Medical Care in Pucallpa, Peru

Hi! OU CMDA’s Peru missions team just got back yesterday. I don’t have an exact number yet, but we saw over 800 patients this week. Each of our teams (medical, dental, and PT) tried to pray with every patient we saw. Many received the Lord, and we promptly connected them to the local church and made sure they received both a Bible and people they can be discipled under. We got to heal both the physical and the spiritual person we saw, and I know that as much as our going to Pucallpa changed the people there, my trip there changed me. 

Our first day of clinic I realized how in over my head I was–I am so used to treating the body that when the attendings present stopped me and asked me why I sent away a patient without praying with them, I was completely at a loss. I had never shared the gospel through my medicine before, and I learned from my peers and other doctors how to do so. I also came in with a lot of “I prepared for medicine to look a certain way” and realized that the patients I see are most definitely not textbook patients, nor are they going to have the same issues that the typical American patient I am familiar with will have. The moment I recognized those, I started leaning less on my book knowledge and more on the Lord–His treatment plans were always better than any I had. 

I have always said I love medicine because it requires me to have so much of an overflow of the Lord so that I may overflow Him into my patients. I had forgotten that–this trip reminded me of that. I am nothing but His vessel, and the Great Physician within me can do all the healing if I just surrender. 

SO MUCH has happened in the span of a week. I fear if I tell you all the stories, from the crazy “Oh Lord, how are we going to pass this hurdle?” to “Oh Lord, You have been amazing again,” my story would last you three pages, not three paragraphs. 

Thank you SWMCF, for supporting me, and helping me go. I would not have been able to even consider the possibility of going on this missions trip if it weren’t for your support. 

And thank you, Judy, Dean, and all of you who interviewed me, for everything you did to make this happen for me. I cannot thank you enough–the Lord has rekindled a promise He gave me a long time ago regarding missions, and now I want something so radically different for my career than what I had envisioned. You had a huge part to play in that, in the conversations we had in our interviews, and the many prayers afterwards inspired by that. 

Thank you again!

– Joanna George