CHRISTIAN DENTAL SOCIETY - Changing Hearts One Smile At A Time

Missions

Mission trips are the heart of what we do as an organization. We hope the information contained here will be a help to you in considering and pursuing ways to offer your dental expertise to the needy around the world. For a mission application, equipment availability of if you just have questions, please contact the CDS Home Office at 563-578-8887 or cdssent@netins.net

If you find a mission that you would like to be a part of, please contact the mission organization responsible for the trip.  CDS only advertises available trips and has no part in the planning of the trip. 

CDS can assist with a CDS member with their equipment needs. However, it takes a lot of preparation to have a successful mission trip. Mail and even phone connections often take weeks to get through. So when preparing for a mission trip, contact the home office first. Give us the time to help you. Remember, it takes six months to a year to plan a mission trip.

Contact the Home Office at 563-578-8887 for a CDS mission application.

The travel date of the mission trip you wanted may have already taken place. Many mission organizations repeat their trips.  You should contact them for future trips.

Trip Schedules

Pedregales Tijuana, Mexico
Church: Calvary Chapel Pico Rivera
Date: August 20-23, 2009 (4 Days & 3 Nights)
Location: Calvary Chapel Pedregales Tijuana, Mexico
Goal: God willing-Children's VBS, Dental, Medical and Optometry Services. Please pray for much needed hair cuts & shoes for the children.
Please contact Edith Valadez at mykdstchr@hotmail.com if interested.

Nicaragua

Our church, Community of Grace in Centennial, Colorado is going on a mission trip to Nicaragua from Aug 8-15, they are in need of a Christian Dentist for their medical team. If you have a dentist interested in going on this trip, the point of contact for the trip is Eric Paulsen, his email is eric@masayamarket.com.

I went on a humanitarian mission to El Salvador almost 2 years ago, with the Air National Guard.  It was both an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

 

Pat O’Lane, a dental assistant with a medical unit in the Buckley Air National Guard

 

 


Kenya – Pediatric Dentist needed

We are looking for Pediatric Dentist to join a few of our summer medical mission teams to Kenya. There are always hundreds of children at every clinic. Please review the story below and kindly forward to your members for consideration.

Thanks
Steve James CRNA
President/Founder
Kenyarelief.org

New clinic next step at Kenya orphanage
Sunday, November 30, 2008

By STEVE DOYLE

Times Staff Writer steve.doyle@htimes.com

Cullman's Steve James looking forward to facility

Steve James got a not-so-subtle reminder last week why his humanitarian work in Kenya is so important. A hungry 3-year-old girl was left at the gate of James' Marindi Children's Home of Grace Orphanage, which has become a rare bright spot in one of the world's poorest places. Even though the 103-bed orphanage was full, James took the little girl in. Saving kids from starvation, disease and other sad endings is why the Cullman resident opened the orphanage - and why he spends every waking moment thinking of ways to make it bigger, better, and more meaningful.

"It would be a sin for me to turn away," James said last week. "I'd like America to realize the reason that we have so much is to give back."

The 53-year-old cancer survivor flung open the doors to the orphanage on Easter weekend 2003 as a memorial to his late daughter, Brittney. Ever since, Alabamians have been jumping on board to help: eye doctors; dentists; missionaries; surgeons.

James, who met many of his supporters while working as a nurse anesthetist at Huntsville Hospital, has already scheduled eight trips to Kenya next year because so many people want to volunteer. And there's plenty to be done, including making sure a new medical clinic beside the orphanage is ready for patients.

The 6,000-square-foot clinic in Marindi, largely financed by Huntsville businessman Ian Panton and his wife, Linda, is far nicer than the town's three existing hospitals. It will be stocked with more than $500,000 worth of equipment donated by Huntsville Hospital, Crestwood Medical Center and Mission Outreach, a nonprofit that sends used medical gear to developing countries.

James envisions the clinic repairing hernias, club feet and other health problems that typically go untreated in Kenya, contributing to the country's low life expectancy - 52 years for a man, 55 years for a woman. By comparison, men born in the United States have a life expectancy of 73 years, women 79 years.

"I think this will be the most modern medical center within 200 miles," said James, who now works at HealthSouth Lakeshore Rehabilitation Hospital in Birmingham. "I can see us by 2010 being able to treat children with cancers and lymphomas."

The clinic plans to charge 90 cents per visit, equivalent to about a day's pay in western Kenya. Dr. Heather Estopinal, a Huntsville ophthalmologist, traveled to Africa with James last summer to help restore eyesight to villagers with severe cataracts. Most had never seen an eye doctor, she said.

"It's almost like you're the answer to their prayers," Estopinal said Wednesday. "It's a wonderful mission." Like James, Estopinal thinks big when it comes to the clinic: She wants to send American eye specialists to Kenya every three months to fix cataracts and other vision problems before they cause blindness.

