Heroes For Humanity founder Dennis Price shares firsthand accounts of faith, devastation and lifesaving rescue efforts.

In Venezuela, families are still standing outside collapsed buildings, waiting for a sound from beneath the rubble.

Some are praying for good news. Some are waiting for closure.

Dennis Price, founder and CEO of Heroes For Humanity, said that is the part national news coverage cannot fully capture in an exclusive new interview with Katy Christian Magazine.

“What it doesn’t fully capture are the families standing outside those buildings refusing to leave because someone they love may still be inside,” Price said. “Disasters are not measured by buildings. They are measured by broken hearts.”

Price, who is now back in Texas, has been coordinating with Heroes For Humanity teams deployed in Venezuela after two massive earthquakes struck the country June 24. The Houston-area Christian rescue ministry has been supporting search-and-rescue operations alongside local responders and partner organizations as Venezuela faces one of the deadliest disasters in its recent history.

The back-to-back earthquakes, reported at magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, left buildings collapsed, hospitals strained and thousands of families searching for loved ones. Reuters reported Tuesday that the official death toll had reached at least 1,750, with thousands injured and tens of thousands still missing, according to opposition figures. 

The World Health Organization also warned that Venezuela’s health system is under significant strain, with damaged medical centers, overwhelmed hospitals and disease concerns among displaced survivors.

For Price, the numbers only tell part of the story.

“The news shows collapsed buildings,” he said. “You see mothers waiting. Children searching. Neighbors risking their own lives to help complete strangers.”

Heroes For Humanity is a registered nonprofit, but Price is quick to describe it as something more personal and more spiritual.

“We are a ministry,” he said. “We believe every person is created in the image of God and has immeasurable worth.”

The organization’s teams include veterans from special operations, first responders, search-and-rescue personnel, medical professionals, law enforcement officers, chaplains, pastors and humanitarian volunteers. Many have spent years working in disaster zones, conflict areas and rescue operations. Price said those backgrounds matter in places where conditions can change by the hour.

In Venezuela, some major challenges have included damaged infrastructure, aftershocks, communication problems, limited access to affected areas and the sheer scale of the disaster.

“Our teams are reporting an urgent need for urban search and rescue capability, emergency medical care, trauma supplies, clean water, food, shelter, communications equipment, heavy rescue tools and logistical support,” Price said.

He added that sustaining the responders is also a major concern.

Every deployment, he said, requires flights, vehicles, equipment, medical supplies and on-the-ground support. Heroes For Humanity is volunteer-driven, and Price said every mission depends on supporters who make it possible for trained responders to reach people in crisis.

The group drew national attention after Fox News aired footage of a 9-month-old baby and her mother being pulled alive from the rubble. Price appeared on “Fox Report” to discuss the rescue efforts and the broader response in Venezuela.

In response to Katy Christian Magazine, Price said Heroes For Humanity personnel were serving alongside local responders and trusted partner organizations at the time.

“Our team assisted with rescue efforts, coordination, and support as victims were safely removed from the collapse,” he said. “No single organization deserves credit for moments like that. Those rescues happen because many people come together with one goal, saving lives.”

Based on reports from his deployed team, rescuers had been working through unstable debris, listening for any indication that someone was still alive. After locating the mother and baby, crews worked methodically through the collapse to remove them safely.

“Every movement required patience, precision, and teamwork,” Price said. “Watching life emerge from what many believed had become a graveyard is something none of our team members will ever forget.”

In disaster work, those moments are rare enough to change the atmosphere around a rescue site.

Price said responders carry the devastation long after the mission ends. He has seen that in other disasters, including Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, the 2025 California fires in Los Angeles and flood recovery efforts in Kerr County, Texas.

Photo: Dennis Price removing Mother Mary statue from rubble following a tornado in Louisiana. 

“You carry the sights,” he said. “You carry the smells. You carry the silence after the cries stop.”

That is why a successful rescue can move through a crowd like a shock of hope.

