Just Like Pulling Teeth
By Paul Vernon on Sep 7, 2009 in Ministry Updates
For the past 6 years, Dr. Luce and his staff have been giving of their time and skills to come to Chiang Rai and care for the dental needs of Akha children and Bible Students at Akha Outreach Foundation, as well as the occasional village dental clinic.
Last year Dr. Newman and his family joined the dental team, and the village aspect of the dental ministry began to really take off.
Both dentists have been encouraging us to learn how to anesthetize a patient and perform simple extraction techniques, but we’ve been slow to respond to their urgings (Lori once had a mild fainting spell when watching an oral surgery). Earlier this year, however, Dr. Luce was at a meeting for the Christian Dental Society and saw a presentation training nationals to do rural, village or jungle dentistry and his heart was really stirred to see the young Akha leaders trained in dentistry as well. Dr. Newman, who has also used his skills to minister in Africa, was equally excited by the vision and the two of them prepared a 3-hour training to supplement multiple days of observation, along-side training and hands-on extractions.
The training was a wonderful experience. These young Akha leaders jumped right in to the action, and Lori and I got up the courage to join them. After learning about the root structures of different teeth, safety and cleanliness precautions, and what types of teeth are within our skill set to extract we all practiced administering anesthetic to each other. You know you have a good trusting relationship as husband and wife if you can let each other practice sticking needles into your gums. After the training day, we had a village dental clinic in Doi Chang and we 6 trainees (and our pastor Joe, who couldn’t stomach the shots, but trained as an assistant) treated a majority of the 40 patients we saw that day.
In total, the Dental Team (Bill, Rick, Jana, Lisa and Pam) put up some very impressive numbers in the short week they were here. In the villages, over 200 teeth were pulled. At House of Joy, 40 wisdom teeth were pulled, 40 fillings were given, 2 tooth repairs were made, 13 additional extractions and 137 cleanings filled their week. In addition, they trained a team of 7 locals to continue dental care for remote villages as we are traveling in and out of them. Pray for M, Nuey, Anm, Adeu, Lori, Paul & Joe Akha as an assistant, that we might have opportunities to continue to minister to the needs of the Akha wherever we might go.
WOW! Isn’t it amazing where God takes us! Did you ever think you would be a “dentist”? Thank you Lord for caring about our pain and bringing relief.
@Christy: pulling teeth never even entered our minds, but it’s great to help people who are hurting.
God doesn’t call the qualified,
He qualifies the called!
Hey Paul, stumbled across your site, v.nice! (David from CR DTS if you don’t remember) Love the pic of Joe with his hand over his mouth! Glad to hear the clinic went well. God bless!
Thanks David! Yeah, Joe got really squeamish when we started talking about needles. We joked with him for a while that if he didn’t let one of us give him a shot then we would all get to give him a shot, but in the end he just ran the trays and assisted all the extractions.
Hope you’re doing great & keep working on your Akha language
(you could learn some on our site from our Akha language podcasts: Audio tags)
Paul and Lori, great work. I’m now here in Haggai Institute; Maui, Hawaii. Seeing the pics and vedio make me homesick. And I just want to say I really appreciate who you are and what you are doing. Thank you for all your help. Guiqlahq huiqma de! Miqyehr bosav.
Thanks Aje! Hope your time at Haggai is going great. We’re looking forward to seeing you again next week.
Paul and Lori,
I am so proud of you! Wish I could have been there to learn with you but God has plans for me to learn how to extract teeth in two weeks with a team going to Guatemala! I am looking forward to the presentation to the missions Sunday school class at Faith Bible Chapel of the dental teams trip. Praying God will allow me to return to Thailand!
Blessings,
Reneta Stegehuis
Hi guys
Thanks for dropping by Under the Acacias to let us know about your mobile dental clinic. My wife Lynne worked in Thailand doing dental clinics in refugee camps. Pray for us as we seek to get one started in Burkina Faso! Thanks.