Community & Us

Dr. Bob is participated in the Valor Foundation Golf-A-Thon on May 5, 2010. The Valor Foundation assists families of fallen firefighters, law enforcement officers and public safety individuals visit them at www.valorfoundation.org.

Congrats, Dr. Bob! What a wonderful contribution you've made to this worthy cause. You completed 54 holes at the Golf-A-Thon and raised $1370!!! We are all so proud of your efforts. And we're sure you had fun doing it.

Loudoun Dental Smiles is proud to announce that we accepted donations of gently worn shoes from February through June 2010 for Shoes2Share, an organization that will in turn ship the shoes to the earthquake victims of Haiti. Visit the Shoes2Share website for additional information on how you can help. We collected hundreds of pair of gently worn shoes for donation to Shoes2Share and they were lovingly delivered to Delaware.

Burkina Faso 2010 - March 26, 2010
VIII Medical-Humanitarian Trip
Dr. Sandra Varney's Missions Trip

On March 26, 2010, a team composed of 37 individuals traveled to Burkina Faso, the third poorest country in the world for medical and humanitarian work and our own Dr. Sandra Varney was one of those individuals.  It was the eighth trip to this country.  Emsimision opens the doors to ongoing sanitary projects addressed to the most needed population.  A container filled with supplies for ongoing projects, left the Barcelona port on February 1st to arrive in time for the team to share, teach, work and use while providing medical and dental services for the people in Burkina Faso.

Giving ~ Training ~ Practicing

emsimision

The methodology that Emsimision applies to sanitary development cooperation projects is an identity feature of our organization, which has to do with our motivation and reason for being. The challenge to "love our neighbor as ourselves" goes beyond reading and learning these words it is to demonstrate them.  That's why our motto is and will be to:
"to love as Jesus loves."

Dr. Sandra Varney's thoughts regarding the missions trip:

"I have done many dental missions trips over the 20 years, but none were as exhausting, exciting and life influencing as this one.  In April, I went with a Christian group out of Barcelona, Spain called Emsimision to Burkina Faso which is in French speaking West Africa, and is the 6th poorest country in the world.  This group had a three pronged approach of sending medical and dental teams to treat people in remote villages, training native university students to do medical/dental procedures, and giving out humanitarian aid and gifts as a way of showing God's love.  You can see the scope of their work in the attachment and on their web site.

Most of the people were from Spain and spoke only limited English, three were from Greece who were fluent in both Greek and English, and then there was me from the US who was fluent in English and yes, English.  What was I thinking going with a Spanish speaking group to a French speaking country and only knowing English!  But camaraderie of getting the job done in adverse circumstances, the natural human desire for relationships and the love bond that just simply occurs when helping those in need, all prevailed and culminated in an amazing, unbelievable two weeks.  It was like being transplanted in time.  You were surrounded by simple, hard working people whose only goal was to eek out provision for the next day; and who were grateful for whatever little you had to offer.  Out of the heat (104-106 F each day), the dry dust, and poverty, a unique atmosphere developed that allowed you to love and feel loved in a very special way.  In the end, these people gave us far more than what we gave them and taught us lessons in life that could not be learned living in the suburbs of Northern Virginia.

The lessons of life were many as we concluded our time.  We left exhausted but fulfilled, having many questions but gaining much wisdom, and emotionally drained but totally committed to returning someday soon.  We even managed some crazy fun at an alligator farm before heading back to our same western world...but we were not the same."