Why bother? Why bother packing up a group of professionals and willing volunteers to go travel to Northern Mexico for a medical mission trip. It is a complete waste of time and energy. I have been told that it really does not make any difference. When we come home, the poverty many of the people face will still pervade cities and rural areas alike. We are not going to change anything on a permanent basis. Why bother?

I have been leading medical mission trips to Mexico since 1998. My friends really should not pose questions to me about the legitimacy of the trip. I think they should ask the lady who had a very sick infant in the city of Reynosa one year. Dr. Jason Ray left the makeshift clinic we had set up late one afternoon and made an old fashioned house call in a very impoverished area of that large city. Dr. Ray was visibly moved by the experience. I think he was convinced the baby could have died. It might be good to ask that child’s mother if we should bother…

And then there was the year that another participating physician saw a lady who was suffering from advanced breast cancer. I won’t mention that doctor’s name. She would not want everyone to know that she paid for that patient to have testing and treatment done at a hospital. It was an act of quiet compassion. Those of us that witnessed that event will not soon forget it.

A couple of years ago we were closing the clinic one evening when a man who actually spoke English approached us, and asked if we could see one more patient. It was late. We were tired and hungry. I was thinking: Tell him to come back in the morning. When I saw the young patient the man brought with him, I quickly changed my tune. The 12 year old boy looked like he had been severely burned on his face. As it turned out, he had suffered eye damage from an accident. He underwent a botched eye surgery that did significant damage. That is why his face looked like it had been burned. We were able to do some networking to insure that a specialist in Chihuahua City would see him. I ought to give that boy a call on the days that I think we should not bother…

Our dentists see young children from Casa De La Esperanza every year that tug at their heart strings. Those kids are in a children’s home because they were abandoned, abused, or neglected. The care they receive at Casa is amazing.
Director Gil Sanchez envisions a child raised at Casa being the president of Mexico someday. I love Gil’s faithful optimism. Someday we can go back and ask those children if we should have bothered to provide dental care for them each year.

I am fully capable of being cynical and crass. When I saw the cost of conducting our next medical mission trip, I wondered how we are going to get it done in this economy. I actually asked the why bother question. I think in the future I had better keep a more detailed journal of each trip as a reference point. Those journal entries will remind me that the trip is not about me. Such entries might serve as good reading for my friends who think that such endeavors are a complete waste of time and money. Why bother? I think I know why now…