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September 26, 2009

Pulling Teeth for Jesus!

One of our goals for the coming year is to begin planning and raising funds for a Mobile Dental Clinic for the north of Burkina Faso.

Lynne has worked in Mozambique and Thailand, running this kind of mobile dental clinic in remote villages and refugee camps, and training locals to provide dental health education, pain relief and dental extractions. She now wants to use this experience to help the people of northern Burkina Faso.

"Getting Our Teeth Stuck In..."
In the whole of our province of Oudalan, there is no dental care provision. People suffer with tooth pain, often with no opportunity for relief, without making a long and costly journey to one of the larger towns many miles away. We want to start and equip a Mobile Dental Clinic, taking dental care, education, and training into remote Fulani, Tamacheq, and Songhai villages in this province, working alongside local pastors. The clinic would have three main goals:

• Relief of Pain. Visiting villages, to treat dental problems and pull teeth.
  
• Education. Teaching people about basic dental hygiene.
  
• Training. Equipping local people with basic skills for dental extractions.

We would also combine the dental clinic with the preaching of the gospel. Pierre has already worked with an American dental nurse, doing similar projects a bit further south, and he is keen on the whole vision.

While in Burkina Faso this time, we met with the Regional Director for Health for the north of Burkina Faso, and he was very welcoming and enthusiastic about what we want to do.

Where From Here...?
To start the Clinic, we will need to buy equipment and drugs. In Ghana, there are people who have developed solar-powered dental units specifically for working in the African bush. We are particularly interested in visiting their work, seeing the equipment in action there, and learning from them.

Please pray for us as we seek to develop this over the next year.

If you want to support this project, please click here.

Posted by Keith at September 26, 2009 12:17 PM