There I was, sat in a coffee shop at Heathrow Airport at 1.00am one Sunday morning wondering exactly that. I was a non-medic, waiting for the rest of the team to arrive to fly out to Sierra Leone on a medical outreach mission.

Just over twenty-four hours later we arrived at our final destination in Bo, the second largest city of Sierra Leone, in the southern part of the country, after an eventful road trip where we had to make regular stops to refuel as our minibus had a diesel leakage!

The outreach was organised by Evangelistic Medical Missions Abroad (EMMA – uk-emma.org) who give UK medical professionals the opportunity to use their medical skills in an overseas environment and combine it with the privilege of sharing the gospel with the community. There were twenty-one of us on the trip with different specialisms and levels of experience in medicine and in mission trips. I was on the trip as part of my role with the Christian Medical Fellowship’s Global Track as three junior doctors from the track came on the trip.

EMMA had been contacted by Margaret Jarrett, who runs a project called OAKS (Overseas Aid for the Kids of Sierra Leone), where they set up schools to give children an opportunity to be educated. Margaret knew of the medical needs in the country and asked if a team could come and help. Along with some local pastors, she had identified a number of villages around Bo where we could set up a clinic and link in with the local church.

Sierra Leone is a very poor country, ranking 180th out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index in 2011. Decades of economic decline and years of armed conflict have had dramatic consequences on the economy and subsequently its healthcare system. We found out later that there are only nine doctors and no dentists in Bo District for a population of 600,000 people (and about 200 doctors in the whole country of 7 million). Our team alone was made up of eleven doctors and two dentists!

This was Africa so you could never really predict what was going to happen. The first day was spent unpacking and sorting out medical bags, medications and logistics, and being taken around Bo to be welcomed by the local dignitaries before starting the clinics the following day.

No two clinics were the same but they did follow a basic pattern. We would travel to the designated village, anything from thirty minutes to four hours away from Bo, and there was always a crowd of around 200 waiting for us as word had got out that we were coming. After setting up the clinic we would speak to the crowd and explain why we were there, then share a short gospel message before seeing as many patients as we could in the time available.

The clinic was organised into different sections; medical/adult doctors (three or four), women’s doctors (two or three), children’s doctors (three or four), “laboratory” - malaria testing, urine dips and pregnancy tests (one), pharmacy/wound care (two), glasses and eye testing (one) and dental (one or two). My role, along with the other non-medic on the team, was to triage the patients and manage the queue which allowed the medics to see more patients. A number of local personnel connected to Margaret’s ministry came along to help with registering the patients and acted as translators.

The most important area of the clinic was the prayer station where local pastors were able to pray with many people, explain more about the gospel and give out Bibles.

Sometimes we would have opportunity to have a gospel presentation after lunch or at the end of the day, depending on the time, location and number of patients seen.

Over the course of the trip we saw just under 2,500 patients. Most of them saw more than one practitioner, meaning the number of actual consultations were many more.

It was the dry season so very few adults had malaria despite their presenting complaint of “typhoid malaria”. However, more of the children tested positive and we were able to give anti-malarial treatment to them.

Many patients complained of headache, often linked either to hypertension or to financial concerns. Others had the usual musculoskeletal concerns, often brought on by lugging five gallon palm oil metal tubs. Many had eye conditions, including pterygia, cataracts and enophthalmos, and we were able to dispense around 400 pairs of glasses. The dentists performed many extractions and the nurses from the team were busy undertaking lots of tests and dressings, and helping in the pharmacy.

Some amazing clinical signs seen during the visit were osteomyelitis of the ankle, paralysis, huge splenomegaly, unilateral proptosis, recurrent TB with harsh apical chest sounds and a boy with nasal septal erosion, skull fractures causing deafness, spasticity resulting from a tree fall and another boy with a shocking cleft lip and palate. We were able to provide further support and help for a few of these cases to get the treatment they needed with funds raised for the trip.

Another memorable young lady, kept exposing her top and throwing herself on the floor, writhing in abdominal pain. Convinced that she was not a surgical case, the female doctors’ prayers calmed the storm. One exciting thing was to see the doctors being able to pray for their patients as they saw them, and this was for the first time for some of them.

Seeing the many preventable diseases that people in Sierra Leone have reminds me of how thankful we should be for our own healthcare system. It may not be perfect but it is much better than what many other people have. We were told that most people we saw would probably have never seen a doctor before, either because there are none around or they could not afford it. It was moving to see how thankful people were for the care we showed them. Many came up to me as they left to say thank you. One dental patient grabbed our microphone to announce to the crowd that “it works, I was bad but not now!”. On the other hand, it was hard to see the desperation on peoples’ faces when we told them that we could not see them or their children because we had run out of time.

Some people question the value of short-term mission like this. We went for a limited period and what we did was to give most patients some temporary respite (with the exception of dental extractions and provision of glasses). Is the healthcare system in Sierra Leone going to change as a result? The answer is no. Was it worth it for the people to be treated? As I was sharing this point with one of the trustees he reminded me that when Jesus fed the 5,000 he was showing practical love and care for the crowd as they were hungry and that would not have had a lasting effect. But it did demonstrate Jesus’ concern and care for the people’s physical needs at that particular time. We sought to do the same as we did our best to help the patients who were suffering with their health concerns.

Those who had travelled before told us to expect a response as we presented the gospel message: that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. At home we often preach with little expectation so it was refreshing to see the response to the gospel presentation that we gave each day and see God at work in transforming lives. The prayer station was so important as it gave opportunity to talk and pray with those who were serious. We do not have the numbers, as the local pastors had the responsibility of following up, but we estimate there were around thirty to forty people who made a profession of faith, and we pray that many of these were genuine. This is what made it all worthwhile as God had chosen to use this trip to bring people into His kingdom. That is what I was doing and what a privilege it was to be part of it.