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JACK MAXWELL
“I
t’s a God thing.” that’s the best way John Bailey, D.M.D. (’57) can explain the success of his medical missions over the past 13 years. “i don’t know how to say it any other way,” says Bailey. “it just seems like doors open and we kind of go there and things seem to work well. ”
since retiring from a lucrative dental practice in 1998, Bailey has seen doors open for medical missions in 20 countries across three continents. in 2003, he formally created Body and soul ministries, a nonprofit medical missions organization headquartered in his house in Colleyville, texas. through Bands, as it is commonly called, teams of doctors, nurses and lay personnel give their time to perform needed surgeries and conduct basic medical clinics for those who would otherwise go untreated. But Bailey’s work is not limited to medical aid. Working with various groups, he also has established orphanages and school dormitories, provided food and supplies for countries following a disaster or undergoing drought and famine, donated medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to local hospitals and physicians, and even contracted with a single-mothers group to make uniforms for students at an impoverished school. Occasionally during a mission trip, Bailey will mentor local medical personnel or conduct a class at a dental school. he is, as he likes to say, “standing on the giving side of human need.” Canadian-born, Bailey, 76, developed his passion for missions at home. his father, J.C. Bailey, a missionary to Canada from 1921-61, preached in every province there and at age 59 began a missionary work in india. he traveled back and forth to india until he was 88. “i think they estimated when he left, there were 8
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about 250,000 members of the Church of Christ who had been under his influence as a preacher,” Bailey says. along with his father, John Bailey’s mentors sound like a Church of Christ hall of fame. as a high school student, the younger Bailey met reuel lemmons (’35), who convinced him to attend aCu. there he developed a preaching style under the tutelage of Batsell Barrett Baxter (’37), studied “good homiletics” under dr. fred Barton (’37), worked as a graduate assistant and associate minister with dr. Paul southern (’30), and received encouragement from dr. rex Kyker (’43). after graduating from aCu, Bailey returned to Canada to teach at a Christian college and later moved to new hampshire, where he preached. When his parents at age 59 adopted three Chinese children, Bailey and his brothers speculated they might eventually have to provide for the children’s education, so Bailey headed off to dental school in Kentucky. “When i started dental school, i thought that if i ever got to where i could afford to, i’d like to do medical missions,” Bailey recalls. after establishing his practice in Colleyville, he began making medical mission trips to mexico, at first just one or two a year and eventually increasing to several annually. after 30 years of dental practice, he was ready to give dentistry up and concentrate on his true calling. “nothing seemed to satisfy me like going on a medical mission trip,” Bailey says. “i think everything i’ve ever done in my entire life has prepared me to do what i’m doing now. … god put this all together. and i’m thoroughly enjoying it. i think i’m god’s most pampered child.” “he has such a beautiful heart and such a commitment to the lord that everything he decides is because he’s prayed about it,” says Kathy (gay ’78) halbert, president of Caris foundation. in 2007, halbert asked Bailey to join Caris as medical missions director. he still maintains Bands – “i wear both hats” – but his association with Caris provides him with an office and an assistant, and he funds his travel to help the poor in places all over the world. Places such as nias island, off the coast of indonesia. after a tsunami hit southeast asia in 2004, Bailey discovered this small island where cataracts have blinded about 5,000 people. With the government’s permission and using some local physicians as well as his own team, he organized eye surgery missions. “since the tsunami, we have done right at 3,000 surgeries. We try to do 150 to 200 on each trip, and right now we are doing three trips a year,” Bailey says. in malindi, Kenya, surgical teams, many involving local physicians, work out of two hospitals doing various surgeries, sometimes for up to two weeks. Bands has worked with groups in China to perform surgery on cleft lips and palates, spina bifida, and congenital heart disease. in the Philippines, Bands conducts mobile clinics in areas where no physicians are available. On the Philippine island of leyte, where a large group of high school students were orphaned by a 2006 mudslide, Bands funded two dormitories on the campus of sunrise Christian College. the first students graduated this year. Bands has taken teams to Belize, guatemala, ecuador, nicaragua, Panama, Peru, ghana, nigeria and Cambodia, where it also supports a chicken-and-quail project to help preachers become self-sustaining. lisa dale, a surgical nurse from grapevine, texas, who handles many of the trips’ logistics, remembers most vividly the mission trip to haiti following the 2010 earthquake. Working with her sister-in-law and niece, both nurses, she was overwhelmed by the need and felt as though their contributions made little difference. “What he taught us … is you help one person at a time, one day