have been improved through strategic reforms. And yet, compared to other agencies, it was an exemplary model of how to use limited resources to generate massive, world-changing results. For instance, USAID constituted only about 0.5% of our country’s spending but managed to prevent the deaths of more than 90 million people between 2001 and 2021.

Given its track record of saving lives, the decision by the Trump administration to eliminate USAID is analogous to a hospital suddenly deciding to hack off the arms of its top surgeon. In the void left by USAID, we will witness an immense accumulation of tragedies in the coming years. A report published last month in The Lancet estimates that the defunding of USAID could result in a staggering 14 million deaths over the next five years. More than 4 million of those deaths are likely to occur in children and babies younger than 5 years.

The loss of 14 million people is difficult to visualize, but it’s worth taking the time to contemplate. If you can imagine most of the people in New York City, Los Angeles and the Kansas City metropolitan area succumbing to starvation and disease between now and 2030, then you can begin to understand the toll of Trump’s decision to end USAID.

This month, USAID was officially shut down, a move that former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush both condemned. The agency’s few remaining programs will be absorbed into the State Department and realigned with Trump’s “America first” agenda. Ironically, the dismantling of USAID will do little to uplift our country. Without the agency’s benevolent influence, the world is already becoming a more dangerous and unstable place. Despite our nation’s strength, we are not immune to the chaos and cruelty that Trump has unleashed by gutting USAID. Sooner or later, we will reap what he has so carelessly sown.

USAID was a form of soft power that helped to spread democracy to low- and middle-income nations. Now, those same countries could fall under the sway of Russia and China, creating a more volatile world where the number of U.S. allies steadily dwindles.

JFK believed America had a moral obligation to be “a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations.” Though Trump has failed to meet that moral obligation in a rather spectacular fashion, all is not lost. We still live in a democracy, which means each of us can positively affect the course of our country’s history by utilizing our power to vote.

In the midterm elections next year and the presidential election in 2028, we the people must send a message to Trump and the Republicans who blindly follow him. We must throw our support behind individuals who are actively working to preserve Kennedy’s legacy of altruism. Lives are at stake — our own lives as well as the equally precious lives of our brothers and sisters around the world.

This story was originally published July 13, 2025 at 8:02 AM with the headline "I ran an orphanage in Sudan. Trump killing USAID will cost many human lives | Opinion."