Jeremy Courtney: Tugging at Heart Strings

Jeremy Courtney’s, life mission is to help the less fortunate. As executive director of the Preemptive Love Coalition, Courtney is interested in practical solutions towards situations that may seem nearly impossible to solve. Currently residing in Iraq, with his wife and two children, Courtney’s organization provides lifesaving heart surgeries for Iraqi children in pursuit of peace between communities at odds. We had a chance to sit down with him to hear more about his story.

Elan: Can you tell us a little bit about your professional background?

Jeremey Courtney: Until I arrived in Iraq, my professional background involves mostly failure! My wife and I were initially burdened by the so-called “Kurdish Question” in southeastern Turkey and endeavored to start an income-generation program there, hoping to spur economic development. But we had no idea what we were doing! We had great intentions, but our plans and programs were low-impact and ill advised. We also certainly were not equipped to work in a volatile environment like southeastern Turkey, where the people may want you there but the government often does not. After two and a half years of false starts and failure in Turkey, we were frustrated and primed for a new opportunity when an acquaintance invited me to Kirkuk, Iraq to learn more about the development work he was doing there. My heart was captured. We moved to Iraq within six months and got involved with an international NGO that was mostly focused on income-generation among war widows and small-scale health programs.

Elan: What inspired you to start your organization, Preemptive Love Coalition?

JC: One day while I was working in a hotel lobby in Iraq, the guy serving me tea got up the courage to ask me a bold question: “Would you help my cousin save his daughter’s life?” The chai-guy and his cousin (the father) eventually went on to tell me about the girl’s heart defect and claimed there was no hospital in all of Iraq that could help her. It wasn’t the first I’d heard about heart defects among children in Iraq. In fact, it seemed that everybody knew somebody who was affected. But this was the first time for me that it became personal. That little girl sent me down a long path to understand why there were so many more children in Iraq born with broken hearts and why there was so little being done about it. It’s often those moments in life that you aren’t expecting. I didn’t wake up that day planning to change careers or start a new organization. I didn’t know anything about anything that was required to get the job done. I was just trying to love that family and love them well. So that’s the short story: my chai-guy and a single little girl inspired me!

Elan: What has been your greatest challenge starting this organization?

JC: Iraq. [Smiles.]

I wish there were an easier answer than that, but honestly, it is just difficult to get things moving here. And once you get them moving, it’s hard to keep them sustained. Often I feel as though it is primarily related to my deficiencies in Arabic or Kurdish – but most of that stuff can be hired out! When our partners across Iraq come back to us, throw their hands up, and say, “Sorry… this is Iraq! What can we do?” it can really take the wind out of our sails.

Elan: What is your greatest accomplishment with your organization?

JC: Only God knows. In 8 more years I hope I can say that our greatest accomplishment happened in 2010 when entirely changed our methodology and ultimately went on to develop a nationwide heart surgery system for children.

Let me tell you a more personal story about reconciliation…

We took a Kurdish father and his son to Turkey for surgery and he was very afraid at the beginning of the trip due to all the news and “horror stories” he had heard about Turks. Over the course of a few weeks his son received a couple of amazing surgeries, but ultimately died alone without his father by his side early one morning in the intensive care unit in Istanbul, Turkey.

We called an Imam and washed the boy’s body and prepared to return him immediately to Iraq for burial. But before we left, the father, in an incredible act of kindness and love, went around to every single doctor, nurse, and hospital staff that had helped his son and said, “Thank you.”

Everyone was in tears. The headline news and their own families each replayed the tired story that Turks and Kurds are supposed to be irreconcilable enemies. But these Turkish doctors and nurses were doing preemptive love – remaking the world through healing. And in turn, this Kurdish father – in his moment of deepest grief – could have easily walked away or blamed them all. But instead he went to them one-by one and in the most beautiful act of preemptive love I’ve ever seen with my own eyes, he humbly said, “Thank you!” It was so beautiful; so healing. It wiped away any sense of guilt; it healed a rift; and it created a story that will be told by those involved through the ages as an example of whom we all should be.

Elan: You currently live in As Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. Why did you decide to move there?

JC: In 2006 my friend invited me to visit him in Kirkuk. When I was there, I took a day trip to Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region, where I met a guy that was leading a local chapter of an international NGO working on income-generation for war widows and small-scale health programs. I ultimately went to work for this guy and moved to Sulaymaniyah for that reason.

Today we have much more work in central, western, and southern Iraq than we do in the north, but Sulaymaniyah has proven to be a great place to raise our children and teach them the principles of preemptive love.

We run a summer internship every year out of Sulaymaniyah with internationals from around the world (mostly from the States). And we host a number of “exposure” trips each year with our donors and partners. Many of these things would be more difficult to do in other parts of Iraq so we have decided to keep our base in Sulaymaniyah while working primarily in other parts of the country.

Elan: If someone would like to help, what would be the easiest way for them to contribute?

JC: For those who love their giving to ignite more giving across their friendship networks, we recommend giving through Facebook. For those who like a lot of information before they give – those who want to thoroughly check us out and inspect everything– our website is a good place to check our impact reports, financial transparency, stories on our blog, etc. After that, if you feel moved to give, you can do that with a credit card or a check in the mail. All the information is located here.

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