For the first time, the Synod sends a Mercy Medical Team to West Africa.

Expect what you cannot anticipate. For those whom God leads to serve on one of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Mercy Medical Teams (MMT), anticipation and fear compete with anxiety and hope for prominence.

A young Togolese woman peeked over the wall and waved at nurse anesthetist Elisa Oetting of Concordia, Mo. The 15-year-old had been treated for malaria just days prior and returned to show Oetting that she was already feeling better.

Oetting was one of 12 Americans who joined the Synod’s first Mercy Medical Team (MMT) to West Africa in September. In just three days, the team — composed of health-care workers, LCMS missionaries, pastors and hardworking laypeople — worked alongside 12 local medical professionals to treat more than 800 people in a three-room school building in the remote village of Datoudjena, Togo.