Paul talked to the Corinthians about the importance of faith, hope and love. In an emotional recounting of his experiences on medical mission trips, Cardiologist Robert Foster, MD, used those same words to describe happenings he has witnessed that could only come from God.
“The things you experience on a mission trip are different from everyday life,” Foster says. “There is a closeness with God that you don’t feel anywhere else.”
Foster, a cardiac interventionalist with Birmingham Heart Clinic, has known since before he was in high school that he wanted to be a doctor. Both of his parents worked in the medical field, and he spent a lot of time in hospitals. “I loved the excitement of medicine and knew I wanted to do something procedural.”
Foster’s two oldest children have also followed in his footsteps. His daughter is a nurse, and his oldest son is in medical school. His wife and all three of his children have accompanied him on medical missions since the children were young. They go as part of a team from their church, Liberty Park Baptist, and have been to Honduras, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Kenya. They recently returned from a trip to Guatemala.
On a typical trip, up to four physicians and two nurses in their group provide basic medical care to the townspeople with the help of local doctors and medical students. The American doctors draw large numbers of people, and they can see up to 500 patients per day. The American group partners with a local church that wants to plant a church in the village. The pastor serves as the representative for the church.
“Our main objective on these trips is to show the love of Christ. We provide medical treatment and simple pharmaceuticals mostly, but while we are there we are incorporated into the bigger picture, which is the church plant,” Foster says. “A number of the patients we see will need to follow up with someone later to pick up drugs that have been ordered or to pick up eyeglasses that have been prescribed. The pastor is their representative, so the follow-up visits allow him to establish relationships with the people so he can continue to disciple them.”
On occasion, their team will encounter someone with a life-threatening condition. In Honduras, they met 10-year-old Joselyn who had a rare disorder that caused cartilage tumors to grow in her joints. Her hands and knees were deformed. “They said she would be completely crippled in another two years,” Foster says. “We took X-rays there and brought her to an orthopedic surgeon in Birmingham who said he could fix her problem.”
Foster brought her to Birmingham and she stayed with his family for several weeks while she recovered from her surgery. “She is now about to attend medical school and has a brother who is completing medical school. Our family still supports her father’s church,” he says.
When medicine isn’t enough to save someone, their mission team turns to prayer. “Prayer is the most powerful thing we can give those people. On one trip, we prayed over a terminally ill woman who was not a Christian. While we were there, she accepted Christ. This woman had no hope, but Christ gave her hope,” Foster says. “When we go on these trips, we are only there a week and we aren’t really practicing medicine, but we can make a difference in lives just by showing them the love of the Lord.”
The people whom the mission team encounters aren’t the only ones who are touched by God’s hand. Foster says that they see some kind of miracle on every trip. “When we went to Venezuela, Hugo Chavez had made an agreement with Fidel Castro to trade oil for Cuban doctors. The Venezuelans didn’t like the Cuban doctors so we went there with 41 trunks of supplies, medicines, and Bibles,” Foster says. “When we got there, the country had changed protocol and they confiscated all of our supplies. There were 20 to 30 of us, and we got through with just our clothes.”
Foster says that at that point, they decided to do a non-medical ministry and conducted door-to-door evangelism. The local pastor took them to an abandoned school where they saw flyers that had been posted in anticipation of the upcoming medical clinic the Americans were supposed to provide. “When we saw all the preparation the locals had done for our visit, we decided we had to have a medical clinic,” he says.
The missionaries pooled their own medicines and took up money to buy more so they could set up a pharmacy. “Every day, the Lord kept providing more medicines and at the end of the five days, we had more than we had when we arrived,” Foster says, with tears in his eyes. “It’s like the fishes and the loaves. We have to rely on God to provide what we need.”
On another trip, their group was reminded of the power of prayer. “We were in Honduras one February and it was 105 degrees inside a church where we were stationed. We had to stop our clinic at 10:00 that morning because people were getting lightheaded from the heat. When we stopped, we called our church at home and told them of our urgent prayer need for air so we could work. All of a sudden, a 20 mph wind began to blow through the windows of the church – from the direction of Birmingham – and it blew all day,” Foster says, visibly moved by the recounting of this blessing from God.
Foster plans to continue to be a part of these mission trips. “The relationships you build with fellow church members on the trip create a powerful bond. And the experience of being able to witness the expressions on the faces of people from these countries when they accept Christ is like no other. That drives me to go back,” he says.