For Matt Niewald, DDS.,a Lee’s Summit resident, including 2 of his sons on his recent medical and dental mission trip to Jamaica was just as much about creating a teaching moment as it was about giving and serving others.
The JamAicamed (Jamaica Medical/Dental Mission) trip provided medical and dental services in areas of Tower Isle, Jamaica where care is not readily available. The team of volunteers primarily focused on preventative care services and tooth extractions. More than 50 hours of work were dedicated to servicing over 350 patients and extracting over 450 teeth. We wanted to ask the boys, Aidan,18, and Ethan,15, about their experience.
Ethan, how much of an impact do you think your volunteer work had?
I think my volunteer work had a pretty big impact on the people we helped. One of the main reasons I think this is because everyone we helped didn't have access to dental care. On top of not having access to dental care, most of the people in Jamaica didn't have toothbrushes or toothpaste to take care of their teeth. So overall I would say we had a huge impact on the people in Jamaica because we were able to help them with basic hygiene and we were able to help relieve the pain they were experiencing.
Aidan, What part of the trip was the most memorable?
The most memorable part of the Mission Trip for me was our second day of mission work at the Retreat Health Clinic. On this day I was doing patient intakes so I was able to directly communicate and interact with the patients more than I could on any of the other days. I was able to talk to people anywhere from little kids to grandparents and it was amazing hearing their stories. One thing in particular that stood out to me on this day is two little boys that came up to me on their walk home from school while I was standing outside of the clinic getting some fresh air. We talked for around 10 minutes about a ton of different things and it was amazing learning about their daily life. Overall the whole mission trip was extremely humbling and I would love to go again!