Barry Ewy:
Well, welcome Troy. You've been on a lot of mission trips. How many have you been on?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Sixty-eight.
Barry Ewy:
Sixty-eight. That is amazing. How many different countries have you been to?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Fifteen.
Barry Ewy:
Fifteen. So what is your most common role on medical mission trips?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Usually I'm the leader. I'm not always the leader. I've been on medical teams where somebody else was the leader, but the majority of my time has been as a leader. I teach in the nursing program at Oral Roberts University. And we take the students, the juniors and seniors on international clinical practicums to different countries. And of course, I'm the faculty member and I lead those trips. But I've also led trips for our church and other avenues like that.
Barry Ewy:
Now you've been on mission trips that were not medical as well, right? Okay. But for what we'll talk about most of this time today, it's we'll just kind of focus on medical mission trips.
So with those medical mission trips that you've been on, in addition to being the leader when you've been a nurse, I'm assuming you've been a nurse on some of those trips. What has that experience been like for you?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, you get to use your skills that you know, that you have as a nurse. Really, you get to do a lot more because there are there's a lot of opportunities to do things differently than in the United States. And one of that one of those things is in a lot of these third world countries you don't have the resources to do everything. Equipment or personnel. So you have to make do. And so it becomes very interesting. But you can still give good patient care even though you don't have all the equipment and necessarily all the personnel all the time.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah. The imagine those situations can be really difficult when you're used to having what you need with you here in the US. And then you get into that situation and you're having to make things work, so to speak.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Right. And then you've got— I mean in the United States you're in in a closed environment, you know, you're in air conditioning. In a lot of these countries, you know, there's no air conditioning and you work really hard and it's hot, it's humid, and so you have those factors to deal with also.
Barry Ewy:
So there's a big difference, I would imagine, when you went on your first trip compared to when it you went on your sixty-eighth trip. So has your motivation changed at all from when you first went to when you've gone recently?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
I don't think motivation has changed. The very first trip, I guess it was more I mean, I felt God calling me to do short term missions. So my very first trip, it was more of exploration. Is this something that I'm really going to really want to do or…
Barry Ewy:
And so when you say exploration, do you mean your own personal internal exploration or that was the purpose of that trip was to explore an area that your team would serve in?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
No, it was personal. I mean, the site was already chosen through the group. Karen Bean was the leader of the medical group and we went to Kenya, Africa.
Barry Ewy:
And so on that that first trip, it was really more for you figuring out, is this something I want to do over and over and over again, sixty-eight times?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
And it only took one time. I was hooked after that.
Barry Ewy:
And then as you look at the missions that you're taking now, I think you shared with us before we started, you were on a mission just a few weeks ago, right?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
In January. Oaxaca, Mexico.
Barry Ewy:
Okay. So on that mission, what's your motivation then?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, actually it's obedience to what the Lord tells you to do. I feel like he said you need to take some team members from the church that you attend. And so we went and part of it was medical and part of it was non-medical. The non-medical personnel worked with children in the school that they have there. It's first grade through twelve. It's a Christian school there on a Christian compound and they had a great time. They got to teach the children English. But then the other person who was me was a nurse practitioner and we worked in the clinic. They have a clinic there on the base. And then we did one day where the whole team went to an outlying village and set up a clinic that day and did clinic there.
Barry Ewy:
So that's a really a nice opportunity for non-medical personnel to be able to be involved in a mission because we know that there's opportunities on a medical mission trip for non-medical personnel, registration and those sorts of things. But having something a little different to do, like working with children, I'm sure gave them a lot of encouragement and a just a really good feeling of being able to help in a different way. What are some of the things that stand out to you on some of the trips that you've been on? Is there anything that's— Or some things?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Yes, I think one of the most outstanding things that happened. This was the third year that we went to Kenya and we were supposed to go to this particular village and we had already gotten all the permits and everything. And when we got there the mayor or the chief or whoever it was decided that no, we're not going to do the clinic. And so at that time Karen Bean was the was the leader again. And so that night it we were all at this hotel and she gathered the group together and said, “Okay, we're gonna pray and we're asking the Lord what we're supposed to do tomorrow since we can't have clinic here.”
