August 27, 2001
STAUBER and Barrett pose with their students in Mexico.
Hillcrest & Baylor employees
team up to teach women's health
___WACO--When Donna Stauber began her career as a community health educator, she didn't realize it would take her to communities in other countries.
___But recently, Stauber and a team of 10 people spent their vacations in a village near Chihuahua, Mexico, teaching and ministering to the Tarahumara Indians.
___Stauber is an employee of Hillcrest Health System in Waco, an institution affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___With the help of Joan Barrett, a language professor and translator from Baylor University, Stauber and others taught a group of eight Indian women about working in a hospital and caring for the ill. Skills such as taking vital signs, lifting and moving patients, giving injections and making hospital beds were taught so the women could work in the small clinic in their village and care for ill family members at home.
___"We had a wonderful group of women who were eager to learn," Stauber said. "One woman came 90 miles to the seminars."
___Along with learning patient-care skills, participants learned about women's health issues such as the risks of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and improper diet.
___Stauber also taught the women how to perform breast self-examinations.
___The village clinic was built, equipped and funded through mission efforts. Three people, two of them physicians, run the clinic year-round to provide health care to the village.
___The clinic has a surgery suite, women's unit, children's unit and exam rooms. "While we were there, the clinic received its first X-ray machine," Stauber said. "It was great; imagine seeing the faces of those who never had seen an X-ray before."
___Stauber and Barrett went to Mexico through Gloria el Padre Ministrites, a mission suppport organization that links Texas churches and other volunteers with needs in North, South and Central America. The director, Billy Ray Parmer, previously served two terms as second vice president of the BGCT.
___"This trip changed my life," Stauber said. "I have been on many mission trips in my life, but this one was different. The women we taught were so eager to learn and appreciated our efforts so much. They begged us to come back and teach them more in the future. I feel a real calling to serve God more in this manner."
___
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