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Thursday, October 6, 2011

October Belize Medical STM Day 5

Today is the highlight of our medical mission trip. We (Dr. Kevin Chan, Dr. Mindy Gao, Silvia Cen, Henry Lo, Fred Shyr and I) went to Unity Presbyterian Primary School located off the Western Highway of Downtown Belize City.

We arrived at 8:40am and the entire student body (approximately 200 children) greeted us in the School Church. They filled the entire church. Pastor Benson and his wife who is the Principal of the school led the entire school to welcome us. The real heart-warming event took place when all the students sent their representatives to hand us their cards of appreciation. We must have received hundreds of cards thanking Lord’s Grace Christian Church. After they handed over the cards, each child gave us hugs to
show their love and appreciation. We will bring the cards home so everyone will see them.

After the welcome ceremony, Dr. Gao did a presentation to the kids urging them to brush their teeth carefully as to prevent general health issues. After the 20 minute presentation, we presented our church’s donation for their sports uniform program. Now, they have the funds to provide uniforms for their basketball and other sports programs.

We then went to the Unity Presbyterian Outreach Center. We split up the room into 2 stations: one for dental and one for medical. I assisted Dr. Huang with dental examinations and we must have passed out 120 dental self-care kits. Most of the children are experiencing poor dental care because many of them have cavities and lacked regular dental care. A few parents from the neighborhood were taking
their children to our clinic and we could communicate to the parents immediately about their children’s dental hygiene.

Silvia assisted Dr. Chan in examining over 150 students. Most of them are in good health except one case of heart mummer and 2 cases of malnutrition.

From 2pm on, Dr. Chan, Silvia and Henry returned to the school for the afternoon examinations. When they arrived at the school, some of the children were outpouring their appreciations for our visit in the morning; they were running to the car and hugged everyone on the team long and hard. Silvia was touched by the outpouring of their appreciation as one of her special moments for this mission trip.

Our team examined 21 people in the afternoon, including 5 staff members, 14 parents and 2 children from the school.

Overall, we just appreciate God in control of all things so that we could provide the basic medical and dental services for the needy children in Belize. Thanks for Brother Shyr’s hard work behind the scenes to arrange with the school. Praise God that the weather was sunny so the examinations for all these kids went smoothly.

-Michael Chao

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