So the next morning, we got up and Karen said, “The Lord said to divide the team into three vans and each van will go off into the Serengeti,” which is the wilderness there in Kenya where the Maasai live, “and go off in three different directions and the Lord will guide everybody to where they need to go.” So that's what we did. And we had I mean, we had native drivers. I mean, they were Kenyan drivers, but they hadn't necessarily been out driving in the desert, you know. So that's what we did. And the van I was in, we came to this village way out in the middle of nowhere, and there was three chiefs there. And we had Maasai translators with us, of course. And so the three chiefs said, told us— The Maasai believe that there's only one God. They don't believe in multiple gods like a lot of religions do. And that He owns all the cattle. They said, “We've been praying and asking God to send somebody to tell us more about him.”
So here comes a team thousand miles away, didn't have their address, nothing, and here we are, which was it was just the Holy Spirit. And so we got to share the gospel. The whole village, well, except for the real little kids, but the whole village got saved. And so when we met back that afternoon back at the hotel, the other two vans had similar experiences. They this one they went to, there was a witch doctor there and he tried to be very adversarial and Karen just took authority over that and he ended up getting saved. That's amazing. And so I mean, it was just it was miraculous. Yeah, that's one that really stands out in my mind.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah. So what you all thought was just a routine medical mission trip where you were gonna be treating a little bit of this and a little bit of that turns into a whole lot of saving, but in a different way.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Yeah, and we still did clinic too. We got to, you know, provide medical help also. Yeah. That's a that's absolutely amazing.
Laura Berry:
Gosh, that's just incredible obedience to the movement of the spirit and where the Spirit would lead you. It's that is a that's an incredible story. Do you have a specific, impactful story regarding one of your patient encounters? And if so, could you share that with us?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Yes. One thing that was very— Well, this was in Kenya. I went to Kenya three times. You see a lot more of the miraculous in these third world countries than you initially do in in the United States because I think for one, the people there are more open to the spiritual realm.
And but there was this one lady. She it was an older lady and she had a contracture of her arm. Her arm was totally paralyzed. She couldn't move it. You couldn't bend it. I mean, it was totally goodness, totally immobilized. And there was nothing that we could do for her medically. So I just laid hands on her and prayed for her.
And all of sudden her hand just shut up and she started waving her arm and jumping up and down and crying. I mean, we saw blind eyes opened, we saw deaf ears opened. It was it was just the miraculous that I mean God was showing up in signs and wonders to his word and salvation.
Laura Berry:
Yeah, that is I just I can only imagine what you what you bring back to share with folks when you get back. So you've got this incredible story that you can share with others who want to know what did you see? What did you learn? Is there a particular face, a particular name, you know, without giving too much away, obviously, of a patient encounter that stays with you when you get back home and you're in that quiet moment and you begin to reflect on your trip. Can you share a little bit with us, like who is that and why is that a story that continues to make an impact on your life?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, it's not really just one person. You come back and different faces come to you at different times. You remember that moment when you met that person, what you did for them. I remember when we were in Kaliningrad, Russia, there was this one we t there was one nephrologist that was on the team and this lady came in and she was coming in for her husband. Because he really couldn't attend the clinic that we were doing. But she brought all of his medical papers and we had an interpreter. And so the interpreter went over all the information with the nephrologist. And he spoke with her. He was very gentle with her. He said, “You know, I think this is good things that are going on with her husband. This is something I think needs to be changed. You need to talk to your physician here about that. I'd be glad to write a recommendation.” And when he got through
She just grabbed him and hugged him and started crying. And he looked at me and he said, “I never get this in the United States.” He said, “You know, people show gratitude here.”