"In developing countries, you see elderly patients that just go totally blind and have to use sticks to get around," Estopinal said. "That's almost a death sentence."

Because of the shaky economy, James said he expects 2009 to be a lean year for his nonprofit agency, KenyaRelief.org. Each child at the orphanage has an American sponsor who pays $75 a month to cover their food, shelter, schooling and medical care. Estopinal and her husband, anesthesiologist Temple Estopinal, sponsor a 13-year-old boy named George who was living on the streets.

"These children are so grateful for the opportunity to have clothing, three meals a day and a safe place to stay," she said. "They're regarded as the luckiest kids in the region."

From humble beginnings in a refurbished church, the orphanage has blossomed into a 21-acre compound with dormitories, homes for visiting relief workers, the clinic and a dining hall that James calls "the prettiest building in town." The cafeteria is named for the late Cullman-based Christian singer Whit Warren, an early supporter of James' relief work.

James employs 30 townspeople and two American missionaries from Rome, Ga., who manage the orphanage in his absence.

More orphanage-related projects are on the horizon: a veterinary hospital to care for the farm animals that rural Kenyans depend on for survival; and a vocational school to prepare teenagers for life after the orphanage. Twenty kids will graduate from the home next year, but there are 80,000 more homeless youngsters in the region who need help.

"I'm proud of what we've done so far," James said. "God's amazing, and I think you become part of that amazement when you give yourself to his plan. To reach the fatherless is the very thing he would be doing if he was here."

Steve James CRNA
President / Founder

Office: 256-739-3975
Cell: 256-507-0217
sjames@kenyarelief.org

Kenyarelief.org
316 1st Ave. S. E.
Cullman, Al. 35055

To learn more click the link below.
www.rizonfilms.com/africa/africa.html


Viet Nam Trip Announcement!

Vets With A Mission www.vetswithamission.org is pleased to announce its next available humanitarian team trip to Viet Nam!

The dates are September 16 – October 2, 2009. The team will go to Hue/Hong Ha, Hue Thua Thien Province, in central Viet Nam.

The price to participate on the team is $3,389 from San Francisco per person based on double occupancy. Team members are responsible for getting to and from San Francisco, but discounted “add-on fares” for domestic flights are available. The $3,389 price includes:

  • Economy-class flight from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon (via Taipei, Taiwan) and Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon to San Francisco (via Taipei, Taiwan).
  • One flight in Viet Nam from Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City to Hue/Phu Bai and Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City.
  • All airport-hotel-airport transfers.
  • All hotels in Viet Nam (4 or 5 Star rated) with daily breakfast.
  • Lunch is included on days the team works in Hong Ha village.
  • All team ground transportation (by private bus and/or vans).
  • Team farewell dinner/bar-be-que event in Da Nang.
  • Visa, processing, all travel arrangements, and services.

This humanitarian team is scheduled to work 7 days in Hong Ha, approximately 40 kilometers west of Hue, in the local village building known as the Floyd Olsen Memorial Clinic. The FOMC was built in honor and memory of an Army helicopter pilot shot down in April, 1968, who remains MIA. This clinic/village is located just east of the Laotian-Viet Nam border, south of Lang Vei and Khe Sanh, north of the A Shau Valley, and in an area of both Kinh/Vietnamese and ethnic minority people/Montagnards (Bru).

Attached is a team application. (75K)

Complete it, bring your trip payments up to date according to the schedule, and mail it to Vets With A Mission. If you have any questions, please email or call 803-405-9926 at your convenience.  


Dental Clinics
Guatemala

When you serve as a dentist in a week-long extraction clinic with Maya-Mesoamerica Mission in Guatemala the challenges and opportunities for personal growth are a world away from the North American or European office practice.  You may pull teeth on day one at 8,000’ on the side of a volcano in a remote Mayan village.  The next day’s clinic might be at our jungle mission, followed by a clinic on the Pacific coast or a clinic serving the urban poor in the highland city of Quetzaltenango. 

Wherever the clinic, they are all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ reaching out with His love to the entire community at no charge to the patients.  We host teams of one or two dentists with one or two support personnel.  During your stay you will not only serve the dental needs of the poor in Guatemala, but become familiar with the overall ministry and missionaries of Maya-Mesoamerica Mission. We are presently organizing clinics for 2009 and there are many opportunities still open for you and your team.

A typical clinic cost is about $800.00 per participant plus your roundtrip airfare from your departure city.  For more information on whom we are at Maya-Mesoamerica Mission please browse our website.

Yours in Christ,
David Doss

President, Maya-Mesoamerica Mission
dossdave@yahoo.com
www.mayamission.org


Guatemala

Final Harvest Ministry

Jeff & Christa Mills have been working in Guatemala for the past 14 years and have established 2 healthy churches that are still growing strong.   

