African Medical Missions: Part 2 of a Series

At a Dickensian orphanage in Kyrgystan, UCLA nurse Alison Hagoski met Nadia, a hardened 12-year-old orphan who, defiant and sassy, wouldn’t warm to human affection.

Nadia even kicked a ball at and narrowly missed Allison’s head during the clinic as to if to say, "You won't win me over."

It was Lighthouse Medical Mission's only foray outside of Africa. The team of doctors, nurses and volunteers staged medical clinics in three orphanages in the Central Asian republic. Nadia wasn't going to open her heart easily.

Throughout the day, Alison stole furtive glances at Nadia and noted she was an accomplished soccer player, the best in the orphanage. She outmaneuvered all the boys with a ball control worthy of FC Barcelona.

The next day, Hagoski gave her a soccer ball. Immediately, Nadia's eyes softened, and she became Allison’s assistant for the rest of the clinic. “God sent me for Nadia,” Alison said.

Love drives Lighthouse Medical Missions, which in 16 years has mounted 21 clinics in nine nations, mostly in West Africa. Over $500,000 worth of medicines has been administered by the teams who pay their own way to give to some of the neediest patients in the world.

A registered nurse working cardiac rehab at UCLA, Alison didn't always love this line of altruism. On her first trip, she was so appalled by conditions in Sierra Leone, that on the ferry leaving the mainland to go to the airport, she was crying and vowed never to return.

“It was just so sad. The need was overwhelming,” Alison said. “The civil war had just ended. There was a sense of panic everywhere. You were on the edge the whole week and half. The whole country looked like it needed to be bull-dozed.”

But now Alison has gone 20 times. “If I don’t go, who is going to help?” she said. “I feel like I have a responsibility. God has given me the talent of being a nurse, and I have patients who give generously.”

She's also inspired by the founder and indefatigable team leader, Dr. Robert Hamilton, a pediatrician at Santa Monica's Pacific Ocean Pediatrics.

“I’m in awe of Dr. Bob,” Alison said. “God’s given him an amazing gift of leadership, vision and service. He keeps going back. He cares about the team. Never once have we had a personnel incident. The way he treats patients is amazing.”

Lighthouse Medical Missions not only make an impact in the lives in patients who otherwise would have no access to medical attention. They also transform the hearts of the volunteers. Lighthouse Christian Academy students regularly feature on these trips – and it opens to their eyes to Third World. (Read related)

Another top-notch doctor who's signed on to the medical missions is the renowned Dr. Lawrence Czer, medical director of Cedar's Sinai Heart Transplantation Program. He enjoys the logistical challenges of physical hardships of the trips.

“I used to do a lot of backpacking as a kid. It was always different, but if you were prepared, you could do it well with a senses of adventure,” said Dr. Czer, whose unassuming demeanor belies his fame as cutting-edge researcher into stem cells for heart disease. “When I go on a medical mission, I always go with this same sense of adventure that I experienced backpacking. No matter how many times I go to Africa, it's always new.”

Dr. Czer is always struck that he's the only medical professional most of these patients have seen in years. Some have never seen a doctor. “I don't go for me,” he said. “I go for them.”

Pastor Adornis Ngegba, an African with a church in Moyamba, Sierra Leone, has witnessed many clinics and seen their impact. They “have brought life to the lifeless, hope to the hopeless, and to those who can't afford medication son their own, to have free access,” he said.

Michael is a 10-year-old in Ngegba's church who faced amputation of his foot for a ravishing infection. Then the medical clinic came to town. They were able to save his foot, and today Michael is walking fine.

The Lighthouse medical missions are now so famous in West Africa that needy people actually flock from nearby nations to wherever they are. Because they can get no medical attention for their urgent needs in their local villages, they take several bus rides, crossing international borders, to get for free the life saving attention.

“The mentality of people, especially Muslims, is changing gradually towards Christianity and Americans,” Ngegba said. “Statistics taken during the medial missions in Sierra Leone show that more Muslims are being treated than Christians. Some are very grateful, like Michael's mother. She was a Muslim but now attends the church.”

Read part 1 of the series here.

To read part 3 of the series, click here.