Barry Ewy:
So I would imagine that's it's all those faces, all of those experiences is what keeps you going back. yeah. And keeps you engaged in missions.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Another story was, and this happened to me personally. This was in Russia again. I've been to Russia eighteen times. And I think it was about the third or fourth trip in. We worked with a lot of orphans in Russia at the time when they allowed it. And we went to this one orphanage and there was this one little girl, she was about five years old. And she had apparently had come from an abusive environment. And the workers there told us that she would not talk. You just, you know, you'd ask her questions. She would let you know by nodding her head like for yes and no questions, but she just she would not talk. So they wanted me to examine her. So I sat her on my lap and got my aesthetics code out and started listening to her lungs and her heart. And I kept talking to her in Russian. I had learned some Russian phrases. And all of a sudden she looked up at me and she started talking in Russian. The ladies, you know, the workers there, their eyes got huge and then they started crying. And it was just another miracle of God. Nobody was expecting that. I wasn't expecting it and they weren't either.
Barry Ewy:
That's amazing. Thanks for sharing those stories. I know those will be an encouragement to our listeners. They're certainly an encouragement to Laura and I.
You did a training a missions video training series for Blessings International that we've been able to put in our resources and tools and just a free resource for the teams that we work with and the groups, whether we work with them or not, it's just a free tool that we hope they'll get to use. And so we're certainly appreciative to you for taking time to do that. Can you give us a quick summary of what that training covers?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, it's divided into three videos. The first one is called Preparation. Anytime you do a short-term or a long-term mission trip or missions, eighty percent is preparation and twenty percent is implementation. And then the second one is called Practical Aspects and that's all the dos and don’ts for short-term missions and long-term missions and what did you know, traveling tips, a trip checklist as far as things you need to bring, things that you need to plan for. You always plan for the unexpected. And then the third video is called Graceful Re-Entry. And it talks about coming back after these experiences because when you go there you experience culture shock. And then when you get back to the States, it's reverse culture shock. And so there's certain things that you need to do and not do as far as reacclimating into, you know, with your loved ones and friends and things like that.
Barry Ewy:
How would you describe reverse culture shock?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, you go when you go over there, you see a lot of poverty. And I mean, people just, you know, two-thirds of the world goes to bed hungry every night and you just don't I realize in the United States there's still people who and go hungry, but statistically it's low compared to other countries. So a typical reaction can be when you get back and it's not necessarily a good reaction. People can get cynical and say, look at all this stuff, look at all this waste and they start being critical. You just need to come back and say, “Look how awesome God was. You know, look at how these people were helped. And I'm so glad that we had the resources here so that we can do that.”
Barry Ewy:
Yeah. I remember coming back on my first trip from Haiti. And for those who've been to Haiti, just like any other developing nation, roads there are phenomenally bad. And I was coming back and it was in the evening, nine, ten o'clock at night, driving down six-lane interstate. I'm the only car out there. And I'm thinking, Wow. But there was a little bit of that reverse culture shock, almost a little bit of a guilt of we've got all this good stuff. And those people back there, they didn't have that. And it's just the fairness of it came to mind for me some. So yeah, certainly understand and recognize what you're sharing with that.
So with that video training series, what would you say are maybe a couple of things that you think are most important that teams should know when they're doing short-term missions?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
The first one is again goes back to preparation. You have to prepare well because if you don't, it's gonna cause problems for the team and it could cause problems for the host missionaries that you're working with. So you need to prepare well and I always stress to the team members, you have to be flexible and get rid of your expectations.
Barry Ewy:
Flexible and adaptable.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Or at least get rid of your unrealistic expectations. Like I said, part of the preparation is you go over everything that they're going to encounter. The climate, the toilets, the lack of toilets, the insects. And especially if you go into malaria-endemic areas where malaria is very prevalent. And so you've got all those precautions that you have to do so that you don't end up getting bitten by mosquitoes. Yeah.
Barry Ewy:
So preparation is a big, big thing. Yeah. That's great. Thanks for sharing that.
Laura Berry:
Yeah, that's that's important for us all to remember. So short-term missions often faces criticism regarding voluntourism or sustainability. How do you ensure that your presence provides long term value rather than this temporary band-aid, if you will?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
You keep going back. You keep going back.
Laura Berry:
Keep showing up.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Keep showing up. Because in reality, it's a very small population that can go full time somewhere. Where is you have more numbers of people who can do shorter and they can still do a lot of good. You take surgeons who do nothing but the cleft pallets for children in these several countries. They go maybe once a year, maybe twice, but that is a permanent impression on that child's life because it changed their self image and so no. Yeah. Yeah.
