The Students are the Mission
We are thoroughly proud of the students who have joined our programs, and their heart to serve their people. These students have not only worked hard to successfully pass the selection process but demonstrate their heart for others on a daily basis. We believe that when we have the right students, they can overcome the diverse challenges their people face. Every year, there are plenty of stories that inform us we are on the right track.
A PERFECT STORM
Rainy season happens in the jungle every year, but in 2023, a series of storms wrought disaster on Earth Mission’s jungle clinic campus and surrounding villages. For 12 days straight, the rugged region drank in more than 12 inches of rain every day.
The ground could only hold so much water. The mountainside became oversaturated. Within the first 2 days, the earth simply melted away.
Day 2: The first landslide to reach our clinic campus crashed into the physicians’ quarters, flooding the house and pressing against the brick walls. Rivers of rainwater threatened to wash away the whole structure.
Realizing the dire situation, our Physician Associate and Engineering Technology students abandoned their studies and grabbed their shovels. While clinic staff saw to the needs of patients, the students spent the next 2 days excavating the building from its muddy prison with wheelbarrows, hoes, rice bags—anything they could get their hands on to remove the debris.
Day 3: As the house situation came under control, some students peeled off to rescue stores of medications in the new operating room, which had filled with 6 inches of standing water.
Day 4: More landslides started toppling trees all across campus. Two fell on the inpatient building, hitting the power line and sparking a fire. The students evacuated everyone from the building, extinguished the fire, and settled the unharmed patients in the maternity building.
Day 5: Another mudslide hit the outpatient building. Again, students went out in full force to remove the masses of earth threatening the structure.
How is healthcare education in the remote jungles free?
Earth Mission has established and operates the Physician Associate program, Engineering Technology program, surgical program, and hospital and campus program.
Our generous donors provide student scholarships.
The local government coordinates job placement for graduates at remote clinics.
Graduates treat, educate, and train local communities.
Day 6: The schoolhouse was hit by a tree and yet another landslide. The students and their shovels were back at it!
Along with the 5-day campus rescue being the filthiest job imaginable, it was also very cold. Enduring the drenching rain for hours on end, covered from head to toe in cold mud, the students were left absolutely frozen by the time they finished the job… and all they had to look forward to was a frigid bucket bath.
Beyond the crisis on campus, the relentless rain quickly transformed the area’s rivers into roaring vehicles of massive destruction. Surrounding villages nestled into a hillside just above the rivers were quickly devoured. A nearby town lost 11 houses. Six houses in another village were swept away by swollen rivers. When the river took their homes, it took their clothes, mosquito nets, pots and pans, animals—everything they owned in the world.
Rivers that could normally be waded across to travel from village to village became sinister torrents of unknown depths, cutting new paths through the mountains and valleys with their force—and cutting our hospital off from the surrounding villages.
We were an island in the storm.
Once the 12-day storm ended and rivers receded, our students set out to help as many villages as they could. Reflecting the love of Christ, they gave families who had lost everything some supplies, food, and money to start their lives over again.
Our clinic campus buildings—though battered and in need of repairs—remained structurally sound and continued providing healthcare to those in need.
How Earth Mission’s Structures are Engineered
Raw materials are used to create sustainable structures by making bricks onsite from mud, pulverizing rock and collecting river sand for concrete aggregate, and using bamboo, which is a plentiful resource.
Permanent structures use light-gauge hollow steel to reduce environmental impact on old growth teak forests, which are being rapidly deforested.
Structures are designed by licensed U.S. structural engineers.
Construction is supported by local Engineering Tech graduates and local experts.
At Earth Mission, we often say that our students are the mission. This disaster perfectly demonstrates why.
In the mountainous jungles of southeast Myanmar, most people scratch out a living as subsistence farmers. There is little margin to access education or healthcare. In spite of these circumstances, the people are strong in spirit, woven together with loyalty and joy, and driven to better the lives of their people.
These qualities are deeply ingrained in our students.
While rainy season challenges are normal, our students’ response to this unusual disaster reminds us we’re on the right track. Enduring harsh conditions to preserve Earth Mission’s teaching hospital campus was simply an outward demonstration of their inner desire to build a better future for their people as the hands and feet of Jesus.
If that means digging a clinic—and their country—out of destruction one shivering shovelful at a time, so be it.
These servant leaders are making God’s love tangible in the midst of suffering.
Their purpose is to bring healing in destruction.
They are light in the darkness.
Hope in the impossible.