BLUEFIELD — Students eager to combine their passion for Christian service with their academic disciplines found an opportunity on a recent medical mission trip sponsored by Bluefield College.
Five students joined two professors and campus minister David Taylor in performing daily medical procedures in Roaring Creek, Belize, a village of 2,000 people northeast of the country’s capital, Belmopan.
Bluefield's medical team in Belize included students and professors. (Bluefield Photo)
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The team was guided by Van Clampitt, a doctor and father of one of the students, and nurse Linda Ramella.
“This experience was really good for someone going into the medical profession,” said Alyssa Weddle, a pre-med major who learned to draw blood, listen to hearts and lungs and perform an ultrasound. “Under the direction of Dr.Clampitt, we were able to perform actual medical work. Performing an ultrasound on a pregnant woman was an amazing experience!”
The team was based at the Uriah Compound, a medical facility in Roaring Creek established by Body & Soul Ministries, an American Christian organization. The clinic is stocked with supplies and equipment not available even in the nearby capital.
The ultrasound was performed on the daughter of the team’s interpreter just a day before her baby was born. Later that week, they visited mother and child, getting an opportunity of “seeing the baby on the inside one day” and “holding the baby after it was born a few days later.”
But Jeana Church said excitement was tempered by evidence of a less than adequate health care system in the poor nation.
“Medical supplies were just stored in filing cabinets with labels on the outside of the drawers and dirty gauze was just lying on a chair in the medical ward where we visited,” she said. “It was a bio-hazard.”
When they weren’t working in the clinic, the team visited neighborhoods in the village and distributed rice and beans.
“We went into the really poor parts of the village where there was no running water or electricity," said Greg Kerr, professor of biology. “There were just shacks. It was a striking contrast between beauty and squalor, because the shacks had beautiful wild orchids or birds-of-paradise growing right next to them.”
Weddle smiled when she remembered the children. “So many of them take care of their younger brothers and sisters and one day we saw a group of children playing in the river,” she said. “It was good to see kids being kids, even though they weren’t supposed to be in the river when it was muddy.”
Children like these won the hearts of Bluefield's team, who provided medical care for many of them. (Bluefield Photo)
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The village of Roaring Creek is named for nearby waterfalls that flow into the Belize River, and “Belize” itself is roughly translated “muddy river.” That river is the source of some health problems for the population living nearby, said Weddle. She recalled a 14-year-old girl who came to the clinic with stomach problems.
“I asked as many questions as I could think of to figure out what might be wrong with her,” said Weddle. “Then, Dr. Clampitt asked her if she had been drinking water from the river, and she said ‘yes.’ I tried to explain to her if she and her family would just boil the water, they wouldn’t have stomach problems anymore. It was amazing to think that I could help someone with something as simple as instructing them to boil their drinking water. I hope she went back home and taught her family and neighbors to boil their water, too.”
While the team was staying at the Uriah Compound, the well’s water pump malfunctioned, and Kerr led efforts to restore it.
“Several years ago, our well pump went out at home,” he said, “and I remember grumbling because I had to go through the process of learning how to replace the motor on the pump. I was glad that God could use my experience for good, and I will be less likely to grumble about little difficulties in the future.”
The BC team came back thankful for “such an amazing opportunity” to help those less fortunate and to live out their passion for service.
“I’m just a student,” said Weddle, “but I'm so glad I got help.”
Others on the team were Mickey Pellillo, assistant professor of English and director of Bluefield’s Writing Center, and students Ashley Clampitt, Kayla Hayes and Cody Sabol.
The trip was funded in part by a grant from the Appalachian College Association, a consortium of 36 private liberal arts colleges and universities in Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.