Corumbá Brazil Mission Trip

My wife Barbara and I had the wonderful opportunity to once again travel with HealthCare Ministries. This time it was to the far western border of Brazil, the area was the small city of Corumbá, which was recently popularized by the fiction writer John Grisham, in his book, The Testament. Corumbá has a population of approximately 90,000 people, and is situated on the Paraguay River, 7 miles from the border of Bolivia.

Our trip was a test of endurance, taking a total of nearly 33 hours to reach our destination of Corumbá. We met our American team of physicians, nurses, an optician and pharmacist, and 5 medical students in Dallas; and our Brazilian team of missionaries and Portuguese interpreters, at the coastal city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. From Sao Paulo we flew to the interior of Brazil to Campo Grande and then took a 7 hour bus ride through the Pantanal, the largest everglades region in the world. On the bus ride through the Pantantal our team observed a variety of wildlife, including alligators, tucans, parrots, Brazilian deer, capybaras (the earth’s largest rodent), numerous Touiuius (a large native bird shown on the left) and even a baby jaguar.

The team from Brazil was directly responsible for making this trip possible. These individuals represented the Bernard Johnson Ministries of Brazil. We were privilieged to have with us Doris Johnson, the wife of the late Bernard Johnson, who was considered the Billy Graham of Brazil. She shared with us many marvelous events concerning her husband and his ministry, including over 2 million decisions for Christ through huge crusades across Brazil where upwards of 150,000 people were in attendance per night. There were many documented miracles, including people blind from birth receiving their sight, that were verified with examination before and after by medical doctors.

We arrived at the hotel late Saturday night, and on Sunday we were taken to the church where we began to set up the clinic, preparing for an intense week of treating patients. The setting was the basement of a large local church, just a few minutes from our hotel. Our team quickly set up a mini-hospital consisting of medical cubicles, registration and triage, optometry, a pharmacy, and of course a dental clinic. To our surprise, the church already had an actual dental chair and lights which was a real bonus, as we normally pack lawn chairs and flashlights for doing dentistry.

Barbara was able to assist in the dental department the entire week, which was a blessing. We were also privileged to have the daughter of Bernard Johnson, Beth, as our interpreter and her husband Neal in charge of sterilization.

It was interesting to note that our leader rotated Neal out of dental to other clinic departments for a few hours to give him a flavor of the overall clinic, but he was quickly back to dental declaring that it was far more exciting than the other departments. Indeed we had an exciting and rewarding week beyond the typical HealthCare trip. The Lord protected us numerous times including the day our “third world autoclave” - the pressure cooker used to sterilize instruments – blew up. It was as if a gunshot went off in our clinic, spraying boiling water everywhere. Immediately everyone ducked for cover, including me; I ran out of the dental area waving a syringe in my hand. It was somewhat comical and luckily no one was hurt.

Other unusual events occurred in our dental clinic making the week more exciting than normal. Even our meals were exciting. The church workers would make us lunch each day, with rice and beans as the staple. They also prepared some of the local dishes including alligator nuggets and piranha stew - complete with teeth!.

Beyond the usual difficulty of our oral surgeries, we did far more advanced surgical procedures than normal, which was atypical compared to other trips. In fact my right hand was so cramped from difficult extractions after the first day, it was only by God’s grace that I was able to continue throughout the week. Perhaps the most rewarding surgery was a young boy with angloglossia (a tongue tied condition), which caused a speech impediment, due to the abnormally long attachment of the muscle under the tongue. The procedure was quick and the improvement immediate and dramatic. The look of joy on the face of the boy and his mother was worth the whole trip.

Our HealthCare clinic was very successful. As a team we saw nearly 1500 patients and 700 of them invited the Lord Jesus Christ into their lives. How exciting this is as the Bible says, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul” (Matthew 16:26). And in Psalms 90:5-6 it says “Our lives are as grass, it flowers in the morning and soon withers” – which speaks of our relatively short time on early as compared to our eternity. The Lord has given us the greatest hope of all for our eternity when the scripture says “If we confess the Lord (Jesus Christ) with our mouth and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou will be saved” (for what? … to go to heaven). “For with the mouth confession is made unto salvation and with the heart man believes unto righteousness” (Romans 10: 9-10). May each person reading this carefully consider God’s word through these scriptures.

Dr. Johnson