Jeff is an Evangelist sees not only the spiritual side of the problems but also the needs for these people.   His cry is for doctors and dentists to come to this town and minister to them both in soul and body.

Their website is: www.finalharvestministries.com

Their email is: JeffMills@pobox.com

See our latest photos at: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/JeffG

 


 Peru

Our church is Betesda Church, located about 10 miles outside the city in a small village called La Legua. We have been having for the last two years a medical campaign. The greatest need at this time is dental care and vision care. The children we have seen are in good health, but many of them need dental work (adults as well).

Next August from the 1st to the 14th, we are planning our next campaign, but would love to have 2 or 3 dentists be a part of the team.  The costs would be for a one-week mission $450.00, two-week mission $650.00 (this does not include the airfare from the states to Lima, Peru.

If you would like more information, please contact

Jonathon Edwards Misssionary through Elim Fellowship Lima, NY www.elimfellowship.org

Betesda Ministries

La Legua, Catacaos

PERU

betesdaministriesperu@gmail.com

NEW ADDRESS Please use the following for mail delivery

Jonathon Edwards 719 Russell Avenue Johnstown, PA 15902
275 Views


 A UNIQUE DENTAL OPPORTUNITY

Operation Mobilization Ship

 

We need volunteer Dentists to serve on an Operation Mobilization Ship from one month to a year or longer providing quality long lasting dentistry.  The working conditions are very good and everything is furnished.  The cost for a short term trip is the airfare.  Dentists will be able to serve in clinics on shore with portable equipment to the needy in certain ports.

 The opportunities to experience and interact with other cultures along side the motivated crew on board are rewarding and exciting. 

Contact Dr. David Carter for more information.  Email dncarter@frii.com ,  Phone  970 4614955


 Purpose Africa

We have been a bit quiet during our preparation of Purposeful Africa, but we are about ready for full release and would like to have your input on some various needs and ideas.

You may recall that we are providing a spiritual purpose to Africa, of your own organization’s design in a two week window, aboard a 450 foot ship. The very nice ship will be used for transportation of supplies you will need along with 250 people who will mentor, educate, train, and serve in their choice of six West African countries. Upon completion of this spiritual act of worship, we will all return home changed and moved­ready to commit our gifts to God’s purposes.

Highlighting the needs of orphans (or whatever i.e., radio broadcasting, business as a mission, water projects, micro-finance systems, and medical/dental needs) is a huge part of what we want to accomplish.

Here are a few ways to engage with Purposeful Africa as we continue to move forward with this incredible opportunity:

  • Please visit our new website in 1st launch status, www.purposefulafrica.org.
  • To request a webinar with me, please click here.
  • Follow us on Twitter.
  • Join our Facebook group.
  • Please forward this email to a friend, ministry, or church partner that you may think would also like to engage in this opportunity.
  • We are beginning an online forum dedicated to the orphans of West Africa (West Africa radio broadcasting, business as a mission, water projects, micro-finance systems, and medical/dental needs). If you feel called to help us, please go here. We are looking for people knowledgeable in these areas of need in West Africa who will assist those who also feel called to get engaged prior to the trip which is in the fall of 2010.

We have multiple areas of engagement. We very much would like for you to be involved with us in this endeavor. It cannot be done without the unity of the body of Christ, the ministries, and the churches. Together we can do all things through Christ Jesus.

I look forward to your thoughts,

Lee

Lee Elrod | Development
lee@livingpassages.org

Purposeful Africa | Changing Their World by Changing Yours
Phone: (888) 771-8717 | Website: http://www.PurposefulAfrica.org

Agreement for use of supporters' logos.pdf
PA Online Brochure.pdf
Purposeful Africa Churches & Ministry Deposits Final.pdf

 


Mexico
Christian Hands In Action (CHIA)

Short term (3-4 days) trips for medical/dental/optometric missions primarily into
northern MX, though we've done a number of longer trips into Central and South America.  We have two  dentists on our staff but are always looking for other dentists around this country and Canada to go with us If any of your members or their friends are looking for Third World mission opportunities without having
to spend a lot of time and money, CHIA is probably a unique ministry that would fit the bill.

Look at our website:  www.chiamissions.org or contact John M. Sherman, MD at 915-526-0734 for further information.


Vets With A Mission is announcing its next scheduled Vietnam humanitarian team trip!

The next available trip after this 2008 Da Nang team trip is one to Dong  Ha, Quang Tri Province, September 17 – October 2, 2009.

  "Chuck"

USNR, B549649, Attack Squadron One Ninety-Five (VA-195) the "Dambusters," USS Oriskany '69, USS Kitty Hawk & Da Nang (Republic of South Vietnam) '70-'71, Kitty Hawk again spring '72.