When a mother and baby are brought out alive, Price said, exhausted rescuers remember why they keep digging. Families who have been waiting for hours or days see that survival is still possible. For a few moments, the rubble is no longer only a graveyard of loss.

Still, as days pass, the mission becomes harder.

Rescue teams continue searching anywhere there is a reasonable chance of finding survivors, Price said, but recovery operations are becoming more common as crews search for those still missing.

“Every life matters,” he said. “Every family deserves answers.”

That shift from rescue, which is more probable immediately after a disaster, to recovery, which is more likely as the days tick by, is one of the heaviest emotional burdens responders face. The work becomes slower, quieter and more painful. Families continue to wait outside damaged buildings. Some refuse to leave. Price said hope is often the last thing a family is willing to surrender.

For Heroes For Humanity, faith is the entire reason its volunteers are able to keep going.

“Without Christ, I honestly don’t know how anyone carries the weight of this work,” he said. “He reminds us that every person has value.”

Price said his faith guides the way his teams serve people in crisis, regardless of who they are or where they live. The ministry’s work can look different from one mission to the next. Sometimes it means search-and-rescue. Sometimes it means medical care, food, clean water or logistical support. Sometimes it means sitting beside a grieving family and praying.

“We never force our faith on anyone, but we never hide it either,” Price said. “The love of Christ is the reason we serve.”

That Christian witness is also showing up through local churches in Venezuela.

Price said churches there have opened their doors to families, provided food and shelter, organized volunteers and prayed with survivors.

“The Church is often one of the very first places people turn during tragedy,” he said.

For Houston-area readers, the disaster may seem far away. Price said the connection is closer than it appears.

Houston has become home for his family and for much of the work Heroes For Humanity does. The organization is based in Texas, and Price said many of its volunteers, supporters, churches and partner agencies operate throughout the greater Houston area.

A significant amount of the organization’s work also happens in Texas and across the United States through disaster response, humanitarian aid and precision personnel rescue operations. Price said Houston has become a place where Heroes For Humanity builds partnerships, trains volunteers and serves the community before those teams are ever sent overseas.

“While people often see our international missions, a significant amount of our work happens right here in Texas,” he said.

Venezuela is in an immediate crisis, but Price said the organization’s broader mission continues across disaster zones and rescue operations around the world. Heroes For Humanity has also been involved in responses to flooding, hurricanes, fires, human trafficking cases, Americans trapped behind enemy lines and other humanitarian crises.

The work, Price said, does not end when the most dramatic rescues are over.

While some may forget about a disaster as days and weeks go by, affected families and communities will continue to need food, water and medical care. Displaced individuals will still require shelter, and hospitals will still need supplies. Churches and relief workers will still need physical and monetary support, and the missing still need to be recovered.

Price is asking Christians in Texas to pray first, then give if they are able.

“Prayer has carried our teams through some of the darkest places in the world,” he said.

Financial support, he added, allows the ministry to deploy trained responders, purchase medical supplies, transport rescue equipment and sustain volunteer teams in the field.

He also asked readers not to forget Venezuela once national attention moves elsewhere.

“Disasters don’t end when the cameras leave,” Price said.

For the families still standing beside collapsed buildings, that truth is painfully clear. The work in Venezuela now moves between rescue, recovery and long-term survival. The cameras may capture the blatantly shocking details of destroyed buildings and a baby being pulled alive from the rubble. However, they cannot capture every mother waiting, every rescuer listening, every church opening its doors or every prayer whispered over a place of ruin.

Price said that is where Heroes For Humanity intends to keep serving.

“The people of Venezuela need more than sympathy,” he said. “They need hope, prayer and people willing to act.”

For Price, the mission remains rooted in the same conviction whether his teams are responding to earthquakes overseas, floods in Texas or rescue operations closer to home.

“To rescue the oppressed. To care for the hurting. To love people well. To point people toward the hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ,” he said. “That is why Heroes For Humanity exists.”

Feature photo: Venezolana de Televisión, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons