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The following was written by Jeff Aronsohn about his recent trip to Myanmar.
After researching mPower Approach, what I found amazed and excited me, while raising all kinds of doubts in my dental school educated mind, tempered by thirty-six years of general practice. They claimed that in six days mPower Approach teams are able to train national believers to do dental extractions! Pull teeth! That wasn’t the most important aspect, though. Patients, friends, and family would all hear the Gospel as part of the “treatment” – relief from infection and an opportunity for relief from sin’s ultimate wages, “There is decay for which only the Great Physician has the Soul solution.”
I spoke with other dentists who had trained with mPower Approach, communicated with members of their board, and visited their office in Louisville, KY. It seemed like a viable alternative to sending a dentist to a foreign land to pull teeth for a
week or two, only to be disappointed that the need was greater upon leaving than upon arriving.
I appreciated that the patients are expected to pay a nominal fee for service to the “dental health care worker”, from which funds are used to re-supply expendables from in-country sources, in some instances add to the workers’ personal sustenance, and support the work of the local church. I could not wait to see this in action!
Several weeks ago I left the comforts of home and set out for Myanmar. After two days of travel, we arrived and prepared to teach ten students to extract teeth. Monday morning our mission began in earnest. Ironically, our training took place in a Buddhist school building. We were training these students with a skill that would give them access to many unbelievers for the end-game purpose of presenting the Way, the Truth and the Life.
I was struck by the seriousness of our mission: In order to exponentially advance the Gospel through indigenous believers we must go teach dental skills, so that the students can use the resources to ensure that the Word of God goes out through the few, on to the many.
The team was motivated by the knowledge that when we returned home the trained believers had been empowered to reach many souls with skills that attract people whose needs are known (dental pain) and often unknown (death in sin and trespasses) and offer a solution for both! Twice a week, week after week, often seeing ten people a day, twenty a week, roughly a thousand a year! This doesn’t even account for friends and family members who might accompany them and hear the Gospel.
As the week ended, I was thrilled to see the confidence the students had in their newly gained skills. I too, was confident God would use them to further His kingdom to the very ends of the earth.
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