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Volunteers are always needed. If you are interested in becoming a WHAT Member (Worldwide Healthcare Assistance Team Member), please contact us for further information. In determining whether or not you would like to personally participate in a mission, please carefully consider the following information:
- Missions are very physically demanding. Be aware that participation on an AMERICA HELPS mission is very demanding physically and emotionally. Countries we serve are typically very hot and humid. Daytime temperatures routinely exceed 100oF with humidity near 100%. Living accommodations can be primitive and available food is often not prepared to American standards. Bottled water is typically the only safe source for drinking. Special diet requirements are extremely limited and very difficult to accommodate. Transportation is also typically difficult and demanding as well as hazardous. Team Members can be subject to a wide variety of communicable diseases that no longer exist in the US or are effectively controlled.
- Missions are emotionally demanding. It can be very emotionally distressing to witness human suffering, especially when children are involved. We make every effort to provide medical and other relief to the world's needy, but you should be aware that even are best efforts are sometimes insufficient to relieve all suffering or even prevent death in some cases. Exposure to such suffering is heartbreaking, but Team Members take comfort from the knowledge that many lives can be saved and many individuals can be helped.
- Missions are expensive. The ByLaws of the corporation stipulate that donated funds are to be used exclusively for direct benefit to the needy. This requires that virtually all personal expenses be paid by participants. Although individuals are encouraged to seek sponsors to help defray some of the costs of their mission participation, actual trip expenses typically require the use of substantial personal assets. During the November 2002 mission to Ghana, for example, the physician teams personally donated over $40,000 of medical supplies and also paid their own airfare and housing expenses. The Audiological Teams raised over $35,000 that was spent to purchase hearing aids and batteries and other supplies directly used for the mission. Once in Ghana, most meals, transportation, and organization needs were supplied by Latter-Day Saint Charities, which also provided some of the participants housing during the mission, but all individuals still sustained significant personal expenses.
- Missions are tiring and time consuming. Travel to and from mission sites typically requires at least three airline transfers and 24 hours or more of airplane travel. You can expect to arrive at the mission site tired and uncomfortable from lack of sleep and long hours of sitting on aircraft. The general plan for each mission is to leave home on the Friday before the week of Thanksgiving, and return home the Monday after Thanksgiving week. So you can expect to be away from home for about ten (10) days.
- Daily mission schedule is long and demanding. At each mission location, there is typically far more work to be done that individual teams can accomplish in the time allotted. This demands extreme concentration and long hours of standing. It is not uncommon to skip meals in order to increase patient contact time in an effort to meet as many of the needs of the people being served as possible.
- Missions are rewarding. Despite all the difficulties, the tiring days, the expense and the sometime heartache, being a mission Team Member is extremely rewarding. You will fall asleep each night exhausted, but content that you have done the very best that you could do and that you have given help and hope to our Heavenly Father's children, our brothers and sisters. That seems to be more than enough compensation for all past mission participants!
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