Baylor Engineering and Medical Students Serve on Mission Trips in Mexico and Haiti Over Spring Break
Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-710-6275
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WACO, Texas (March 21, 2018) – Three teams of Baylor University medical and engineering students traveled to Haiti and Mexico over spring break to serve in rural hospitals, seminaries, orphanages and schools. The Haiti Engineering, Haiti Medical and Mexico Engineering teams partnered with local nonprofit organizations to serve the community and provide long-lasting support.
“We seldom take the time to sit and evaluate the world around us, understanding the unique circumstances of those inhabiting this earth,” said Michael Rankins, a sophomore biology major from Birmingham, Alabama. “Through the eyes of young children, I found a sense of hope, an urge of determination and a drive of certainty that God is alive. It’s amazing how much a change in scenery and situation can alter one’s perspective.”
Rankins and 15 other Baylor students and faculty traveled with the Haiti Medical trip to Pignon, where they partnered with the Promise for Haiti organization, a mission that oversees nine schools, offers a medical outreach program and runs a hospital.
The team shadowed Haitian physicians and interacted with students and families in the area. The group took food to the poor, painted a house for a family, visited schools, helped update hospital inventory that a Baylor team established two years ago, and worked in a mobile clinic to bring care to those living in the mountains.
“I remember the families I left behind in Pignon,” Rankins said, recalling inspirational young men, sick children and widowed women. “Haiti is more than just a ‘poor place’. It is a place of rich culture, meaning, sacrifice, love and growth.”
While the Haiti Medical team served in Pignon, another group of Baylor STEM students served in another area of the country as engineers. This team, consisting of several humanitarian engineering students and members of the Engineers with a Mission student organization, partnered with the Haitian nonprofit, IDADEE, to build a solar electricity system for a new rural hospital. In addition to the engineering work, the team also played games with children and taught them about energy conservation.
“This trip was a chance for me to open my heart to God and increase my proximity to the problems our world faces,” said Kayla Garrett, a senior engineering student from Corpus Christi, Texas. “I not only strengthened relationships with my teammates, but with the Haitians we partner with, the children we encountered and with God. I learned with and from the locals about overcoming hardships and perseverance. I saw the beauty of God’s creation in a place where His presence is felt daily without distraction. I utilized my gifts of service, compassion and engineering to help bring new and appropriate technologies to a place that would benefit from them.”
Building on work from previous engineering mission trips, the team began the execution of the largest project ever undertaken by Baylor students. The solar electricity system for the CHIDA hospital will most likely take two years to complete.
The third group, the Mexico Engineering team, spent the week serving communities in Tecate, Mexico, in partnership with Lazarian World Homes. The group built a sustainable music building for a seminary using eco-friendly polystyrene blocks. Working alongside local tradesmen, the team was able to build relationships and finish the project in one week.
For more information, visit the Baylor Missions website.
by Brooke Battersby, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
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Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked research institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 17,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 80 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions.