Nicaragua Medical Mission - GHO/CMDA

Our 40-member mission trip truly began before we arrived at the airport. In the preceding weeks, we had devotions in a booklet, team meetings, and private fasting and prayer time that all prepared our hearts for the work ahead. These also encompassed many appeals to God to prepare the mission field itself for the work to be done by drawing people’s hearts to Him, placing favor on the permitting and logistic processes required, and ensuring safety during our travels. These events continued into the technical dates of the mission trip as we did twice daily devotions in team meetings and had regular prayer with our group throughout the duration of the time away from home. The first day in the clinic was a whirlwind. Every station, from Public Health Education and spiritual care at the beginning, to triage, to providers and pharmacy, all took time to get into their flows. Though once we got dialed in, we were smooth sailing! We saw over two hundred patients despite the time it took to find our rhythm. This set the trajectory for the rest of the week where we saw over 200 people each day for a variety of services. The team’s unity and perseverance in the same Spirit shone through in this confusing time where we all worked together towards our common goal of conveying the love of God to those we were visiting. Each day the medical students, including myself, rotated with a different set of teams. Two days we were with triage/physicians, another we were with the dental or physical therapy teams, and the last rotation is where we helped with either pharmacy or optometry. Each of these options gave us a great opportunity to learn more about a particular medical area and interact with patients. Every professional provider was wonderful to work with because they taught us in explanations and through allowing us to participate in whatever evaluation or treatment they were performing. In particular, I loved getting to work with the dentists doing fillings and extractions, the physical therapists doing evaluations and helping relieve musculoskeletal pain through manipulations learned in my DO medical school, and doing ultrasounds for various providers with my portable ultrasound unit. Every time you practice with a real patient as a medical student is invaluable, as this is where the best and most formation happens in your medical training. The greatest privilege I had though through the whole trip was sharing the gospel with many patients, and even praying with one to accept Jesus’s sacrifice for him and be transformed from death to life through the power and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He was restored to the Father and connected to the local team of pastors working with us to ensure continued discipleship. Over 50 people came to begin this relationship with God while we were there and over 10 decided to recommit their life to God. It was an awesome privilege to be a part of this process and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity God gave me to go on this trip.