The Ross Family

The Ross Family

Event
03/11/22

March 2022 Missions Highlight

Mexico Dental Trip 2022

In January 2022, our small group of dentists, hygienists, and support team members from Parkside Church traveled to Mexico to provide care for people in the village of El Mamey. Home to just a few hundred residents, El Mamey is a small mountain town about a day's drive from Oaxaca.

For team members Kevin Aiken, Jason Aspinall, Jessica Aspinall, Gus Komar, Joni Komar, Doireann Leslie, and Gerald McMichael, it was an opportunity to not only provide much needed dental and medical services, but also an occasion to point people to their greater spiritual need of a Savior. We serve and leave, hoping they question why we came, and praying the Lord draws their hearts, minds, and souls to find out the answer to that question through his Word, the local missionary family he called there, and through other believers.

Parkside Church organizes these short-term mission trips with the goal of providing a helping hand to the missionaries the church financially supports. One way we do this is by enhancing the missionaries’ local presence by offering services of various types in the villages where God has placed them. A typical dental short-term trip begins with prayer. We ask God’s leading as to where a team should serve. Preparation and gathering of equipment and supplies, coordination of flights, housing, land transport, meals, etc., are committed to prayer. Trips are usually one week—consisting of two travel days, one day (Sunday) of worship and cultural exposure, three days in the field serving, and one day serving at a prison, orphanage, or other destination. The most important word learned on a mission trip is “FLEXIBLE.” Things happen...flights get cancelled, equipment malfunctions, team roles change, leadership in a chosen village decides against a team coming for whatever reason and we must be ready to go elsewhere. Wind, weather, and road conditions can also cause problems. The comforts and tastes of home are different (or nonexistent) and we must adapt! But God is faithful in bringing everything together, always, for our good and his glory!

Therefore, we pray for the approximately 240 people that were served in El Mamey by our team and for other souls over the years that have been touched by past dental teams in mountain villages like La Cofradia, Tierra de Colorado, Las Cuevas, El Coccal, La Independencia, and El Tambor and in prisons and orphanages. Pray for Pastor Pedro (& Macrina); Edgar (& Lety) Rivera; Neri (& Karina) Rivera; Alas De Socorro and staff (Wings of Mercy/Mission Aviation Fellowship); pilots Mike (& Joan) Ross, Amos, Juan Carlos, and Gregorio; MAF mechanic Juan Antonio (& Amy) Rivera; Pastor/Doctor Josias Luna and family; ESI Students, and so many more as they make themselves available and flexible to be used in the process to guide people searching for THE ANSWER in Oaxaca and the surrounding mountain regions.

Serving on a short-term team enables you to develop relationships with fellow laborers throughout the world now and for eternity. It provides a fantastic opportunity to embrace another culture, test your limits, meet great needs, broaden/enhance your perspective on God’s eternal Kingdom and ignite a passion to see it grow worldwide, in your local sphere, and in your own family and heart. Most of all, you become the humble receiver of blessings above and beyond all you can imagine.

Joni Komar
One of the team leaders