6 minute read
BEYOND BORDERS
UMHB FEATURES
BY CHRISTI MAYS
Medical Mission Trips Treat Children in Costa Rica and Guatemala
HELP, HEALING & HUGS
Gilda Tchao ’21 examines a child during the Guatemala trip. Opposite page, during the Costa Rica trip, Isabelle “Izzy” Gutierrez plays with Joshua, with one of Doribel’s three children, while Brooke Brinlee gets a hug. Doribel and her three children live in a tiny, one-room concrete home in a small village in Costa Rica. A thin, rusty piece of tin serves as a roof that keeps things mostly dry during the rainy season. Inside, sheets hang
from the tin ceiling, dividing the space into rooms. Near the entrance, a bare bulb casts light on a small sofa that serves as the living room. In the back corner, a sink and counter constitute the kitchen, though there’s no refrigerator or stove — just a crockpot on the counter that the single mom uses to cook all her food.
After a long day of making and selling tortillas on a stove set up in a nearby alley, Doribel greeted her
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—Isabelle "Izzy" Gutierrez
pastor and a group of UMHB students at her door for a “home visit.” As they chatted, she made some coffee in her crockpot to offer her guests. Senior nursing major Isabelle “Izzy” Gutierrez was one of those guests. This was Izzy's first mission trip, and she said she could never have imagined what she would see and learn on this trip. The experience was “eye-opening,” seeing how different the lifestyles are in this third-world country.
“The people in Costa Rica were living in some of the worst conditions I’ve ever seen, but they’re also one of the happiest populations on Earth because they put their whole faith in God that He will provide for them. And He does!” Izzy said. “I think God wanted me to go on this mission trip to show me just how powerful faith can be. It was truly a learning experience about my faith.”
Medical Mission Trips
This summer, the UMHB Global Outreach team sent students, alumni and staff members on several domestic and international mission trips, including two medical trips to Costa Rica and Guatemala. Working with One More Child, a Christian-focused charity, the medical teams were mainly students in the nursing, pre-med and physical therapy programs, with nurse practitioner Caroline Stanley ‘12 serving as lead provider on the Guatemala trip. Once each team arrived at their destinations, they set up makeshift clinics to help more than 150 children at each location with physical exams, first-aid treatment, and dental education.
“Medical mission opportunities are important to our students practicing medicine because they get hands-on experience to what they’re learning in the classroom, while at the same time, showing others they’re valued and loved by God,” said Global Outreach Director Tiffany Horton. “They get to see what happens when basic needs are not met and the value that comes with health education.”
For many of the students, it was their first mission experience and a life-changing opportunity.
“It has been a joy to send students around the world and have them come back with contagious joy and passion for their future careers,” Tiffany said. “It reminds us why opportunities for exploring one’s Vocaré (a UMHB program to help students discover their purpose) are so important.”
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Hands and Feet of Jesus
When HollyAnn Wells arrived in Guatemala, she traveled with her group to the Ministry Center in the heart of a small city where they set up a makeshift clinic with four stations for taking histories, getting vitals, providing education and performing exams. The exam room had an old table and nothing else, but they saw almost 200 children in four days, and each family received a month’s worth of food as they left.
“I was overwhelmed the first day,” said HollyAnn, a doctor of physical therapy student. “There are so many things over there that these kids don’t get that we just blow off — like shoes! Many of the kids we saw had wounds and rashes on their feet from not wearing shoes or shoes that don’t fit very well.”
As a physical therapy student, she has learned a lot about wound care, and with the help of some tweezers and scissors, she and the other students helped clean out dirt-filled cuts from the children’s feet.
“We literally washed their feet,” she said. “I remember seeing the relief on one little boy’s face when his feet were clean. It was so odd to him. You could see the relief in his face when we cleaned out a bad cut. These people don’t have access to clean drinking water, let alone wound care.”
Foot lacerations were only one of the shocking ailments they treated, though.
“One of my classmates, Jenny, and I got a bug out of a kid’s ear,” she said. “We also saw a lot of rashes, including a 2-year-old with a full-body rash. We gave her a bath, and she felt so much better after that.”
When HollyAnn tells people about the mission trip, she often gets asked, “Why go on mission trips in other countries instead of helping here?”
“One of the reasons I love international missions is because it reminds me that the world does not stop
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where my world stops,” she said. “It’s a humbling experience, but it also reminds me that there’s so much more that God has created and put out there for us where we can be impactful — even with small trips like this.”
Blossoming in Faith
Yvette Shackelford, administrative assistant in Student Life, experienced many unforgettable moments as a staff leader on the Costa Rica mission.
“It was my first time to lead a mission trip, and it was an incredibly emotional time,” she said. “God truly broke our hearts for what breaks His. I believe God worked so deep in my heart, and in all of us who went, we all left a piece of our hearts with the people in Costa Rica.”
She saw students transform and blossom in their faith while they experienced many “firsts” like leading worship for the team, praying aloud for the first time in a group and giving devotionals.
Everyone needs to go on a mission trip, she added, because the experience is “life-changing.”
“We came here to help these people, but they helped us change our entire perspective,” she said. “We have an abundance of things that aren’t even necessary. We complain about our order being wrong. We feel so proud of ourselves when we pay for Starbucks for the person behind us in the line. But these pastors are literally sustaining life there — providing food and these medical clinics. We truly saw that God blesses people in different ways.”
HELPING CHILDREN IN NEED
Helping with clinics during the Guatemala medical mission trip are, from far left, HollyAnn Wells, a doctor of physical therapy student; Victoria Hernandez, pre-optometry sophomore; nurse practitioner Caroline Stanley ’12; and Victoria Hernandez, Andrea Lopez, pre-med sophomore, and Gilda Tchao ’21.
