Healing as ministry

Many organizations and movements inevitably grow from being inward-looking to doing what is generally called “outreach.” Couples for Christ is no exception. Started in 1981 as a movement solely to strengthen relationship between husband and wife, it soon expanded to include the entire family. The growing spirituality of the community eventually led it to look beyond family to the greater society and ultimately, as a firm expression of love for God and neighbor, to the poor among us.

The mid-1990s witnessed the blossoming of the social ministries in CFC as part of its enlarging engagement in social transformation. These ministries catered to practically every sector of society — those in prison, men in uniform, widows and widowers, migrant workers, the sick and destitute and the materially poor.

One of these ministries was the health ministry of CFC, then known as CFC Medical Missions. This aimed at providing health care to the members of the community, with subsequent expansion to the marginalized members of our society. From its very inception, the thrusts of the health ministry were directed at advocacy, service to the community (primarily CFC members and their families) and work with the poor.

When CFC launched the work with the poor in Bagong Silang, Caloocan, the health ministry followed suit by doing medical outreach in that relocation area. In August 1997, the ministry launched the first of what would eventually be regular surgical outreaches to many parts of the country. This first outreach was in Iligan City, Lanao del Norte. The Iligan mission work marked the beginning of a continuing commitment to provide surgical care to the underserved areas.

Today, the ministry has a new name — Give Kare Health Foundation — but the change in name has not altered its original mission of providing much needed health care to those who need them but have no money. This bold step enabled the ministry to continue growing, even strengthening the surgical missions which have become a major competency of Give Kare. It also allowed expansion in the area of ANCOP community health care (CFC Work with the Poor) with its strong emphasis on sustainable primary and preventive health care delivery.

The change in name also provided a robust platform to engage in partnerships with the church, the private and public sectors of society. Notable is our joint efforts with the medical academe (e.g. UST Faculty of Medicine and Surgery) and medical societies and specialty organizations (e.g. Philippine Heart Association).

Having been in community for more than 25 years, this ministry provided me also with a personal platform with which to express my personal commitment to serving God and neighbor as well as to practice my profession. I am a cardio-thoracic surgeon and the surgical missions were a perfect opportunity to give back to society. My experiences, after 15 years of regular surgical missions to far flung areas, have been fulfilling, affirming of my faith. But they can be heartrending too, when faced with severe cases that have been neglected for so long, simply because the poor have no means to seek treatment.

Nene is in her 40s, a mother of five from Cordon, Isabela, who had an infected cancer in her right breast. By the time she came to our surgical mission, her husband had left her and their children, not being able to withstand the sight of her infected breast and the foul odor that emanated from it. To provide for her and her five children, she was forced to work in the cornfields from sunup to sundown for meager compensation and in the midst of almost constant pain. The CFC surgical team performed mastectomy, i.e. removal of her infected cancerous breast for free, a service she had long hoped for but had no money for.

Another of our patients was a 12-year-old girl from Surigao who has experienced rejection from birth because of her cleft lip. Her own father was embarrassed to be seen with her. She stopped going to school because of the bullying and the constant jeers of her classmates. After we had repaired her lips, she rewarded us with a teary smile of gratitude. The smile and the tears were worth more than any surgical fee we would have earned from our private practice.

After 15 years of inspiring and dedicated work, GIVE KARE continues to create impact in the lives of thousands of poor people. In the course of our surgical missions, we try to project our being Christians as well, declaring our faith as the mover of our work.

The doctors and nurses of GIVE KARE, including volunteers who are not members of our community, have gone to many underserved provinces of the country — from the mountainous northern expanse of Luzon to the southern tip of Mindanao in Tawi-Tawi, including areas of conflict like Datu Paglas, Camp Abubakar and Basilan.

In the course of nearly 70 major surgical missions, GIVE KARE passionately provides topnotch surgical care to the least, the lost and the last. Its selfless declaration is “if the poor cannot afford hospital care, we will bring health care to them.”

The doctors and nurses and the volunteers who join our surgical missions have to endure long trips, camp out in conditions totally alien to them, be separated from family even on special occasions for at least three days each time, and forfeit much-needed income. But the joy of serving God and man and of seeing the smiles on the faces of those who find hope because of cleft lips repaired, tumors removed and procedures done that they normally would never have even attempted to have, are reward enough.