In March of 2024, our team of 10 volunteers traveled from Chicago, Detroit, and Dulles to meet up together in Sierra Leone in the early days of March. While a few of our team members got delayed in Istanbul, God used even that small delay for good. Where we could have gotten lost in the frustration of plans gone awry, we just began to worship together and enjoyed a little extra time with one another while we waited for our team members to join us. And the delayed team members got a chance to do some touristing in Istanbul. We counted it all joy in the end!
Once we were all finally together, we served four different and underserved villages, bringing hope and healing to people in desperate need of it.
Tissor Bomborma
When we arrived in the first village, we were welcomed by crowds who celebrated our arrival. They clapped, they sang, and they cheered to see that God loved them enough to send them free medical care in a world where they might not otherwise ever see a doctor or any other medical professional.
Just a few of the highlights from this village include:
- We were granted a sit-down meeting with the village chief in which we were able to pray with him.
- Randy, one of our volunteers, had the opportunity to pray for one of her patients, a young boy who was deaf. He was miraculously cured and able to hear again!
- We treated 431 patients in our clinic and saw 312 people accept Christ as their Lord and Savior
Kormende
On day two, our team arrived in a village called Kormende and set up our free health clinic.
- Jen, a Physician Assistant on our team, treated a woman who presented with deafness. After praying over her, the woman began to hear again!
- We treated 461 patients in total on day 2
- 95 people accepted Christ as their Savior!
Gbessebu
On day three, we entered southern Sierra Leone and set up there.
- We had an appreciation gathering where we showed our appreciation to all of the local people (around 60+ people in total) who worked alongside us to help with our free medical clinics, lodging, cooking, and so much more!
- We treated 288 people.
- We saw 53 people get saved!
Old Mosongo
Old Mosongo was the last village we served in. The trip just seemed to go by entirely too quickly, but we were blessed every single moment of our time in Sierra Leone!
- We treated 600 patients
- We witnessed an additional 24 people becoming saved
The Patients We Treated And The Miracles We Saw
We witnessed so many highs and lows on this mission trip. We were so blessed to be able to witness multiple miraculous healings, and our hearts collectively broke for the people we were powerless to heal (but we worship The Great Physician, so we left them in His hands and continue to pray for them daily).
Here are just a few of the many people we were privileged to serve:
- The health issues we most commonly saw were: malaria, typhoid fever, and high blood pressure. Due to lack of access to clean drinking water, unhealthy diets, and sedentary lifestyles, these sorts of illnesses are incredibly common everywhere that Mission Partners For Christ has served.
- We treated two women, one of whom was just 16, who were living with breast cancer. One of the women had recently had surgery to treat her cancer. Sadly, the disease had spread to her lymph nodes and she is in need of further treatment. MPFC is looking into the cost of the medication
- A four year old boy came to our clinic with a dislocated hip. Our team was able to pop his hip back in and secure it in place with a head scarf.
- Our team saw multiple patients with cataracts, including our driver (whose healing we are currently hold in prayer)
- We met a man who had been unable to urinate for days prior to our arrival. Our team treated him to the best of our ability but, sadly, were unable to help him. We had to let him go home and trust that somehow God would care for him. Those are the tough cases that hurt deeply. It’s a heartbreaking truth that we can only help so many people in the field. The rest, we have to entrust to the care of our Heavenly Father, knowing that He cares for them.
How Jesus Met Us In The Mission Field
We’ve already mentioned a few of the miracles that we saw, but those are mere glimpses into the way God moved during this medical mission trip.
At the start of our service in Sierra Leone, our team prayed that God would bring to mind the people who needed His healing the most, and God came through. As Rosemary prayed, she had a clear image come to mind of a man with a deformed arm. Days later, she spotted that exact man on a ferry and was blessed to be able to pray over him.
In the village of Gbessebu, we had the honor of meeting with the village chief and praying over him. He was incredibly supportive of the work that we were doing. Not only did he encourage his own villagers to come to our clinic by being our first patient, he also went into surrounding villages to encourage others to come to the clinic. This not only meant that more people could receive the medical care and education they needed, but more people would also hear the gospel message about the God of the universe who loved them so deeply that He sent His only begotten Son to die for them.
In the end, more than 1000 people asked to go into our prayer and counselling area to hear more about Jesus. We know that at least half of them accepted Christ as their Savior – the most we’ve ever seen on a medical mission trip! We are praying for the others who heard but who may not have been ready yet to take that leap.
The seeds have been planted, and we entrust the rest to God.
Not only did we witness miraculous healings, that we’ve already mentioned, but God was using this time to bring healing to one of our own team members. For one person on our team, church held a very painful place in their life. A lot of church hurt had left them feeling disconnected from the church and other Christians. But after serving alongside our MPFC medical team, they felt a sense of healing.
Even after the mission trip was over, God still had plans for us. We met a young Muslim man on our flight home who had never heard the gospel. As we began to talk with him about who we are and the work God has called us to, he began to get curious about our beliefs. We were able to share the gospel with him and pray with him.
What a privilege it is to be able to share the gospel!
Team Unity Is One Of The Greatest Blessings On This Trip
One of the greatest parts of serving on a Mission Partners For Christ medical team is the sense of unity that always seems to happen amongst all of our team members. One constant piece of feedback we always get from our volunteers is that they have found a second family with their teammates, and have forged lifelong friendships.
This trip was no different.
We do a lot of team building months before our volunteers have a chance to meet in person. We do this through our Zoom meetings and through a group WhatsApp chat where we can talk about anything and everything with one another. We also do Bible studies as a group.
For Sierra Leone, we focused on two different Bible studies from YouVersion: Dangerous Prayers & Hands and Feet of Jesus. Not only do these team Bible studies help our team prepare spiritually for the work ahead of us, but it also allows us a chance to learn together and from one another about the nature of God and the work in the mission field.
On the trip, we foster unity and togetherness through nightly meetings that we call “pow and wow” debriefs. This meeting time allows each volunteer to discuss any disappointments or concerns from that day’s work and to share about miraculous healings or however else God showed up that day. It’s an encouraging time for each person to bond with the rest of the group.
At the end of the trip, everyone was sad that the time had slipped by so quickly and it was time for us to part. But the team spirit is still going strong in our group chat and we’re still talking with one another every day!
Praying For Sierra Leone
As we look ahead to what God has in store for us, we will not be forgetting about the people of Sierra Leone. We are looking into funding options to raise money towards some clean water wells for the people in Sierra Leone, and we continue to pray for the villages we visited.
We pray for the growth of the new believers we left behind. We pray that they grow and mature in Christ and, through their testimony, become a light that points the way to Calvary and what Jesus accomplished for each one of us on the cross.
We pray for the many people there who have yet to hear the gospel message. We pray that their hearts may be soft and open to hearing about Jesus when they cross paths with a believer.
We pray for the healing of the sick and wounded who we were unable to treat or who needed more treatment than we were able to provide.
We pray for the resources to make clean drinking water a rule, and not an exception, for each person in Africa.
We pray for the villages working with GHNI’s Transformational Community Development
What’s Next?
We are always looking forward to the many different communities that God is calling Mission Partners For Christ too.
Our next medical mission trip will take place in October of this year and it will be in a closed country in Northwest Africa. The country we will be serving in has a population of more than 4 million people, almost all of whom are Muslim. This will be an amazing opportunity to share the gospel with people who have likely never heard the name of Jesus mentioned. We cannot wait to go, and we invite you to come along!
The deadline to sign up for our October trip is July 26. Don’t wait – we expect spaces to fill up quickly!