El Salvador medical mission trip March 2025

Do you believe in the value of mission trips? Hopefully, the answer is “yes!”

Could you physically go on a mission trip to a foreign country? For most people, the answer is “No,” for a whole host of valid reasons.

If you believe in the value of mission trips, but you can’t personally go, what can you do?

Helping Hands Medical Missions (hhmm.org) has organized and led mission trips to the rural areas of El Salvador for eight years. Approximately 35-40 missionary volunteers, (mostly from the Madison, WI area) participate each year, making it possible for 1600-2000 people to receive primary health care which they do not otherwise have access to.

Some of the most common illnesses treated are diabetes, hypertension, parasites (especially in children), infections, wound care, chronic pain. To treat those medical problems, many medications are prescribed and distributed. Hundreds of water filters have been provided to Salvadoran families on missions in previous years—they are now making a big positive health difference, especially in children. Where do all these medications come from? Where will the 400 water filters (at $40 each) that we hope to take in 2025 come from? That’s where you can participate in the mission! Funds are needed to help purchase the necessary medicines and supplies, as well as in-home water filters, reading glasses, toothbrushes, etc. Can you be part of the mission by helping with that?

If you think of the people served during the mission generically, just as “people of El Salvador,” it’s easier to pass by this opportunity to share something from the abundance that we all have—and relatively speaking, we do all have an “abundance." But rather, think of each person who will be served as someone’s elderly mother without medication for high blood pressure, someone’s brother plagued by pain, someone’s child suffering with intestinal parasites—all without access or the resources to get medical care or medicines to help.

Think of each of the hundreds of men, women and children served in the makeshift medical clinics of this mission trip as individuals—each one as a beloved child of God. And then consider the message in Matthew’s Gospel, “What you did for the least of these brothers, you did for me.”

Most of you will never have the opportunity to physically go on a mission trip such as this. But that doesn’t mean you can’t help, that you can’t be part of it. Whether you can give $5, $40, or $500, or anything in between or beyond, it all makes a huge difference in the lives of the people, young and old, who will be encountered on this medical mission trip.

Resist the urge to think, “This message isn’t for me," for likely you simply cannot comprehend the level of need and the profound gratitude expressed by each person served.

Planning for the next mission trip (March 14-22, 2025) is underway. But the water filters and necessary medications and supplies need to be ordered soon. This mission can’t happen without people like you participating financially!!!

If you wish to donate by check for tax purposes, make your check payable to:

HHMM—Madison

c/o Ken Pientka, Mission Director

1132 Quinn Dr.

Waunakee, WI 53597

Thank you for your support!

*Each volunteer going on this trip pays all their own expenses related to the trip. All funds raised will go directly to purchase medicines, water filters and other mission supplies.

Large crowds greet us daily seeking medical care

Our medical providers and other volunteers at work in Ateos, El Salvador

A small sampling of the medicines we take to El Salvador

Water filters change lives!

Join your hands with ours to help those who have little access to medical care!