Meet Bibiana
Dr. Bibiana MacLeod, M.D. went to Haiti from Argentina as a Missionary doctor, but it took four years for her to realize that people were still getting sick in their communities and she needed a different approach. Bibiana learned Community Health Evangelism (CHE) from Medical Ambassadors International (MAI). After working with MAI as a coordinator in South America and the Caribbean, Bibiana is now MAI’s Resource Facilitator in Disaster Preparedness, Orality, Human Trafficking and 1,000 Days Program.
“My missionary life started the day I landed in Haiti back in 1989 as a young independent Argentine Medical Doctor, who wanted to serve God among the poor. Soon enough I realized I had little to offer to a country with a rich history of spiritual slavery, disease, poverty, and literally thousands of other missionaries and Non-Governmental Organizations that preceded me in the past 100 years. What was I thinking? The hospital where I initially worked was loaded with suffering people, to the point of having to select the sicker ones to be seen each day. Then, as I moved to a more remote area to work in an outpatient clinic with a staff of 14 people seeing 1,200 patients a month, the growing stream of patients made me wonder if this was the most effective way to serve them. Children coming time and again with the same preventable diseases showed clearly our failure to facilitate permanent changes.
So, when I joined MAI and learned CHE as an alternative for ministry, offering a way to integrate my faith and profession, I immediately responded to God’s invitation to do things differently. I have been involved in this transformational process for thirty years and have witnessed sustainable change. CHE provokes local leaders to think for themselves and solve the challenges presented in their communities from within, taking an integral approach, spiritual, emotional, physical. We facilitate dialogue and promote solutions with local resources first, avoiding dependency and preserving dignity, equipping the locals to teach their neighbors. We encourage community ownership and participation.”
Bibiana says the first step in community transformation is owning the problem. In today’s short video Bibiana shares statistics about the problem of human trafficking and how MAI is “owning” this problem.
Come hear more from Bibiana (and other incredible women serving in the field) on Saturday, November 14th from 10 am – 11 am PST via zoom for our Woman By God’s Design virtual event.
