An ongoing desire to develop full-time ministries in the medical missions field has many Alabama churches doing more than recruiting volunteers for a missions trip. Churches such as First Baptist, Montgomery; Dawson Memorial Baptist, Homewood, and Brookwood Baptist, Birmingham, know it takes intense preparation, organization and dedication to make medical missions a success.
While missions trips are a part of numerous churches’ yearly activities and all require organization, missions trips to conduct medical clinics using professional physicians, dentists, pharmacists and nurses requires a different kind of planning.
In fact, Brookwood Baptist Church, Birmingham, has perfected the art of medical missions trip planning so much that the founders of the ministry are training volunteers in other churches.
A strong medical missions emphasis at Dawson requires enough attention for the church to have recently hired a minister of evangelism and missions, Ben Hale. Part of his responsibilities will be overseeing Dawson’s annual missions trips and the development of partnerships with other churches in medical missions ministries.
According to physician Frank Page, a Brookwood team leader, approximately 600 to 900 hours of preparation go into the successful launching of a medical missions trip. The coordination and organization of projects of this magnitude necessitate at least four months of aggressive planning by numerous volunteers, he said.
“After a fervent prayer program, the logistics and preparation is second in importance in assuring a successful trip,” the seven-year veteran of medical missions trips said. “Providing medical personnel is only part of the requirements for a medical missions trip.”
Page and fellow physician Mike Drummond participated in Brookwood’s first medical missions trip five years ago and have been leading a crusade within the church ever since. Their enthusiasm has spread into a full-blown medical missions team that averages from 35 to 50 participants per trip. The church has established a medical missions budget and contributes $18,000 per trip. Participants pay their own way at a cost of $1,500 to $1,700 per trip.
Page has compiled a detailed resource guide booklet that addresses every possible issue and concern from altitude sickness to individual team member responsibilities during a trip.
Leader positions recommended include:
-Stateside coordinator — responsible for planning, budget, financial issues and overall overseas logistics.
-Fieldside clinic preparation coordinator — responsible for locating the nearest medical facility in the country visited and coordinating details for the clinics’ location.
-Worship/evangelism leader — leads worship/evangelism efforts.
-Data collection person — tabulates number of patients seen and number of spiritual decisions.
-Prayer ministry coordinator — responsible for matching team members with church prayer partners.
-Medical credentialing coordinator — manages the medical credentials for each participant.
-Safety coordinator — implements a safety program and manages communications while overseas.
-Forms coordinator — responsible for forms needed on the trip.
Team members are also needed to take care of passports, mail, photography, travel arrangements, luggage, scrub suit disbursement, travel insurance and travel envelopes that contain all team members’ travel necessities.
And in addition to all these duties is the job of packaging and labeling the 100-plus pharmaceuticals that must be taken.
“We use pharmaceutical samples when we can get them donated and purchase what else is needed,” said retired executive Riley Brice, who spearheads this at Brookwood.
Brice, who has participated in four medical missions trips, has learned to recruit volunteers to help prepack the medicine, which is one of the most time-consuming aspects of the trip’s planning.
Prior to a trip, a group of volunteers helps presort pills into plastic, sealable bags for individual doses.
Labels are applied to the bags with the name of the medicine, dose amount and frequency of usage. Riley developed a computerized labeling program that prints the pharmaceutical information in Spanish, Portuguese and English.
For illiterate recipients, icons are used that show a sun rising, a sun in the middle of the sky, a sun on the evening horizon and a moon at night.
The person dispensing the drug can circle the appropriate time to take the medication.
Along with preparing the medication, Riley also has to work out logistical details with the target country’s pharmaceutical entry regulations.
Other medical supplies include needles, syringes, sunscreen, toothpaste, bandages, skin lotion, crutches and eyeglasses.
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