Summer Missions

In the Beginning:

In the Summer of 1978, on the top of a mountain in Horn Creek, Colorado a dream was born. A dream that one day healing for the country, the people of a war-torn country would come in a form of a medical team. The vision lived on as a dream until the Summer of 1999 when a small band of young Christians gathered under a tree of a church in Anaheim, California. This group of 6 kids decided it was now time for their ministry, the Vietnamese United Methodist Youth & Young Adult Fellowship to move beyond its border and bring their young members back to their homeland and began a healing ministry.

In the following summer of 2000, the Good Samaritan Medical Ministry was born. They made their first trip back to Vietnam with the theme "Our God Reigns". With 1 physician and 4 young adult volunteers they saw their first 1,100 patients in 10 days in the Mekong Delta, with a meager budget of $12,000.

Today these Good Samaritans are parts of one of the largest medical teams to care for the poor inside Vietnam; treating over four thousand of patients each 2 weeks and operate on 80 major surgical cases in just a week's time.

The Growing Years:

From 2000 - 2004 the team comes to Vietnam for 2 weeks in the summer; one week working in the South and one week in Hue. In 2002 Dentistry was added. In 2003 a multi-specialty team began working together side by side with the primary care team in the second week to provide specialty support; working, teaching at Hue College of Medicine and Pharmacy.

In 2004 the work took a painful turn and in retrospect, it is now seen as a blessing in disguise. The primary care team wasn't able to return to Hue to see patients that year. But the speciatly team did manage to come back to the Medical College that year to teach and perform complicated surgeries such as Total Knee Replacement while the Primary care team moved north to work in Cao Bang, the northern most province near the border of China. In 2005 determined to bring the 2 teams together again, they worked through major obstacles so that both team could work side by side in Hue. In 2006 the entire team headed to Cao Bang and then Bac Kan adding Optometry to their long list of services and remained in the north until 2009. It would now become a hospital on wheels, fully equiped to provide medical, surgical, dental, optometric services for the majority of the patients they come in contact with.

Despite the difficulties encountered in 2004, the Good Samaritans never abandoned their presence at Hue Medical College and continued to come back separately as a second team in the Spring 2006. That year the team of Emergency Specialists turned their attention to the most needed specialty in the country, Emergency Medicine. With an unwavering commitment to this specialty, they pour their hearts and souls into developing this unrecognized specialty and today Emergency Medicine has gained national attention.

After 5 years working in the rugged mountains of the North, the team felt lead to return to the South in 2009 working in Tra Vinh and Can Tho. In 2010 with a team of 100 members, fully equipped, the team provided the most comprehensive care possible for a medical mission team to the poor people of Ben Tre Province. It was a year that became standards of excellence for future missions to reach for.

Where we're going:

Providing direct medical care for the destitute patients is just one of the 4 objectives of the summer team. Training young people for future service is also a major focus of the team. Many members' lives had and continue to be changed years after years. Those young college student helpers wearing the blue uniforms are now returning as licensed healthcare professionals wearing the green uniform to continue this dream. It is this team of young professionals that will ensure "The needy will not always be forgotten nor the hope of the afflicted ever perish" Psalm 9:18.