Jason Miller (Kyalo)

Jason Miller – Curtis Gulch Campground- Wyoming

One of the most meaningful ways I have found to serve is through medical missions. I hold strong opinions—both positive and negative—about charity and international aid. Yet there are two causes I will almost always support without hesitation: emergency medical care and emergency food relief. When someone is suffering from illness or hunger, there is little room for debate.

Seven years ago, I led my first medical team to Kenya. None of us knew we were stepping into history. Our trip coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19, and what began as a mission of service quickly became a race against time. As borders began closing around the world, we scrambled to rearrange flights home. I eventually found myself aboard what was reportedly one of the last flights from Frankfurt to the United States.

But that is another story.

That first team consisted of fifty-two doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and medical staff—most from Arizona—who volunteered to spend two weeks serving alongside Mully Children’s Family in Yatta, Kenya. Before we ever saw our first patient, we had to organize shipments of medicine, establish treatment protocols, and devise a system capable of handling the thousands of people who would arrive seeking free medical care. Our team included family physicians, pediatricians, women’s health specialists, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists, and countless support volunteers working quietly behind the scenes.

That first journey became the beginning of something much larger.

Since then, I have helped organize medical missions throughout Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, and South Africa, with hopes of expanding into South Sudan and the Amazon region near Manaus in the years ahead. Every volunteer sacrifices precious vacation time—often two weeks from demanding careers—to travel halfway around the world and care for people they have never met.

Many of those same doctors and nurses return year after year. Others have been inspired to launch medical teams of their own. Some have even formed partnerships with African governments, bringing long-term healthcare solutions to remote communities where medical care is almost nonexistent.

Over the years our teams have also managed to donate and import everything from MRI machines to dental equipment. It has been remarkable to watch what happens when a handful of committed people work together. One act of generosity leads to another, and over time the impact becomes impossible to measure. Kindness has a way of gathering momentum, rolling downhill like a snowball until it grows far beyond anything one person could accomplish alone.

The clinics themselves are unforgettable.

Some of the stories still stay with me years later.

We have watched children arrive in their mothers’ arms, barely conscious from acute malaria and hovering near death. With the proper medication and fluids, many were sitting up, smiling, and eating within a day. Moments like those remind you just how thin the line between life and death can be when basic medicine is unavailable.

One patient remains impossible to forget.

A man had severely burned his lower leg after falling into a fire while intoxicated. Weeks had passed before he reached us. He hobbled nearly fifty miles to find our clinic. His leg was blackened with dead tissue, swollen with infection, crawling with flies and maggots. The smell announced his arrival long before he entered the treatment tent.

At first glance, nearly everyone believed the leg would have to be amputated.

Our medical staff carefully began cleaning the wound, removing dead tissue and flushing away weeks of infection. It was an agonizing procedure to watch, yet the man sat almost motionless, showing remarkably little reaction to what must have been excruciating pain. Fresh bandages were applied, antibiotics administered, and he was instructed to stay in a nearby village and return the following morning for another cleaning.

That evening over dinner, conversation centered on raising money for the inevitable amputation. We were convinced there was no other outcome.

The next day he never appeared.

With thousands of patients moving through the clinic, we simply assumed he had given up.

Then, on the third day, he quietly walked back in.

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

The infection had dramatically improved. The swelling had subsided. Healthy tissue had begun replacing what only days earlier looked beyond saving. The combination of thoroughly cleaning the wound and administering antibiotics had completely changed the course of his recovery.

None of us expected it.

Our eye clinics produced their own surprises. Besides distributing hundreds of pairs of eyeglasses, we encountered numerous patients suffering from parasitic worms living inside their eyes. Under a bright examination light, the tiny worms could actually be seen wriggling beneath the surface. It was disturbing to witness, yet incredibly satisfying to know that a simple course of medication often cleared the infection within twenty-four hours.

Dental clinics were equally memorable.

Many patients refused local anesthetic, either from fear or unfamiliarity, choosing instead to endure extractions and extensive dental work without any numbing medication. They often sat calmly through procedures that most people back home would find unbearable.

Most of our medical missions last about two weeks, with ten days devoted almost entirely to clinics before allowing the volunteers a brief safari to experience the country they have come to serve. By then everyone is physically exhausted. Long days, overwhelming crowds, relentless heat, and heartbreaking cases take their toll.

Most volunteers leave without ever fully realizing the difference they made in one small village tucked somewhere deep in Africa.

Not every challenge is medical.

In some communities, deeply rooted superstition shapes life-and-death decisions. We have seen respected traditional healers—often called witch doctors—tell someone they will die before sunset. Astonishingly, some people simply accept the verdict, lie down, and wait to die. Neither reason nor medicine can persuade them otherwise.

Culture presents its own difficult realities.

During one mission in Malawi, a volunteer gynecologist noticed an alarming number of women suffering from cervical cancer or precancerous conditions. He arranged for specialized equipment to be imported and donated, allowing life-saving procedures to be performed locally.

After treatment, the women were instructed to avoid sexual activity for a short period while they healed.

Many quietly explained they had no authority to make that decision.

Their husbands did.

So we invited the husbands to a meeting, hoping education might help. We carefully explained the procedures and the importance of allowing their wives time to recover.

The response was immediate.

No outsider, they insisted, had the right to tell them how to treat their wives.

We considered housing the women separately during recovery, but once word spread, none returned for treatment.

It was one of many reminders that medicine alone cannot solve every problem.

On another trip, along the sandy shores of Lake Malawi, our dental team noticed an unusual pattern. Young adults had teeth worn almost flat, with much of the protective enamel completely gone. After asking questions, we discovered the cause. Lacking toothbrushes and toothpaste, many cleaned their teeth by rubbing beach sand against them each day. What seemed like good hygiene was slowly destroying their smiles.

During some of these missions we have treated more than three thousand patients in only ten days. Years of experience have helped us develop an efficient triage system that keeps people moving through examinations, treatment, and referrals.

Even so, one challenge remains constant.

The pharmacy.

No matter how efficiently the doctors work, a single pharmacist quickly becomes the bottleneck. Some patients wait an entire day—or longer—simply to receive the medicine they need before beginning the long walk home. Every year we refine the system, hoping to serve more people with greater efficiency.

Not every story ends well.

Those evenings are always the quietest.

Sometimes a young mother arrives with cancer too advanced for treatment. Sometimes a child dies despite every effort. Sometimes malnutrition has already stolen the opportunity for recovery. Those are the nights when conversation fades around the dinner table, replaced by uncomfortable silence and difficult questions about whether more could have been done.

Those are the faces that remain with you long after the trip ends.

I have come to treasure these annual medical missions, not only because of the lives they touch, but because of the friendships formed with the remarkable people who volunteer their time and talents. We have shared unforgettable safaris, long dusty roads, endless clinics, and countless adventures together.

Watching elephants at sunrise is a privilege.

Helping save a person’s leg—or perhaps their life—is something entirely different.

Those moments are why we keep coming back.

If you happened to stumble across this humble story and wish to serve on a medial team shoot me an email,  jason@jasonmiller.com

Medical Teams: Serving Where Needed
Copyright © 2026 by Jason Miller

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