LA MIRADA, Calif. --- This summer junior forward Emma Newman returned to Armenia for her second 10-day medical mission trip with the Armenian Missionary Association of America (AMAA). Newman is majoring in biological sciences with a pre-med emphasis and first volunteered with AMAA during the summer of 2016.
 
AMAA's medical mission trips have been led by Al and Sue Phillips for nine years and seek to be a consistent source of medical care for the people living in the cities outside of the Armenian capital. Elyse Harabedian, a Biola Track & Field alum, joined Newman on this particular mission trip.
 
"Armenia was devastated by an earthquake in 1988 and there's still lots of places that haven't recovered from it," said Newman. "They're not a third world country, they're second world, but in comparison to areas around Biola, we are much more well off than they are. They have limited access to health care. It's super expensive and sometimes the doctors just take advantage of you and want your money."
 
Each summer about 40 people volunteer their time to pour into the communities. The team usually consists of doctors, nurses, medical students, and non-medical volunteers who are passionate about Armenia. They spend their first weekend touring major historical and religious sites and then set up two ambulatory clinics for the week, one in the Armenian Evangelical Church of Vanatzor and the second in the AMAA Social Services Center in Stepanavan. Newman and her team spent two and a half days at each site.
 
The volunteers saw patients from seven in the morning to seven or eight o'clock at night, weaving patients through the various clinic stations. Newman assisted in a variety of capacities throughout the week, including recording patient history at the triage station and conducting EKGs. AMAA cares for the physical needs of the local Armenian community, but also seeks to care for them spiritually.

"What's pretty cool is that the doctors are encouraged, pretty much every doctor does, to pray with their patients before they leave," said Newman. "Right after lunch we have a service, the pastor of that church will lead a service, and so whoever is waiting to see the doctor still will sit in that service, and we'll just keep going."
 
Newman worked with a translator to help patients understand procedures and told each patient of Jesus' love, refusing to let the language barrier stop her when she didn't have the right words: "I just tried to have the presence of Jesus if I couldn't have the words," said Newman.
 
Volunteers rarely leave mission trips without experiencing some sort of personal change, and Newman is no exception. While she is still unsure about the particular part of the medical field she wants to join, she now knows the type of physician she wants to be. These trips with AMAA have shown her how many of God's people around the world need medical care but can't afford it and she wants her work to be driven by a desire to meet needs instead of a desire to get paid, which is a motivation she believes is found far too often in the medical world.
 
"Who am I to be biased who to treat? I need to make sure that I'm providing for myself but also serving without partiality," said Newman.
 
Although college sports and mission trips seem like two separate experiences, Newman saw many connections between the two during her trip. Not only has her time as a collegiate athlete prepared her for the mental and physical demands that mission trips require, but it also formed the mindset she had going into the trip.
 
The first time Newman volunteered with AMAA she found herself asking "what can I get out of this trip?" People around her kept telling her what a life-changing experience her time on the trip would be and so her focus fell on herself, and Newman didn't want that to happen again.

This time around, however, Newman focused on a question the head coach of the women's basketball team, Alan Nakamura, has been drilling into his players since he began coaching at Biola in 2015: "What can I give?" Newman believes that focusing on giving herself to others made all the difference this time around.
 
"It's not about me. If I'm going to serve I shouldn't expect to be served but be pleasantly surprised if I am, and this year it was a lot of "okay, what can I give?" because God's put me here and he's let me go," said Newman.
 
While on the trip Newman wrote daily blog posts for the AMAA team. Check them out here:
https://armeniamedicalmissions.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/the-bittersweet-last-day/