A Conversation With ... Beth Davis

What is HealthCare Ministries?
Originally, it was started to do medical evangelism as a compassion ministry of Assemblies of God Foreign Missions, which is now called Assemblies of God World Missions. It started 25 years ago and has been keeping statistics since 1986 and has seen more than 400,000 patients since that time in about 89 countries – most of them Third World, where medical care is limited. We work with, usually, a resident missionary in different areas that request our services. Usually, we have between 15 and 20 trips per year.

What types of care do your teams provide through medical outreach trips?
Usually, the three components would be medical, dental and optical (for) basic medical care. We’re not doing operations and taking surgeons. It’s more immediate medicine – pretty much general practice. Lots of people want physicals and a check-up. [The work entails answering] basic questions, and lots of it is stuff that can be treated on the spot.

What kinds of volunteers do you need?
Primarily, general practitioners. We have lots of physicians’ assistants who go, and nurse practitioners. We always want to have a medical doctor on every team to oversee the questions and be the supervisor. And dentists, who would not be doing oral surgery, but they would be doing extractions.

What other professional skills might be useful?
I’m always looking more at the people who are closely related to medical [services] – pharmacists, occupational therapists, even medical social workers. The closer they are to the medical model, the more the spin-off can be. We also do health teaching in a lot of places, so that opens up (opportunities for) social workers or someone who can do some training in areas that would be part of community health development. We love to promote sustainability, not just going in and setting up a clinic, but hopefully giving them tools on how to stay healthy. Another great asset would be someone who speaks a second language and could act as an interpreter. I think we have more of those people in the business world, who come from other countries and live here after college and can offer French or Chinese.  

How much time would a medical mission trip take?
The clinics usually operate for five days in a foreign country, and we try to do the travel on the weekends, coming and going, so that people can take one week off from their employment.

Why should businesspeople consider volunteering for medical mission trips in their down time?
Stories, like of a woman who puts on glasses for the first time and starts crying because she can see her children’s faces, are what make me come to work every day. It’s not just so people can see physically but so they can have spiritual sight as well. I also love hearing that professionals can leave their cushy America and go to a place where they have an internal change themselves, when they get on the side of compassion and become part of the Good Samaritan story. We are Christian, but I think Christians and non-Christians understand what that means. People come back changed, and to me, that’s more than a vacation. That’s a life-changing, transitional moment, and they’ll never be the same. And regardless of denomination or what kind of creed a person has, compassion is a way that I believe God can work through all of us.

Do you have local volunteer opportunities?
We have a program (to) collect gently used glasses, because 60 percent of our clinics in most of the countries (draw) people who are coming for optical help. People are living in countries where there are no opportunities to afford glasses, let alone see an eye doctor. We take hundreds of pairs of glasses with us on every trip. They can be dropped off at our building and volunteers help clean them and get them ready, with repairs (such as) tightening screws on them.