by Sarah Follette
Recently, Saint Francis was able to support a veterinary outreach mission to Kenya led by Saint Francis member, Dr. Sam Galphin.
The trip was organized through the work of two agencies: Freedom Global, a Durham-based Christian Ministry which works to display Christ’s love by creating sustainable solutions to alleviate poverty in the developing world through social business, education, and discipleship, and Christian Veterinary Missions (CVM), an agency that Dr. Galphin has worked with for 25 years. CVM’s mission is to challenge, empower and facilitate veterinary professionals to serve others by living out their Christian faith.
On March 7-17, 2019, Dr. Galphin led a group of 12-13 veterinary students and veterinarians (mostly young women) to a girls’ school in Kenya. The school is largely supported by failing dairy farms. His team worked to help return the dairy farms to profitability so that they’ll be able to provide a sustainable income for their community.
Beyond that essential goal, this mission had several other objectives, too. The Christian team of volunteers shared the love and grace of Christ with those they met. Because the girls at the school have little opportunity for education or advancement, just presence of the young veterinary students served as powerful inspirational role models to them. The trip also offered the opportunity to build a Christian heart for service in the young volunteers who gave up their Spring break to serve those in need.
Dr. Galphin sent a letter to Saint Francis expressing his deep gratitude for the monetary help and supportive prayer along with these pictures from the trip.
Thank you to everyone supporting the mission and ministry of Saint Francis! It’s because of your giving that we can help impactful efforts such as this!
Original article can be found at https://www.saintfrancisumc.org/content.cfm?id=151&id3=789&blog_id=209
