VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 2/12/13)—The New Year is bringing an expanded role for International Ministries (IM) medical missionary, Kristy Engel. After serving for 12 years as a pediatric health practitioner and coordinator of medical and volunteer teams at the Good Samaritan Hospital in La Romana, Dominican Republic, Engel will be employing her medical skills and experience in a wider field of service.
Starting this year, Engel becomes one of IM’s regional missionaries. This means that she will serve all of Iberoamerica and the Caribbean (Haiti, Cuba, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Chile, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Costa Rica). In this new role, Kristy, a fluent Spanish-speaker, will put her medical experience and training to work for medical relief associated with crises, education, medical resources, encouragement, and continuing education.
“I can’t express to you how excited I am about my new role,” wrote Kristy in a recent journal about her transition. There are exciting new places that need health care teams and ongoing projects that are expanding or changing to meet the needs of their community,” she explains. “And my role in all of this is to connect needs with resources while also being able to serve in some of the most desperate areas throughout the region.”
Engel will start by assisting three IM ministries: the House of Hope in Cochabamba, Bolivia; Deborah’s House in Tijuana, Mexico; and the Cap Haitien Eye Clinic in Haiti.
In Bolivia, she will work with IM missionary Mario Morales at the House of Hope, which provides medical services to children and their families. While she is there in February, Kristy will work with a church from Ohio, and local physicians who are volunteering their time at the House of Hope.
In Mexico, she will be partnering with IM missionaries Ray and Adalia Schellinger-Gutiérrez at Deborah’s House. This special ministry assists women and children who have experienced abuse and trafficking and is changing lives. Kristy is going to work with Ray and Adalia to find ways to replicate this program throughout Latin America.
And in Haiti, she will be working with IM missionary Nzunga Mabudiga as the Cap Haitien Eye Clinic expands its work to include an ear, nose and throat specialty. Kristy will be helping to find partners for construction, medical supplies, and sponsors so that they can continue to provide free medical care.
Engel’s reassignment does not change her status as an IM missionary or her fundraising needs. Her move entails a change of focus and location only. She will live in Atlanta, Georgia, where she can easily and quickly access transportation to the many ministries that are calling on her services.
To learn more about Kristy or to support her work, visit her profile for more information.
American Baptist International Ministries was organized in 1814 as the first Baptist international mission agency in America. It began its pioneer mission work in Burma and today works in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas serving more than 1,800 long-term and short-term missionaries. Its central mission is to help people come to faith in Jesus, grow in their relationship with God, and change their worlds through the power of the Spirit. It works with respected partners in over 70 countries in ministries that meet human need.
American Baptist Churches is one of the most diverse Christian denominations today, with over 5,200 local congregations comprised of 1.3 million members, across the United States and Puerto Rico, all engaged in God’s mission around the world.