Serial missionaryFinancial executive balances work and family with orchestrating and participating in annual medical missions to Third World nationsStory by Gina ManganIt’s one thing to view the image of starving African families on the pages of a magazine, quite another to see it in person. Carla Altepeter received her first glimpse on a trip to the African country of Zimbabwe in 1998, where she had the opportunity to visit shantytowns and witness the heart-wrenching conditions. The local people talked about starvation, disease and the constant threat of poachers coming across borders to raid an already meager food supply. As she rummaged through her suitcase that evening in her hotel she was struck with the realization that the money used to buy the things she brought along could feed an African family for a year. “It was one of those rare ‘ah-ha’ moments a person has in a lifetime, a very powerful moment that changed the entire course of my life,” she said. Altepeter, CEO and president of Oshkosh-based CitizensFirst Credit Union, traveled to Africa that year on business as a moderator for a World Council of Credit Union conference. She came back to Oshkosh in 1998 with something else on her mind - a deepened sense of needing to help people less fortunate than her. The day after sharing her misgivings with a friend, her sister placed a brochure on her desk that discussed short-term international missions to help the poor. “It was the answer I was looking for,” Altepeter said. “I could work, raise my family and do missionary work all at the same time by organizing short trips to Third World countries.” She collaborated with Oshkosh’s St. Raphael Catholic Church in 1999 on her first mission to Condega, Nicaragua. Since then she has worked through the parish to organize teams of people from the area to travel once a year to remote, poverty stricken communities in Africa, Mexico, and Central and South America. The missions began primarily as construction projects, but have since evolved into missions to deliver medical and dental care to thousands of people. Altepeter now works through the nonprofit, nondenominational Christian organization Food for the Hungry to identify new projects each year. Her most recent team of 15 local volunteers returned in March from Torotoro, Bolivia, where doctors and nurses treated more than 800 adults and children for ailments ranging from injuries to infection and digestive illnesses. The dental part of the team provided toothpaste, toothbrushes, sealants to prevent decay, and dental hygiene education to 1,200 children. All in the course of three very intense days. “Those days start at 6 a.m. with breakfast, loading up and getting out to the site and continue well after dark,” she said. “It’s exhausting, but an amazing experience to be able to help so many people.” The crew stayed in a home that regularly hosts ministry teams. They set up a makeshift clinic in a school. Many Bolivians walked for miles to reach them, including one man who walked more than five hours to receive medical attention for a Staph infection that would have killed him if it had gone untreated. When word reached the group that there was a school filled with young children who could not travel to the clinic, Altepeter said a few team members traveled 20 minutes to the children. They were given sealants and taught how to brush their teeth. “When we walked in, the teacher started clapping and said, ‘Thank you so much for taking care of my babies,’” Altepeter said. “Out of the 1,200 children we saw on that trip, only two girls gave the dentist a hard time. All the others opened their mouths and let him do what needed to be done. They’re incredibly stoic.” “You never know quite what to expect,” Altepeter said. “You go in knowing you’ll see diseases caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation. These people have hard lives, so there are generally muscle and skeletal injuries. People don’t brush their teeth, so that leads to illnesses later in life, as well as not being able to chew food.” When organizing trips, Altepeter solicits a broad range of supplies, from Tylenol and cortisone for pain to antibiotics for infections and saline for dehydration. In one case, they brought 400 pairs of sandals for the women and children who had no shoes. The dentists, doctors and nurses focus heavily on educating local people on personal health and hygiene. Many health issues are unique to the local culture. For example, Altepeter said, it is customary for Bolivian women to wear full skirts cinched tight around their waists – even when working in the fields. “That causes all kinds of digestive problems, so the team tried to educate women on the need to loosen that up and allow their stomachs to work properly,” she said. Although they often have less than ideal circumstances under which to work, Altepeter said team members are insured decent sleeping arrangements and enough food and water to maintain the energy required to get them through grueling days. They are also relatively safe trips to areas already tended by Food for the Hungry workers, she said. However, prior to working with Food for the Hungry, Altepeter’s group was once chased by two men wielding machetes during a housing construction mission in the South American country of Guyana. The residents of the squatters village mistook the 16 people building houses as government workers who intended to take away their land. “They didn’t understand why we were there, but five days later, they were inviting us into their homes and letting us hold their babies,” she said. Benevolent memories Despite the fact that the people in the villages lived in abject poverty and starvation, many were enthusiastic and happy to see them - especially the children, she said. “That’s an image that sticks with me, these beautiful children with their distended bellies and tattered clothing, and they’re running beside our car, smiling and waving,” she said. “They have so little, yet they’re so enthusiastic.” Because African missions require more resources and time away from work for volunteers, Altepeter said she can only schedule a trip to the Eastern Hemisphere every two to three years. She hopes to coordinate a trip to Kenya in 2009. “It’s a difficult thing on a medical mission, because you do what you can in the course of the week and hope to have done some good for the longer term,” he said. “I think a lot of us feel immense satisfaction and a sense of giving back. We’re fortunate to have our professions and skill and we feel the need to give thanks for our blessings by helping others.” Team members rely on Altepeter’s leadership and organization skills, he said. “Just to assemble the team year after year is a big achievement,” he said. “But she’s also very capable on the trip itself of directing, coordinating and keeping the mission on track. She’s a great leader, which is obvious by her business position.” The money for supplies is typically raised among members of the St. Raphael parish, which also helps publicize the need for team volunteers. Individual team members pay their own travel expenses and a portion of the project. It’s Altepeter’s role to select the project, promote it, recruit team members, prepare them for travel, and arrange travel plans. Once in the country, she works with Food for the Hungry to manage the project. It’s not just the lives of the poor who have been touched by the outreach efforts. Altepeter said she is in awe of the ripple effect the missions have had on participants. “I’ve seen people change their jobs and their lives to do more missionary work,” she said. “People’s hearts are genuinely changed when they see up front and personal the plight of the poor. It’s been a blessing.” |