Laura Berry:
Yeah, that's a that's a very good example. So on these trips, things rarely go according to plan or to your itinerary that you've planned. But preparation is as you mentioned, eighty percent of the trip. But what was your most out of control moment and how did you lead your team through it?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, this was in 1988. we took a team from Grace Fellowship to the Philippines and it was a three week trip. It was a medical team. I mean of course we had non-medical people on the team also because you gotta you have to have crowd control. You have people that help in pharmacy, even though they're not pharmacists, they can still help count pills and things like that. And we had people who would pray with the patients. And so it was a big team. I remember one day we saw six hundred patients and one day. I mean it was a lot and it was just an open I mean we had a roof over us but it was just four sides were nothing but air. And Philippines is very hot and humid, so you work all day in that and y you're just as exhausted by the end of the day. The last three days we were supposed to leave there and go to Hong Kong like three days of recreation before going back to the United States.
Well, the missionary couple there, again, Karen Bean was the leader of this of this team. And the missionary couple, they took two vehicles. Owen was in one vehicle, the husband, and then Ruth was in the other. And Ruth and Karen and the team were well, they were on the bus and all that. They took the team because it was a large team. There was like thirty-five people on the team. So we were going to the airport in Manila and while we were there, Owen left to go back. And he was killed on the way back in a in a car accident. So Karen said she was gonna stay with Ruth and said, Troy, you're gonna have to take the team to China. Thirty-five member team going to going to China. And in fact, Harold was on that team. He and his whole family.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah, so the founder of Blessings International.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Right. He was on that team. And so I wasn't prepared for that, but in a way, I was, because nine months before that trip, my wife and I were at a Bible study, and during the course of it, this one lady had a word from the Lord for me. And she came to me and she said, “You're gonna be put in a position of authority that you weren't expecting and a position of leadership. But the Lord said not to fear, that things will work out.”
I'm sure that was in reference to what was coming you know, nine months later when all that happened. And so, you know, we went to the China for three days and we got home, but it was still a stressful time for me.
Barry Ewy:
So nine months earlier, that's probably not what you're thinking about. You're thinking it was,"Hey, I'm gonna get a promotion or I'm gonna get some new job opportunity." Not, "I'm gonna be placed in a very difficult position."
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
And that word came back to my mind when all this happened and that's what that was about.
Barry Ewy:
And that was probably comforting then to know.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
It was it was. It was.
Barry Ewy:
So what you shared that, which is gosh, that that would be a kind of a situation that we would hope no medical mission teams would ever have to deal with. But we know that on these trips there are definitely some pitfalls that occur. What are some of the most common pitfalls that you see with short-term mission teams, in your experience.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
The first one again is lack of preparation. The second one is not vetting the team members. You need to have an application process where people apply and, you know, they fill out certain question questionnaire and then you interview those people. Because if you have a person that's very rigid and things have to go a certain way or they have a meltdown, you don't want that person on your on your team. Or person a expresses a lot of fears.
Barry Ewy:
How in an application, questionnaire, whatever you would want to call it, how would you discern that team member or a potential team member.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
You ask the question like, “How do you handle conflict?” “What kind of things make you very uncomfortable in a new environment?” I mean, you're always gonna have, everybody's gonna be uncomfortable to some extent, but you don't want it to be where the person is— their emotions take over and you know, you just you just need to vet the team members. We do this all the time with the students at the school, so that you know, things go a lot smoother. One thing that we do is we don't we don't allow social media when we're on these trips. We've had problems before where a student said some things that were inappropriate. I don't mean like sexual or anything like that, but said some things that were damaging to the host. And, you know, you just you just don't do that. You know, social media is not a platform you need to use when you're on a mission trip. So we always tell team members, “We're gonna do a social media detox.”
Barry Ewy:
So are difficult personalities or rigid personalities? Is that one of the most difficult things you've experienced on mission trips?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Because if you have an individual who is not going to be a team player, it affects the whole team. And it can affect the people that you're working with also.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah. So if you encountered one of those types of personalities as you're preparing and vetting, would you try to take the opportunity to visit with them and see if through, I'm going to say your type of counseling of encouragement, would that change them? Would you work on something like that or would you say, “You know, I just don't think this person's a good fit” and just get out early on?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
There's an exception to everything, but normally it's like this person is not gonna be a good fit and you just go with that.
