(Oct. 22, 2015 - by Laura Rescorla)  A summer job can change the trajectory of your life. In 2009 I spent two months in Ecuador as an engineering intern with Reach Beyond. Four years later my husband, Andrew, and I stepped off a plane in Ghana to serve as full-time missionaries.

After seeing the ways God used my Ecuador adventure, I considered it special experience to be on the leadership team for the ministry’s 2015 summer outreach based in Accra, Ghana.

A first for the mission, two former interns joined the group this July—Staci Pessetti and Lindsay Wiggers—who had served in Ghana in 2012. They helped lead seven college-age students, working alongside missionary doctors, nurses and community development personnel to provide medical clinics in rural areas.

Their joy and excitement in experiencing the Ghanaian people, landscape and culture for the first time was contagious. It’s easy to forget that towering baobab trees, red mudbrick houses and colorfully patterned clothes are not the norm everywhere.

This year we visited more than 10 communities—most of them in the largely Muslim north. As we arrived in the village each day, little faces peeked around corners and from behind their mothers’ skirts, eager to see who was driving up. After greeting those nearby, some of the students accompanied the leaders to greet the chief and formally request his permission to run the day’s mobile medical clinic.

Team members entered the chief’s house and crouched low to the ground, ensuring that their heads were at a level lower than the chief’s as a show of respect. This, along with almost every interaction throughout the day, was a cultural lesson—a chance to see firsthand the way other people live.

After the enthusiastic welcome from the chief, the medical work got underway. Spread out beneath large shade trees, the students played an active role in each step of the process. They took vital signs, recorded people’s weights and shadowed the doctors, learning about common complaints and their causes. Back pain, malaria, worms and dehydration were some of the most frequent maladies. With tables set up as a temporary pharmacy, team members distributed medicines and explained the treatments prescribed by the doctors.

“The standout thing about the Reach Beyond internship program for me was the opportunity to combine my professional skills with active gospel proclamation,” said John Digman, a recent University of Reading pharmacy school graduate. “What a privilege.”

Using interpreters from Theovision and Reach Beyond’s partners in the northern part of the country, team members communicated both through their actions and words, opening opportunities to pray with patients regarding their physical symptoms.

One such opportunity arose when Pessetti, while examining a young girl with sores on her head, discovered a worrying heart murmur. As Sheila Leech (vice president of global healthcare and one of the program’s leaders) spoke with the girl’s father, a Muslim man, she sensed a spiritual openness and took the opportunity to share about Jesus and pray for his daughter.

Without the team’s focused and loving care for each individual, the heart murmur could have easily gone undiscovered and the open door missed.

In addition to the medical outreach, we organized children’s ministry activities. The students eagerly anticipated their turn at working with the kids. Each day they were quickly surrounded by a swarm of kids, curious about the strangers in their midst. Squeals and giggles filled the air as they chased down bubbles, learned to play duck-duck-goose and played game after game of pick-up soccer.

Woven throughout the fun and games were meaningful times of sharing God’s love. We told Bible stories that focused on Jesus’ life and teachings. We comforted sad, crying kids. Simply by spending time with the children, we communicated to them their worth.

“I am so thankful that these kids … invited us so easily and willingly into their lives for the short time that we were able to be there,” commented Lauren Gunderson, a biology student at Missouri Western State University.

While having a tangible impact by offering medical care to an estimated 1,700 people in under-served villages, the program also benefited the interns. “Our goal and mission with [the students] this year was to expose them cross-culturally to people from a different country speaking a different language and to see the possibilities of using their medical skills and knowledge … to impact people and communities with the gospel,” said Leech.

And that’s exactly what happened. The interns got an inside look at missionary life—both its joys and struggles. For those who sensed the Holy Spirit’s leading toward overseas service, this experience might be life-changing.

In a few years’ time, these students could also become our missionary colleagues. What a joy and privilege that would be!

Source: Reach Beyond