Orphan's Heart Christian mission organization starts medical missions in four countries
A missions organization that focuses on meeting the needs of orphaned and disadvantaged children is gearing up for a new ministry: medical missions.
Orphan's Heart, established in 2008, sends 90 mission teams across 15 different countries every year to cater to children's physical and spiritual needs through activities like feeding programs and providing shelter.
This year, the organization has decided to venture into medical missions.
"With the other ministries that Orphan's Heart does on the mission field with nutrition or shelter or feeding programs and such, it seemed like the next logical step was to add health care into the mix," volunteer physician Jason Holmes, who is also the organization's medical director, said in a report.
The organization's assistant vice president of operations, Andrew Tattrie, explained in the same report that people in the places they go to often have no access to basic health care. Many times, the places they visit have not seen a doctor in years.
At present, Orphan's Heart is doing medical missions in four countries: Uganda, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. Tattrie said that while they operate a clinic in Uganda, they are not able to do the same in the three other countries, where they only bring mobile clinics.
Sometimes, in locations where getting medical help is difficult, the people are already suffering from health problems yet remain unaware of it.
Tattrie cited the case of five-year-old Zahara, who had anemia and a weak immune system because she was extremely malnourished. Through Open Heart's ministry, she was able to receive proper nutrition and doctors were able to treat her anemia.
The medical missions provide an open door for the teams to minister to the locals through prayer and share the Gospel to them.
"The Gospel is definitely something that we want to be a part of our medical missions teams, and it's actually a great avenue to share the Gospel," he said.
Tattrie said people often ask them why they go their community to help, and this opens an opportunity for them to tell people about God.
