Meeting Physical And Spiritual Needs Around The World
Sugar Creek is stepping into God’s unfinished story along the Amazon River by meeting physical needs and sharing the hope of the gospel through medical missions. This ministry is not just about healthcare; it is a platform for both our church family and river communities to encounter Jesus in tangible ways.
Sugar Creek partners with Medical Missions International to serve indigenous villages along the Amazon, where basic healthcare is often out of reach. A specially outfitted boat now functions as a floating clinic, allowing teams to dock at village piers and begin seeing patients in about thirty minutes instead of spending hours hauling equipment by canoe and speedboat. The boat has three levels: space for crew, space for mission staff, and a full clinic deck below with triage, medical consults, dentistry, pharmacy, nutrition, optometry, health education, and even a procedure room. Every hallway, chair, and exam table exists for one reason—to serve people in Jesus’ name and open doors for gospel conversations.
In village after village, healthcare becomes the bridge to hurting people and broken stories. A wheelchair for a woman who had been scooting on the ground for years, or urgent care for a woman who arrived with a severe, bleeding wound, turns a clinic visit into a holy moment where God’s timing is unmistakable. Teams do more than treat symptoms; they stay, listen, pray, return to check on patients, and share the hope of Christ using tools like the Three Circles to explain the brokenness of the world and the rescue found in Jesus. Medicine is the means, but the mission is to touch hearts with the gospel and invite people into God’s bigger story.
This work is also a platform for Sugar Creek members to go on mission—individuals, couples, and even families with teenagers. Serving on the Amazon stretches faith, exposes people to different cultures and beliefs, and gives them a front-row seat to what God is doing among those in deep physical and spiritual need. For many, a trip on the Amazon becomes the moment when faith moves from theory to action. They discover that their skills—medical or non-medical—can be used by God as part of a much larger story He has been writing from eternity to eternity.
Sugar Creek’s mission is to love and lead all people to life-changing Christ, and the Amazon River is one of the places where that mission is lived out in vivid color. Every trip, every clinic day, every patient is a reminder that we are part of an unfinished mission, a story God is still writing in these river communities until Christ returns. This ministry invites people from Sugar Creek to step beyond comfort, onto the river, and into God’s greater story. Healthcare opens the door, the gospel changes lives, and ordinary believers get to play their part in what God is doing on the Amazon.