Barry Ewy:
So you think it's probably more difficult to get them to change for that occurrence rather than adapt?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Nine times out of ten, this is a pattern in their life because of family of origin, things that have happened in life, traumas. And until that gets dealt with and healed, it's gonna manifest. And if you get into a situation where things aren't going the way they're supposed to, or how that person thinks they're supposed to go, and their way of dealing with things is lashing out, you know, it just it's very disruptive.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah, and I would imagine in in a stressful situation, they would more likely revert to what's comfortable for them, which is the lashing out or the rigidity, whatever it is, rather than what they're trying to practice, if they're trying to practice flexibility and adaptability, and that would make it even more difficult to in in a stressful situation, to have that team member on there as well.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
One thing that we do tell all the team members, and I mean, I've had very few experiences where team members were really bad. But one thing we make clear is, if you if you exhibit behavior that's going to be detrimental to the team, detrimental to the host country, you will be sent home. You will not stay any longer with the group, you will be sent home.
Barry Ewy:
On your own dime.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Well, it's sort of like the ticket was the round trip ticket was already paid for, so they just leave early.
Barry Ewy:
They just need to get a change ticket.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
And I never had to do that this far, but it's kinda close a couple of times.
Barry Ewy:
It's probably helpful to know that that option is available.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Right.
Barry Ewy:
And they know it's available.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Yeah.
Laura Berry:
Well gosh, if you could give a team that's going on their very first mission trip a piece of advice in addition to good preparation, first and foremost, what would it be?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Plan on the unexpected. One thing that I always do as a team leader is carry extra finances for unexpected expenses because they do happen. Two years ago I took a team of students to Paraguay and the seasons are just the opposite of the United States. When it's winter here, it's summer there. So we went there in February, and it was freezing cold here, and it was 104 and humid there. And so when we got there, where I was staying, my room had air conditioning, but there's the room that it was it was me and six girls. That's one thing. I always try to get more guys on missions and, it always seems to be the girls that go and the men don't.
Laura Berry:
So we need our listeners to encourage men to go.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Yes, most definitely. So the six girls were in another room but there was no air conditioning. Well, by the second day, they were in heat exhaustion. But I had these extra funds that I had brought. So I talked to the host missionaries and I said, “I have extra funds. Can we go into town and get an air conditioner for the room? And I'll pay for the installation too.” And they said, “Well, we'll see if there are any air conditioners in town. And it usually it takes two weeks to get it installed.” Well I said, “Let's try.”
We went into town, they had one left, and it got installed the next day.
Laura Berry:
God's favor.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Absolutely. But we had the funds to do that. It wasn't a burden on the missionaries.
Barry Ewy:
So expect the unexpected.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Right. And prepare for it and always take extra funds. Don't have a really— I mean, you have to have a budget. But always carry extra because you you're gonna have opportunities to go over that budget that you weren't planning on.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah. Well, Laura asked you about the first mission trip for someone. What about second or third mission trip? Would it be different advice or same advice?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
It depends on the trip because every trip is different. You have a different team, you have a different culture. I mean the basics are still the same. You still had to have good preparation. had to be flexible, but you have to flow with the Holy Spirit. I mean, you can save yourself and the team a lot of grief if you'll just listen and obey.
Barry Ewy:
Yeah, that's some great advice. And throughout this, you've given some great advice.
Well, Troy, one of the things we always like to ask our guests is what is an impactful Bible verse for you and why?
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
It's Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”
So if you do those three things, you got it made. It doesn't mean you're perfect, but I mean, I think that you feel the law of love when you do that.
Barry Ewy:
That's fantastic. Thanks for sharing that, Troy.
Laura Berry:
My goodness, I love that.
Barry Ewy:
Well, thank you for joining us on the Blessings Broadcast.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed the time.
Laura Berry:
I truly appreciate all your time and your amazing stories.
Troy Sledge, RN, MSN:
Absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it.
