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“i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.” - E.E. Cummings
Christmas is coming! Read this week's Advent reflection on our Advent page.
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Updated on September 19, 2017
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Feature Article: A Smile is the Best Payment
There may be no more fundamental way to express joy than with a smile. But children in the developing world born with cleft lip and palate and no access to life-altering surgery are limited in their ability to fully partake of a smile’s simple beauty. The deformity may circumscribe their possibilities and destine them to a lifetime of poverty and shame.
That’s why the commitment of dentists like Milagros Preciado Huaman and the work of Global Smile Foundation are so important. Because of her efforts on dental mission trips in Latin America, babies born with cleft palate get the surgery they need before they can ever even remember being afflicted.
The native of Trujillo, Peru, went on her first medical mission trip, to Guatemala, in 2015, and in 2017 visited Ecuador. Each time, she spent about a week working with a visiting team of dentists, acting as a translator for the families of patients and helping with logistics.
“I’m a general dentist, but I wanted to do more than dentistry and help others,” Milagros said, recalling that she first met Global Smile’s founder, Usama Hamdan, in 2012 while she was still in dental school, after a class lecture.