Predisan turns 20
THE MEDICAL MISSION, launched by Dr. Robert Clark in 1986, treats thousands of patients each year through its clinics, substance abuse program and community health projects. By Erik Tryggestad The Christian Chronicle Twenty years ago Robert Clark, a self-styled “jungle doc,” and his family moved to Honduras to teach basic health care to students at a preaching school. Their only guides were a Bible and a copy of Where There Is No Doctor by David Werner, a manual for health care workers in developing nations. Today, Mission Predisan, which takes its name from the Spanish words for “preach” and “heal,” treats thousands of patients each year in its seven rural clinics and its 40,000-square-foot Good Samaritan Clinic in the small town of Catacamas.
The ministry sponsors health and education initiatives and operates an addiction-recovery center renowned throughout Central America, according to Honduran officials.
In addition to teams of medical missionaries, the ministry employs about 65 Hondurans — including doctors, nurses, dentists and psychologists. Doris Clark, wife of the late Dr. Clark, and Honduran physician Amanda Madrid oversee the work.
Hundreds of people — many of them former patients — gathered in Catacamas recently to celebrate the ministry’s anniversary. Clark said she was thrilled to see so many “whose lives have completely changed through their contact with the ministries and services of Predisan,” she said.
The Catacamas staff honored representatives of three churches that have provided support to the ministry during its first two decades — Joe Glenn of the Northlake church in Atlanta, Tom Gooch of the Quail Springs church in Oklahoma City and Linda and Eric King of the Dayspring church in Edmond, Okla.
During the celebration, Madrid honored Quail Springs member Wilson Meek, who organized Predisan’s first surgical teams. Christopher Meek, of Santiago, Chile, accepted the award on behalf of his family.
In addition to treating patients, workers with the ministry participate in community development projects. Kyle Huhtanen, Predisan’s director of operations, recently helped engineer a clean water system for Masicales, a remote, mountain village.
The ministry’s staff and chaplains study the Bible with the people they serve. In the past year Predisan enrolled 351 students in World Bible School courses
“Twenty years ago, none of us knew where God would take us,” said Glenn, who urged his church to launch the medical mission after seeing a suffering child in Catacamas in 1985. “We did know that children were dying of childhood diseases and that people were dying spiritually because they had not heard the good news.”
“We made a start, and God took over,” he said.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, see www.predisan.org
Oct. 1, 2006
The ministry sponsors health and education initiatives and operates an addiction-recovery center renowned throughout Central America, according to Honduran officials.
In addition to teams of medical missionaries, the ministry employs about 65 Hondurans — including doctors, nurses, dentists and psychologists. Doris Clark, wife of the late Dr. Clark, and Honduran physician Amanda Madrid oversee the work.
Hundreds of people — many of them former patients — gathered in Catacamas recently to celebrate the ministry’s anniversary. Clark said she was thrilled to see so many “whose lives have completely changed through their contact with the ministries and services of Predisan,” she said.
The Catacamas staff honored representatives of three churches that have provided support to the ministry during its first two decades — Joe Glenn of the Northlake church in Atlanta, Tom Gooch of the Quail Springs church in Oklahoma City and Linda and Eric King of the Dayspring church in Edmond, Okla.
During the celebration, Madrid honored Quail Springs member Wilson Meek, who organized Predisan’s first surgical teams. Christopher Meek, of Santiago, Chile, accepted the award on behalf of his family.
In addition to treating patients, workers with the ministry participate in community development projects. Kyle Huhtanen, Predisan’s director of operations, recently helped engineer a clean water system for Masicales, a remote, mountain village.
The ministry’s staff and chaplains study the Bible with the people they serve. In the past year Predisan enrolled 351 students in World Bible School courses
“Twenty years ago, none of us knew where God would take us,” said Glenn, who urged his church to launch the medical mission after seeing a suffering child in Catacamas in 1985. “We did know that children were dying of childhood diseases and that people were dying spiritually because they had not heard the good news.”
“We made a start, and God took over,” he said.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, see www.predisan.org
Oct. 1, 2006
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