AdventHealth Expands Global Mission Work into Honduras
AdventHealth’s Global Mission Impact program facilitated the shipping and installation of an x-ray machine for Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles. Photo: AdventHealth
August 8, 2019 | Orlando, Florida, United States | Ingrid Hernandez, AdventHealth
Through its Global Mission Impact (GMI) program, AdventHealth, a faith-based, national health system located in the United States, partners with other Adventist hospitals around the globe. The newest of these partners is a five-and-a-half-hour flight from AdventHealth’s Orlando-based Headquarters, into the country of Honduras.
Recently, leaders from AdventHealth and AdventHealth Centra Care, the organization’s urgent care network, traveled to Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles (HAVA) to tour the site, meet with local hospital and church leaders, and officially sign the facility as a GMI footprint. Attendees included Robert Paswaters, PhD, Centra Care vice president and chief operating officer, John Masterfield, Centra Care senior manager of employee engagement, and Monty Jacobs, AdventHealth director of global missions. Dr. Paswaters serves as a co-executive sponsor for the footprint with Scott Brady, MD, Centra Care president/CEO.
“The people at HAVA have a passionate desire to provide whole-person care to their surrounding communities,” said Dr. Brady. “We are privileged to extend the healing ministry of Christ with them in a variety of practical ways.”
Board members and senior hospital leadership team for Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles, along with representatives from AdventHealth, at the Global Mission Impact Honduras footprint signing event. Front Row from Left to Right: AdventHealth: Dr. Robert Paswaters, Jr., Vice President & COO for AdventHealth Centra Care; HAVA Board Chairperson: Pastor Adan Ramos, President for the Honduras Union of Seventh-day Adventists; HAVA Board Member: Dr. Elie Honore, Director of Healthcare Institutions for the Inter-America Division of Seventh-day AdventistsPhoto: AdventHealth. Back Row from Left to Right, HAVA Board Member: Pastor Roberto Brown, Executive Secretary for the Honduras Union of Seventh-day Adventists; AdventHealth: Monty S. Jacobs, Director of Global Missions; HAVA Board Member: Reynaldo Canales, CEO for Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles; HAVA Board Member: Dr. Edinora Cherenfant, Chief Medical Officer for Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles; AdventHealth: John Masterfield, Senior Manager of Employee Engagement for AdventHealth Centra Care; HAVA Board Member: Juan Jose Moran, Treasurer for the Honduras Union of Seventh-day Adventists; HAVA Board Member: Dr. Joel Mundall, Medical Director for Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles
Located approximately 20 miles outside the capital of Tegucigalpa, HAVA is a 30-bed non-profit hospital—the only one in a region of about 90,000 people. The hospital also runs a clinic, Clínica Adventista Tegucigalpa. As a footprint in AdventHealth’s GMI program, it’s one of 10 hospitals with whom the system has established a long-term relationship with the goal of fostering Christ-like generosity and providing hope and healing to communities in need. In Honduras, more than 60 percent of people live below the poverty line.
AdventHealth’s relationship with HAVA goes back several years. Since 2012, AdventHealth team members have volunteered on mission trips to Valle de Ángeles two times a year, with Centra Care serving as the primary sponsor for most of those trips.
Besides the mission trips, the partnership creates opportunities for supply donations, professional assessments and joint strategic planning. Most recently, AdventHealth facilitated the donation of an x-ray system with digital imaging to HAVA. Additionally, Adventist Health International and Loma Linda University Health completed an overview of the hospital’s entire electrical system, with AdventHealth committing to work together to help upgrade this critical area of need. Down the line, HAVA also wants to add a new wing and service lines, and renovate the clinic in Tegucigalpa, using a five-year strategic growth plan.
“All of this work is being done from the viewpoint of the hospital in Honduras,” said Shelby Houmann, global missions communications specialist and event coordinator for AdventHealth. “It’s about where they see the need to grow. In that way, it’s a true partnership mentality—we want to help make their goals happen.”
Hospital Adventista Valle de Ángeles is located approximately 20 miles outside of Honduras’ capital city of Tegucigalpa. Photo: AdventHealth
The most recent mission trip to Valle de Ángeles was in April 2019 where a group of volunteers from AdventHealth Centra Care and AdventHealth University provided primary care services to the community. The group had such a fun time, Masterfield has convinced the Centra Care team to return in October.
For Masterfield, this mission work is an answer to Christ’s call: “…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me” (Matthew 25:40).
“We are planting a tremendous number of seeds in the lives of these people,” he said. “We are doing the planting and watering, and we trust that God will do the harvest.”