Friends of DCF,
Dental Community Fellowship (DCF) has been blessed with the opportunity of traveling to many countries for the past 14 years sharing the love of Christ through dentistry. Dr. Bill Sasser has been leading teams of dentists and dental students to a variety of countries around the world. Places served in 2014 include Peru, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Haiti. Dr. Bill’s first visit to LaGonave was in 2000.
Today completes the 2014 Haiti mission trip working with West Indies Self Help (WISH) on the island of LaGonave. Our team was made of 6 senior dental students, 3 dentists and a nurse practitioner. We stayed at the WISH foundation guesthouse where we were received by the Geiszler family. Rod and Michelle along with two of their three sons, Joseph and Garen were very loving and helpful to our team. They did everything they could do to make us feel as comfortable as possible! We felt so welcomed that it truly was hard to leave them.
The WISH dental clinic is located inside the compound where we stayed. Our team was the first to use the new clinic last year and it was good to see that a number of other dentists have be able to serve more efficiently this year as a result of the new facility. We treated patients each day for extractions, preventive cleaning and restorative procedures. Over 150 patients pass through the clinic each day.
We even had a couple of groups of Compassion sponsored kids come from hours away up in the mountains.
The Haitian people have many dental needs and even though we couldn’t meet them all, we are grateful for the privilege of being God’s hands in serving people that He loves and has not forgotten. The main hope for this work is that people understand that we come to serve in Jesus’ name. We want God’s love to be shown in our deeds because He has shown His love to us and commands that we go to the nations to serve and love others so that they may come to know Jesus.
In many countries where DCF works, all of our dental supplies and equipment has to be carried as a part of airline luggage. Having the WISH dental clinic available makes things go so much smoother and we are grateful to those who contributed to make the new clinic a reality.
After a long week of work we leave Haiti with great memories, stories, and hopes to return in 2015. After a break for Thanksgiving and Christmas, we will be heading to Peru in January. Please continue to pray for this ministry, but mostly for the hearts of the people that we meet and treat in our travels. We want to see Christ’s name glorified in our personal lives as well as in the hearts of the people that we serve.
Respectfully submitted,
2014 DCF Haiti team,
Daniela, Priya, Alekhya, Chad, Bill (Kansas), Courtney, Regina, Makeeba, Hieu,
Bill (S.C.)